EUROPEAN GROUP FOR THE STUDY OF
DEVIANCE AND SOCIAL CONTROL
ESTABLISHED 1973
Coordinator: Emma Bell
Secretary: Monish Bhatia
EVA MERZ
‘
Website administrator: Gilles Christoph
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I European Group 40th Anniversary
Conference
- Celebrating the work of Stan Cohen
Abstract submission: FINAL DEADLINE.
- Conference fees & registration, photo
exhibition etc.
II European Group news
- European Group/ Centre for the Study of
Crime, Criminalisation and Social Exclusion
Conference: Mark Hayes reflects on the ‘Sites of
Confinement’ conference.
III Comment and analysis
- Phil Scraton gives a powerful account of the
experiences of young women in prison.
- Dominique Moran reflects on differences in
carceral geographies.
IV News from the Europe and the
world
Australia
Canada
Denmark
Europe
France
Greece
Ireland
Portugal
Spain
United Kingdom
USA
Front Page Art:
The Hopeless (Situation), still from 'Girls Behind Bars', BBC documentary
From 2007 to 2010, Eva Merz worked on the topic of female prisoners in the Scottish criminal
justice system. You, Me, Us & Them is a book containing a series of interviews offering
different perspectives, opinions and first-hand experiences of this system. The book can be
purchased
or
downloaded
for
free
from
the
following
website:
http://www.gsaevents.com/exhibitions/publications/youmeusandthem For more information
about the project, see: http://www.newsocialartschool.org/wipMain.html
Phil Scraton’s piece in our comment and analysis section this month explores the issues
highlighted in this powerful image. See ‘Notes from the Inside’.
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
I European Group Conference
Critical Criminology in a Changing World: Tradition and Innovation
University of Oslo, Norway
th
29 August to 1st September 2013
http://www.europeangroup.org/conferences/2013/Index.htm/
http://www.jus.uio.no/ikrs/english/research/news-andevents/events/conferences/2013/CCIACW/
-Photographer: Eva Franko Aas
Katja Franko Aas is a Professor in Criminology at the Department of Criminology
and Sociology of Law, University of Oslo. She specialises in the use of advanced
information and communication technologies in contemporary crime control
strategies, border controls in particular, and in globalization processes and their
impact on criminology and criminal justice. Katja will be speaking at this year’s
European Group Conference.
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
Celebrating the work of Stan Cohen
In tribute to Stanley Cohen, we would like to invite delegates to the Oslo conference to present
papers which reflect the impact Stan Cohen had both on the European Group as well as
on criminology more generally.
ABSTRACTS: FINAL CALL!!!
Abstracts are to be submitted by 28th April2013 to p.j.ystehede@jus.uio.no. In the subjectheading, please state ‘EUROPEAN GROUP -2013 – ABSTRACT – NAME’. IN THE
ABSTRACT, PLEASE INCLUDE FULL NAME, POSITION AND CONTACT INFO AS
WELL AS WHICH STREAM YOU WISH TO SUBMIT YOUR PAPER TO. Please note
that it will not be possible to accept abstracts after this date.
Conference fees
Full fee for participants incl. dinner reception
2200 NOK 295€*
Full fee for students incl. dinner reception
1500 NOK 200€
Full fee for participants excl. dinner reception
1600 NOK 215€
Full fee for students excl. dinner reception
900 NOK 120€
Please note that fees in euros are approximate only and may vary depending on the exchange
rate at the time of registration. Fees are more expensive than usual this year due to the high
costs of living in Norway but they do include the proceedings, all coffee/tea breaks and lunches
during the conference (Friday – Sunday) as well as a welcome reception. In addition, fees
include the cost of participation in a number of social events from which delegates can choose
during the conference.
Conference places are limited to 200. Priority will be given to those who are presenting
conference papers. However, a number of places will be reserved on a first-come, first-served
basis for those who are not planning to present a paper. For those delegates, registration is
now possible. Please contact Per Jorgen at p.j.ystehede@jus.uio.no. He will send you a code
which you will need to log onto the registrations page on the university website.
For those of you who are planning to present a paper, please wait until you have received
confirmation that your abstract has been approved before registering. You will have
received an answer by the 15th of May 2013. If your abstract is approved, you will receive a
user-name and password to be able to log on to the ‘Registration Forms’ page on the University
of Oslo website where you will have to fill in some information (name, country of origin, email
+ will be able to pay electronically). Please note that payment has to be made upon registration.
