The American Constitution Society (ACS) has recognized a public interest attorney for his “advocacy on behalf of marginalized people.”
Peter J. Wagner, executive director and co-founder of Prison Policy Initiative (PPI), was awarded the ACS’s David Carliner Public Interest Award at its National Convention earlier this year.
“I went to law school a decade ago when prison populations were going up, and up, and up seemed like the only future,” said Wagner.
An ACS press release said it gives this annual award to a mid-career public interest lawyer whose work best exemplifies David Carliner’s legacy of “fearless, uncompromising and creative advocacy…”
Wagner said the ACS award, named after Carliner, a champion of human rights, is “a huge honor because it recognizes criminal justice issues, and the victories we have all in this room won together over the last decade.”
In a speech at the ACS convention, Wagner said medical doctors are guided by the Hippocratic Oath to do no harm. He said the U.S. criminal justice system is not designed using the same standard. Instead, it has “a set of policies that do more to exacerbate existing racial and economic disparities in our country than they do to respond to crime.”
“I co-founded the Prison Policy Initiative to change that reality,” said Wagner. “It is absolutely essential that our justice policies be fair, and it is critical that our policies actually make our communities stronger and safer.”
Under Wagner, PPI brought prison gerrymandering, a U.S. Census policy that counts prisoners where they are incarcerated instead of where they are from, to the forefront of national consciousness.
“I took on prison gerrymandering more than a decade ago,” Wagner told the ACS audience. “I connected the dots and built a broad multi-sector movement that has permanently changed how our democracy works…”
Some of Wagner’s work with PPI also includes updating policy-makers with accurate data on mass incarceration and recently convincing the Federal Communications Commission to impose regulations on the prison phone industry by placing a cap on the cost of calls when prisoners call home.
“I’m confident that, if all of the different parts of the legal profession work together, we can make a better, safer and more just world,” Wagner said in his speech at the ACS convention.
PPI has three full-time staffers and one part-time staff member. On occasion, consultants and student volunteers work with the organization.
Wagner received his Juris Doctor from Western New England College School of Law and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, where he majored in social thought and political economy, with a minor in African-American studies.
