Another timely and terrific NASC conference in the works this summer

I am pleased to highlight the National Association of Sentencing Commissions‘ annual conference, which this year is being hosted by the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission and the Willamette University College of Law.  This year’s NASC conference is taking place in Portland, Oregon from July 31 — August 2, 2011, and the conference is titled “Blazing a Trail to the Future.”  This year’s agenda reveals how timely, thoughtful and forward-looking the program is for today’s sentencing times, as evidence by this partial list of panel topics:

• Cost-Benefit Analysis in Criminal Justice
• Recidivism Research
• A New Look at Prosecutorial Discretion
• Examination of Mandatory Minimum Sentences
• Crime Perceptions and Media: Evidence Based Journalism?

A lot more information on the 2011 conference is available on the conference website at this link (and much information about past NASC conferences is now effectively assembled here).  

I am very bummed that other summer commitments mean I will not be able to make it out to Oregon for this event, but I heartily recommend this conference to all serious sentencing practitioners and academics.  When able to attend, I always learn more new stuff about sentencing reseaerch and also sentencing in the states from attending NASC conferences than from attending any other annual conference.