Events Calendar

Public Health and Law Enforcement: Reframing the Debate in Philadelphia
Round table discussion with audience participation
Tuesday, May 4, 6:00-8:00 pm

This lecture is part of a public programming series centered around the new photography exhibition Righteous Dopefiend: Homelessness, Addiction and Poverty in Urban America. In Righteous Dopefiend, anthropologist Philippe Bourgois and photographer-ethnographer Jeff Schonberg document the daily lives of homeless drug users. On view in the Merle-Smith Gallery on the first floor, the exhibition will remain open after hours, 4:30 to 9:00 pm, prior to and after each program.

This program re-examines the stalemate of the war on drugs. Can the traditional contradictions between zero  laws and law enforcement, and public health needs and services, be mediated productively?

• Moderator: Jeffrey Drain - Associate Professor, School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania
• Philippe Bourgois - Richard Perry University professor of Anthropology & Family and Community Medicine, University of Pennsylvania
• Lt. Francis Healy - Special Advisor to the Police Commissioner, City of Philadelphia
• Dennis Culhane - Professor, School of Social Policy and Practice, University of Pennsylvania; Director of Research, National Center on Homelessness Among Veterans
• Prison System Representative - City of Philadelphia