The Justice Lab
The Justice Lab is a semester-long program for a cohort of 12-16 students taking 2-4 integrated courses, including an internship, field study, group project, and/or research project. Past programs have focused on criminal justice reform, community health & wellness, immigration and asylum, and human rights and civil rights.
For faculty interested in developing courses as part of this program, please email Professor Frank Anechiarico.
Previous Programs
Professors Justin Clark, Robert Knight, Chaise LaDousa, and Sharon Rivera taught four connected courses in which students studied the relationship between justice and technology from both a local and global perspective. With an emphasis on the ethical use of technology, its potential to promote a more just world, and the potential threats that technology posed, students explored the issues through the lens of philosophy, photography, and anthropology.
Professor Knight taught an introductory photography course focused on social justice. Professor Clark’s course on justice and the good life introduced various theories of justice within moral philosophy while focusing on ethical issues related to emerging technologies. Professor LaDousa’s course investigated the impacts of digital technology on social change. Professors Clark, Knight, and LaDousa’s courses were required for all Lab participants. Lab students had the option to take Professor Rivera’s Digital Human Rights Investigation course as a fourth course.
The Lab was rooted in multiple experiential learning opportunities, including regular trips to Utica for both the photography and anthropology courses. Students who opted into the Digital Human Rights Investigations course learned and applied digital investigative techniques to the illegal deportation of Ukrainian children by Russia and took a trip to Washington, D.C. to meet with practitioners. Fridays were set aside for field study and trips.
For the Fall 2024 semester’s Justice Lab, Professors Frank Anechiarico, Marianne Janack, Jeff McArn, and Judge Ralph Eannace (ret) taught four connected courses in which students studied the root causes of youth gun violence in the local area, researched best practices for addressing this violence, and investigated alternative forms of justice, while also writing and reflecting on their own experiences of fear and safety. The Justice Lab’s Community Partner, former Oneida County District Attorney Scott McNamara, joined them.
The Lab was rooted in multiple experiential learning opportunities, including periodic observations in local area courts and visits to relevant community organizations. Professor Janack’s course considered the ways that we think about safety, places, and protection, including a visit to a shooting range and a focus on writing for a public audience. Justice Lab students and faculty also participated in an overnight trip to learn about comparative gun violence prevention.
For the Spring 2024 Justice Lab, Profs. Jaime Kucinskas, Jeff McArn, Heather Sullivan, and Joel Winkleman taught four connected courses on community building and social change. The Lab was rooted in two experiential learning opportunities. Professor Kucinskas co-taught her course with the Rev. Sharon Baugh of Hope Chapel AME Zion Church, where students helped develop poverty alleviation programming in Rev. Baugh’s neighborhood in Utica and across congregations in the city. The Lab also included a popular education methodology component in Prof. Winkleman’s course, with a required spring break retreat (March 11–14) at the legendary Highlander Research and Education Center, led by Prof. Margo Okazawa-Rey and funded by the Levitt Center.
Prof. Sullivan taught a course on the politics of equality in which students thought systematically about the kinds of inequalities they worked to address in Utica, as well as pathways for change. And in Prof. McArn’s course on social justice at Hamilton College, students had the opportunity to think about the history of social change in their own campus community.
How have human rights developed? How are they defined, and who enforces them? These questions were immediately relevant to migrant and refugee populations, the movement for racial justice, the status of Indigenous populations, as well as the protection of civilians in times of war. Most basically, the study of human rights asked how we could guarantee personal dignity and the ability of all people to live free from persecution, discrimination, and bias.
In Fall 2023, the Justice Lab took up these questions historically and legally at the international, national, and local levels. Courses required for the Justice Lab Fall 2023 semester included:
- Justice Lab Experience and Observation (GOV/Public Policy 274W) – Prof. Andrea Peña Vasquez (Government)
- International Law (GOV 254) – Prof. Alan Cafruny, Bristol Professor of International Relations (Government)
- Humanitarianism and Human Rights (HIST 255) – Prof. Kevin Grant, Graves Professor of History (History)
- The American Constitution and Human Rights (GOV 269) – Prof. Frank Anechiarico, Maynard-Knox Professor of Government and Law (Government)
In the past decade, the global refugee population has more than doubled according to the UN with over 80 million people who have been forcibly displaced worldwide. The Utica area has played a prominent role in refugee resettlement in the United States since the 1970s. The Spring 2023 Justice Lab was a four-course semester focused on issues of resettlement, religious traditions, and ethical questions related to asylum and immigration policy, both locally and globally.
Courses for the Spring 2023 Justice Lab included:
- Politics of Asylum with Professor Andrea Pena-Vasquez (Government)
- Religion and Immigration in Central New York with Professor Brent Rodriguez-Plate (Religious Studies)
- Philosophy of Immigration with Professor Alessandro Moscaritolo Palacio (Philosophy)
- Justice Laboratory: Internship and Observation with Professor Andrea Pena-Vasquez
Community wellness is a holistic concept that includes public safety, care of vulnerable populations, and access to quality medical services and public health (vaccination, mental well-being, sanitation, etc.). The fall 2022 Justice Lab focused broadly on these issues with particular attention to the homeless population in Utica. Students took four-courses concurrently which included an internship and regular interaction with local leaders in public health, community wellness, and civic institutions.
Courses for the Fall 2022 Justice Lab included:
- Health Care Systems with Professor Herm Lehman (Biology)
- Urban Homelessness and Social Policy in the US with Professor Gwen Dordick (Government)
- Utica in the Context of US History with Professor Phil Bean (History)
- Justice Laboratory: Internship and Observation with Professor Frank Anechiarico
New York State passed two major legal system reforms in 2019 that had a substantial effect on the Oneida County Criminal Justice System: the abolition of cash bail for most offenses and an accelerated and expanded evidence discovery process, both of which took effect in January, 2020. These reforms gave students the opportunity to observe and participate in the implementation of significant changes in criminal procedure. The inaugural Justice Lab featured two concurrent courses, a traditional seminar course taught by Professor Frank Anechiarico and an internship and observation course co-taught by Professor Anechiarico and Utica City Court Judge Ralph Eannace.
Affiliated Programs and Projects
Jurisprudence, Law and Justice Studies
Jurisprudence, law and justice studies is a minor with coursework that provides students with a foundation for understanding how the theory, practice and meaning of law stimulates civic engagement.
American Prison Writing Archive
The American Prison Writing Archive (APWA) is a place where imprisoned people and prison staff can write about and document their experience. It is a site where all who live or work inside can bear witness to what is working and what is not inside American prisons, thus grounding public debate about the American prison crisis in lived experience. In 2017, Professor Doran Larson was awarded $262,000 by the National Endowment of the Humanities for APWA. The three-year grant will enable the APWA to double the size of the archive and increase its search capacities.
Recent Stories
Levitt Center Releases Report on Youth Gun Violence in Utica
Hamilton's Arthur Levitt Public Affairs Center has released a comprehensive report titled “Youth Gun Violence in Utica, New York: Causes, Context, and Prevention.” This report is the culmination of the Center’s Fall 2024 Justice Lab, an interdisciplinary initiative involving 16 students across four integrated courses led by four Hamilton faculty members.
Experiential Learning: Education Outside the Classroom
At Hamilton College, learning transcends geographic boundaries and traditional methods, providing students with unique and memorable experiences that bring their material to life.
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Levitt Center
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Levitt Center