The registration is only valid after the payment has successfully been carried out. Participants
will receive a confirmation of their registration and a receipt for their payment by email
immediately after their online payment. As the payments are online and the participants get a
receipt from the credit card company as well, no other receipts will be provided to guests.
A photo exhibition celebrating 40 years of the European Group will be organised at the Oslo
conference. If any of you have any photos that reflect the history of the Group, please send
these either electronically to p.j.ystehede@jus.uio.no or by mail to Per Jorgen, Postboks 6706
St. Olavsplass, 0130 OSLO.
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
Oslo Marina (from www.visitnorway.com )
II European Group News
European Group/ Centre for the Study of Crime, Criminalisation and Social Exclusion
Conference
This conference on ‘Sites of Confinement’, ranging from immigration removal centres to
probation hostels and prisons, was jointly organised at Liverpool John Moores University on
Friday 22nd March. Speakers included Emma Bell, Andrew Jefferson, Monish Bhatia, Joe Sim
and David Scott from the European Group and Eloise Cockcroft from the migrant support
group, REVIVE. Mark Hayes, who attended the event, shares his thoughts:
Mark Hayes
A Report on Sites of Confinement (Conference)
Centre for the Study of Crime, Criminalisation and Social Exclusion
22 March 2013 Liverpool JMU
The above conference was used to launch the European Working Group on Prisons, Detention
and Punishment, and was organised by Vicky Canning of Liverpool John Moores University.
In fact, as a non-expert in this field, I saw attendance at this conference as an opportunity to
learn something interesting about penal policy, incarceration and modes of confinement, rather
than as an opportunity to contribute anything meaningful to the debates. Inevitably, therefore,
my comments on the conference are impressionistic rather than analytical, and I apologise in
advance for that. Nevertheless my thoughts may still provide other European Group members
with a flavour of the event.
The first presentation was delivered by Emma Bell, who provided an excellent
contextual overview of the neo-liberal framework within which penal policy has been
constructed. This was important, of course, not only because practical policy outcomes cannot
be detached from the ideological assumptions which currently prevail, but also because that
particular ideological manifestation, “neo-liberalism”, is almost entirely pernicious in its social
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
consequences. The emphasis on specifically “neo-liberal” solutions has infected penal policy,
and Emma Bell made this point with admirable clarity. In fact, listening to Emma I was
reminded of an old joke: “how many neo-liberal free market economists does it take to change
a lightbulb?” Of course the answer is “none, because they all sit around waiting for the
‘invisible hand’”. Hayek, Friedman and the other disciples of unfettered free enterprise
capitalism have an awful lot to answer for!
In the subsequent sessions Vickie Cooper examined semi-penal hostels, and made
interesting observations about “punishment by dispersal”, and Andrew Jefferson outlined an
ambitious comparative research project which aims to assess prisons in Kosovo, Sierra Leone
and the Philippines – research which will undoubtedly yield important empirical data. Monish
Bhatia provided some extraordinary detail on the actual experience of asylum seekers and the
social effect of the attempt to control “illegal” migration. Monish’s prescient remarks were
underscored by the contribution of Social Worker Eloise Cockcroft of Revive, an organisation
which provides support and legal advice for those people seeking asylum. Eloise provided
evidence to indicate quite clearly that the Border Agency is not “fit for purpose”. In fact
Eloise’s eloquent presentation induced a variety of emotions and threw into a much sharper
light the perverse priorities of a Coalition government which appears to know the price of
everything and the value of nothing! Those members of the European Group anxious to
discover more about this might consult the website of the National Coalition of AntiDeportation Campaigns (NCADC). Here there is information on how to supply practical help
to those individuals requiring assistance, two of whom (Fozia and Nawaz) related their story
to conference members. The experience of Fozia and Nawaz was a potent reminder of the
human cost of toxic social policies.
In the afternoon Joe Sim articulated a message that was not only witty and informative,
but deliberate in its underlying purpose of speaking truth to power. The presentation, moreover,
was delivered in undiluted working class Glaswegian mode – it bristled with righteous
indignation and anger at the grotesque inequity, indeed the sheer absurdity, of contemporary
penal policy (my partner is Glaswegian, so I know it doesn’t pay to make them angry – I often
have to sleep with one eye open!). I was left with two over-riding impressions after listening
to Joe: firstly that the students at JMU are lucky to be taught by him; and secondly that it would
be great to see him on Question Time with Theresa May! The latter prospect is unlikely of
course, not least because Joe could deconstruct and destroy a Ministerial reputation in the time
it takes to boil a kettle! Joe Sim is simply too dangerous for widespread public consumption.
