The inagural cohort of Human Rights Lab BA Fellows are officially graduates of the College!
During the 2019-20 academic year, nine students whose BA theses examined human rights issues related to prisons, policing, and the criminal legal system were selected for this fellowship opportunity. The fellowship provided a research grant up to $500, opportunities to connect with scholars and community leaders with lived experience on related topics, a writing group, shared workspace at the Pozen Center, and the opportunity to attend the Making and Unmaking Mass Incarceration conference at the University of Mississippi in December 2019.
The Fellows shared some of their thesis work with the community during a thought-provoking virtual roundtable last month. Below you’ll find a video of that event, plus full PDFs of a selection of Fellows’ theses.
Our wholehearted congratulations goes out to Madi Norman (whose thesis was named best undergraduate essay in Practical Philosophy by the Philosophy Department), Philip O’Sullivan (whose thesis was named best undergraduate thesis in US History by the History Department), and all of this year’s incredible Fellows!
AK Alilonu (Public Policy, Computer Science)
“The Officers Are Run by the City”: How South Side residents respond to police misconduct in the Chicago Police Department
Britt Dorton (Comparative Human Development, Human Rights)
“There’s Still a Part of Me That Wants That Abyss”: The Pervasiveness of Secure Housing Unit Postrelease Syndrome in Survivors of Solitary Confinement
Emma Ecker (Global Studies, Human Rights)
Who Gets to Be A Victim?: The Problem of the Human Trafficking Victim-Offender Overlap in United States Courts
Taylor Fox (Political Science, Human Rights)
Freedom, Caged: A Foucauldian Inquiry into the National Prison Strike
Alisha Harris (Public Policy, Human Rights)
X’s and O’s: One of Many Playbooks for Socio-Political Movements
Ayo Idowu (Geography, Public Policy)
Frontiers of Incarceration: An Overview of Electronic Monitoring in Cook County
Madi Norman (Political Science, Philosophy and Allied Fields)
Accounting for Harm: Moral Economies of Punishment and Repair
Philip O’Sullivan (History, Math)
Putting a Check on Police Violence: The Legal Services Market, Section 1983, Torture, Abusive Detention Practices, and the Chicago Police Department from 1954 to 1967