How can justice systems promote accountability while preserving human dignity, belonging, and the capacity for change? In this interdisciplinary course, legal scholar Federica Coppola and policy researcher, activist, and nonprofit leader Mujahideen Muhammad bring together philosophy, law, psychology, and lived experience to explore justice through the lens of belonging. Building on the ideas in Coppola’s new book, The Real Pain of Punishment, participants will examine how the fundamental human need for belonging can reshape accountability, healing, and public safety while inspiring more humane, restorative, and effective responses to harm. Drawing on a collaborative book chapter co-authored by Coppola and alumni of Union Theological Seminary’s Master of Professional Studies program at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, the course bridges leading scholarship with lived experience to imagine a justice system grounded in human dignity, connection, and hope.

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Date & Time:

Friday, September 25, 2026, 4:00 PM – 8:00 PM EST
Saturday, September 26, 2026, 9:00 AM – 3:00 PM EST
Online & In Person
Union Theological Seminary
3041 Broadway, New York, NY 10027

Meet the Instructors:

Federica Coppola is an Associate Professor of Law at IE University Law School in Madrid, Spain. Before joining IE University, she was a Senior Researcher in the Dept. of Criminal Law at the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law (Germany). From 2017 to 2020, she was Robert A. Burt Presidential Scholar in Society and Neuroscience at Columbia University in New York, a Lecturer in Law at Columbia Law School, and a Postdoc Scholar at Columbia University’s Center for Justice & Social Relations Lab. Dr. Coppola has published law review and peer-reviewed articles about criminal law theory, criminal constitutional law, criminal justice, incarceration, and solitary confinement. She is the author of “The Real Pain of Punishment: Prison, Belonging, and the Quest for Humanized Justice” (Cambridge University Press, 2026) and “The Emotional Brain and the Guilty Mind: Novel Paradigms of Culpability and Punishment” (Hart Publishing, 2021). She is also the coeditor of “Social Rehabilitation and< Criminal Justice” (Routledge, 2024). Dr. Coppola holds a JD summa cum laude from University of Bologna, an LL.M in International, Comparative, and European Laws, and a PhD in Law from the European University Institute. Since 2022, she is a Life Member at Clare Hall College, University of Cambridge.

Mujahideen Muhammad is the co-founder of an advocacy and peer services organization named The Pillars of Promise and a research assistant to the Center for Justice at Columbia University. During 24 and a half years of incarceration, he graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Science at the Hudson Link/Mercy University college program as well as a master’s degree in professional studies at Union Theological Seminary. He is currently pursuing a master’s in public administration at the School of International and Public Affairs at Columbia University.

Since joining the Center for Justice, Muhammad has been researching and advocating for the passage of the Second Look Act in New York, a bill being proposed in the New York State legislature that would permit resentencing opportunities for people serving excessive prison sentences. On February 10, 2025, Muhammad was among a group of formerly and currently incarcerated individuals who were invited by Chief Judge Rowan Wilson to speak in support of the Second Look Act at the 2025 State of The Judiciary at the Court of Appeals in Albany. As the leader and co-founder of The Pillars of Promise, Mujahideen is committed to changing the narrative about incarcerated people and expanding pathways to release, dignity, and long-term prosperity for those impacted by the prison system.