The National Law School of India University (NLSIU), Bengaluru, is organising a public lecture by Prof. Judith Resnik on her recently published book, Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy (University of Chicago Press), on 13 August 2026 at 6 PM in the Conference Hall, Ground Floor, Training Centre, NLSIU. Prof. Mrinal Satish will moderate the talk with Prof. Resnik, who will be joining us virtually. The lecture will be held in a hybrid mode and is open to the NLS Community only.

Attendees will receive selected chapters from the book via email prior to the lecture. Register here.

About the Book

In Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy (University of Chicago Press), Prof. Resnik explores the history of punishment inside prisons and the rules that organise prisons. She charts the invention of the corrections profession, which called for decent conditions while imposing radical restrictions on human movement as if doing so was normal. She weaves together the stories of people who debated how to punish and the stories of people living under the regimes that resulted. The book traces the constitutional challenges to hyper-crowded cells, filth, violence, and profound isolation, as well as the cross-border expansion of the prison industry, waves of abolition efforts, and the impact of legal precepts rejecting “excessive,” “cruel and unusual,” and “degrading” sanctions. Exploring the interdependency of people in and out of prisons, “Impermissible Punishments” argues that governments committed to equality cannot set out to ruin people and therefore many contemporary forms of punishment need to end.

About the Speaker

Prof. Judith Resnik is the Arthur Liman Professor of Law at the Yale Law School, and the founding Director of the Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law. She teaches courses on federalism, procedure, courts, prisons, equality, and citizenship. Her scholarship focuses on the relationship of democratic values to government services such as prisons and post offices; contemporary conflicts over privatisation; the relationships of states to citizens and non-citizens; practices of punishment; and equality and gender. She has authored several books, including Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy, and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courthouses.