Incarceration: A VICE Panel, Festival of Dangerous Ideas 2015

Chris Munro was the Managing Editor of Tracker Magazine, Australia's most read Aboriginal Affairs publication which was shut down in 2014. Prior to this he was the Political Editor for the National Indigenous Television news team based at Parliament House and a reporter for the National Indigenous Times newspaper. Chris currently works as a freelance journalist. 

As an investigative journalist, Eric Schlosser continues to explore subjects ignored by the mainstream media and gives a voice to people at the margins of society. He’s followed the harvest with migrant farm workers in California, spent time with meatpacking workers in Texas and Colorado, told the stories of marijuana growers and pornographers and victims of violent crime, gone on duty with the NYPD Bomb Squad, and visited prisons throughout the US. Schlosser’s first book, Fast Food Nation (2001), helped start a revolution in how Americans think about what they eat. His second book, Reefer Madness (2003), looked at America’s thriving underground economy.  Both were New York Times bestsellers. His most recent book, Command and Control (2013), examines the efforts of the military, since the atomic era began during World War II, to prevent nuclear weapons from being stolen, sabotaged, or detonated by accident. Command and Control was a New York Times Notable Book, a Time Magazine Top 10 Nonfiction Book, was a finalist for the 2014 Pulitzer Prize (History) and also received the Gold Medal Award (Nonfiction) from the 2013 California Book Awards.

Debbie Kilroy was imprisoned for drug trafficking in 1989 for 6 years. She was stabbed and witnessed the only murder inside an Australian women’s prison, and lost almost everything: her marriage, her home and her children. After her release in 1992, she established Sisters Inside, which advocates for the human rights of women in the criminal injustice system. Sisters Inside has won international acclaim for its work and for a unique structure which ensures it is driven by women inside prison. Debbie was awarded the OAM for services to the community for working with women in prison 2003 and in 2004 she was awarded the National Human Rights Medal. She has a degree in social work and is a qualified gestalt therapist. Debbie was the first person in Australian who has serious convictions to be admitted by the Supreme Court of Queensland to practice law in 2007.

John Safran (chair) is an award-winning documentary-maker of provocative and hilarious takes on race, the media, religion and other issues. 

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