 | The 2012 Krost Symposium is focused on the U.S. criminal justice system and, in particular, racism, the “drug war”, immigration, and the concept of restorative justice.
Consider the following:
- With only 5% of the world’s population, the U.S. incarcerates 25% of the world’s prisoners.
- Between 1960 and 1990, official crime rates in Finland, Germany, and the US were close to identical. Yet the US incarceration rate quadrupled, the Finnish rate fell by 60 percent, and the German rate was stable in that period.
- From 1983 to 2000, as the “War on Drugs” gained traction, prison admissions for African-Americans grew 26 times the 1983 level and Latino admissions were 22 times higher, while white admissions were only 8 times greater. Although the majority of illegal drug users and dealers nationwide are white, three-fourths of all people imprisoned for drug offenses have been black or Latino.
- The US imprisons a larger percentage of its black population than South Africa did at the height of apartheid.
- With more than one million women behind bars or under the control of the criminal justice system, women are the fastest growing segment of the incarcerated population, increasing at nearly double the rate of men since 1985.
- In the year 2000, 40% of criminal convictions leading to incarceration of women were for drug crimes; 34% were for other non-violent crimes such as burglary, larceny, and fraud; and 7% were for public order offenses such as drunk driving, liquor law violations and vagrancy. Only 18% of female convictions were for violent conduct.
- In fiscal year 2008, federal prosecutions of immigration crimes doubled from the preceding year to reach more than 70,000 cases. While immigration prosecutions rose sharply in the previous 5 years, in that same period, white-collar prosecutions fell by 18 percent, weapons prosecutions dropped 19 percent, organized crime prosecutions were down by 20 percent, and public corruption prosecutions dropped by 14 percent.
- Blacks in Texas are incarcerated at a rate seven times greater than whites, and one out of 3 young black men (29% of the black male population between 21 and 29) are in prison, jail, parole or probation on any given day.
- The Texas corrections budget increased from $600 million in 1985 to $2.4 billion in 2005. After adjusting for inflation, spending on public safety and corrections grew 223% in those 15 years, while real higher education expenditures rose only 44% during the same period.
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About Krost SymposiumTLU’s annual Krost Symposium brings together scholars, journalists, government officials, community leaders and others to discuss relevant and important issues of our time. Past symposium topics range from nuclear war to health care to the theological concepts of suffering and salvation. The symposium is one element of the university’s Krost Life Enrichment Program, established in 1977 to foster the physical, intellectual, social and spiritual development of TLU students and the broader community. The program’s commitment to developing the whole person – body, mind and spirit – is a manifestation of, and central to, TLU’s mission of preparing young women and men for lives of purpose through leadership and service to others.
One of the founding fathers of the Krost Life Enrichment Program and Krost Symposium was Dr. Frank Giesber, professor emeritus of economics, who served Texas Lutheran as academic dean when the idea of the Krost program and symposium became a reality. In recognition of Dr. Giesber’s contributions to the establishment and on-going support of the Krost Program, the keynote presentation of each Krost Symposium is now titled the Frank Giesber Lecture. |
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Krost Life Enrichment ProgramKrost Life Enrichment Program received its first funding in 1977 by Dr. Frederick Elliott. After the first funding, others such as the Lily Johnson Foundation followed, which gave a stipend for the construction of the Krost Building. Generous donations have made it possible for students of Texas Lutheran to take part in an intellectual and physical application to life.
The Krost Life Enrichment Program seeks to promote a whole person approach to life, which integrates the intellectual, spiritual, physical, and social well being of an individual. All students are urged to enroll in the program for a fitness evaluation, consisting of a graded exercise test to determine the fitness level and amount of body fat that exists. Counseling and planning sessions in which personal health practices, attitudes, and life objectives are explored follows the fitness evaluation and are incorporated into a wellness course.
The Krost program also provides academic enrichment opportunities for students in departments through internships and work-study programs. These internships and programs are sponsored by Kelsey-Seybold Clinic, Baylor College of Medicine, NASA, and Texas Medical Center depending on the field that interests the student. These sponsors also support the Krost Symposium that is planned to foster intellectual inquiry with speakers of national and international stature.
Going beyond Texas Lutheran, Krost Life Enrichment has supported the field of environmental science and the outdoor recreation program. Recently the Krost Program has also supported the Astronomy Club. The program also purchases student art at the TLU Student Art Show each year. The Krost program creates students at TLU that are more complete when they graduate and are more prosperous in the real world. |
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2012 Krost CommitteeTim Barr
Director of Center for Servant Leadership
Rebecca Kosary
Associate Professor of History, Director of African American Studies
Juan Rodriguez
Associate Professor of English, Director of Mexican American Studies Center
Pam Johnston
Associate Professor of English, Director of the Center for Women's studies
Steve Boehm
Lecturer in Sociology
Chris Bollinger
Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Department Chair of Communication & English Studies |
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| Krost 2012 Schedule of Events coming soon! |
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| | Michelle Alexander
Associate Professor of Law, Ohio State UniversityAuthor of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. Michelle Alexander is a highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and legal scholar who currently holds a joint appointment at the Kirwan Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity and the Moritz College of Law at The Ohio State University. Prior to joining the Kirwan Institute, Professor Alexander was an Associate Professor of Law at Stanford Law School, where she directed the Civil Rights Clinics.
In 2005, she won a Soros Justice Fellowship, which supported the writing of her first book, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The book is considered one of the top African American books of 2010 and it won the NAACP Image Award for "outstanding literary work of non-fiction." Alexander has been featured on national radio and television media outlets, including NPR, The Bill Moyers Journal, the Tavis Smiley Show, C-Span Washington Journal, among others.
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