UB law school creates new center to advance study of criminal law

By SUE WUETCHER
News Services Associate Editor

The center has a three-pronged mission, said Markus Dubber, UB associate professor of law and center organizer. It will provide support for legislators in matters of criminal justice policy, and will attempt to reinvigorate the study of criminal law in the U.S., which, Dubber said, declined after many states, including New York, revised their penal codes in the 1960s.

The center also will provide an intensive learning experience for UB law students specializing in criminal law who will edit the center's journal, Buffalo Criminal Law Review; plan conferences, and prepare policy analysis for the New York and federal legislatures.

Dubber hopes the new center will turn UB law school into the primary center for the study of criminal law in the U.S. Criminal law generally has been a neglected area of study in U.S. law schools, he said, noting that the Buffalo criminal law initiative "provides us with a unique opportunity to be national leaders in the study and future evolution of criminal-justice policy."

The center will hold its inaugural event, an international conference on "Rethinking Federal Criminal Law," from 8 a.m-6 p.m. Nov. 23 in O'Brian Hall, North Campus.

The conference will bring together scholars from across the U.S. and Europe to reconsider substantive federal criminal law as part of an ongoing effort to re-examine federal sentencing law. "Federal criminal law needs substantive reform," noted Dubber. Although many states reformed their penal codes during the 1960s, "the federal code is outdated, bloated and inconsistent," he said.

Topics for discussion at the conference will include "Federal Criminal Law and Sentencing Today," "Federal Criminal Justice Policy and Politics," "Women, Minorities and Federal Criminal Law," "Comparative Perspectives on Federal Criminal Law" and "Reforming Federal Criminal Law and Sentencing." Conference proceedings will be published in the inaugural issue of the Buffalo Criminal Law Review.

Criminal legislation has reached a crossroads as rehabilitation has been discredited as a principle of punishment, said Dubber, who also serves as the faculty editor of the Buffalo Criminal Law Review.

Although politicians continue to push for harsher sentences and prison construction, a long-term answer to the crime problem has yet to be proposed, he said. Without a sound criminal justice policy, releasing an offender into the general population after decades in prison does little more than leave the problem for another day, he added.

Conference sponsors are Mitchell Lecture Fund, the Conferences in the Disciplines program and the Baldy Center for Law and Social Policy.