Dave Scott ended the conference with a concise account of what needed to be done,
and he set out a programme of action designed to engage activists with a shared agenda. It was
a perfect way to finish because Dave embodies that synthesis of academic and activist which
is so characteristic of the European Group. Dave Scott has the capacity to critically evaluate
and conceptualise, as well as being able to plot a progressive path toward a better future via an
emphasis on more sensible and socially responsible penal policy.
Overall the conference was successful because it facilitated a broad contextual analysis,
it examined key areas of weakness in policy practice by focussing on specific examples, and it
constructed a programme of action designed to address the difficulties that had been identified.
This is precisely what committed, critically engaged academics in the social sciences should
be doing. (However, if I was to make a single critical observation it would be that I would have
thought Vicky Canning could have provided better weather! It was freezing, and I am certain
that if Sam Fletcher was still at JMU she would have organised blinding sunshine!).
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
Can I also point EG members in the direction of a forthcoming conference organised by Dave
Whyte, who looks to have assembled an outstanding collection of contributors. “How Corrupt
is Britain?” is not only apt, it is set to be another example of an event which embodies all the
features characteristic of the European Group – academic excellence, critical engagement and
progressive political activism.
Finally, can I take this opportunity to inform you that my good friend and comrade
Tommy McKearney (ex-IRA/Hunger Striker and leader of the Ex-Prisoners’ Assistance
Committee, Ireland) will be speaking at Solent University, Southampton on 10 April at 2pm in
the Sir James Matthews’ Building – all welcome!
Mark Hayes
25 March 2013
New national representatives:
We are pleased to announce two new national representatives for
Macedonia : Hasan Jashari (h.jashari@seeu.edu.mk)
Bulgaria: Slavka Dimitrova (sdimitrova@bfu.bg)
European Working Groups:
The ‘Working Group on Prisons, Detention and Punishment’ was launched in Liverpool at
the ‘Sites of Confinement’ conference (see above). It now includes over 60 members. The
group provides a network and database for teachers, researchers, students and activists across
Europe (and beyond) who have an interest studying prisons, detention and punishment. The
working group will provide an opportunity to share our knowledge of sites of confinement and
the operation of the penal rationale and help establish new links with activists and academics
worldwide who critically engage with the current forms, extent and nature of detention and
punishment. The working group also aims to foster a greater understanding of contemporary
penality; offer possibilities for collaborative research; and work towards emancipatory change.
David Scott will be acting coordinator of the working group, accompanied by a steering group
including the European Group Coordinator (Emma Bell) and the Group Secretary (Monish
Bhatia). A new working group coordinator will be elected at the AGM in Oslo. Should anyone
be interested in taking on this role, please get in touch with David.
A working manifesto and full details of membership will soon be posted on the European
Group website.
Please address all enquiries to the new working group e-mail address:
prisonworkinggroup@gmail.com.
European Group Resolutions:
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
Resolution against the excessive use of detention in the UK and across the globe
Members of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control would like
to condemn the record high levels of detention in the United Kingdom in 2013. We believe
that the number of people currently detained under immigration, mental health and penal law
is unacceptable and presents a serious danger to democracy. We believe as academics,
students, activists and members of the general public that it is important that a principled and
practical stand is taken now against current expansionist penal policies and call upon the
government of the United Kingdom to make immediate provision for a radical reduction in
the number of people detained. Members of the European Group also offer their full support
to activists and campaigners currently working to expose the brutal realities of detainment in
the UK and elsewhere and offer our solidarity with their struggles for a more socially just
society and the promotion of more humane means of dealing with human conduct popularly
referred to as 'crime'.
Resolution in support of the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns and
similar activist organisations across the globe:
Members of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control
(http://www.europeangroup.org/) and the Centre for the Study of Crime, Criminalisation and
Social Exclusion (http://ljmu.ac.uk/HSS/CCSEResearchCentre.htm) would like to express
their solidarity with the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns
(http://www.ncadc.org.uk/) in its struggle to end the inhuman and degrading treatment of
people caught up in the asylum and immigration system in the UK. We call for an end to the
criminalisation of refugees, migrants, and asylum seekers who are routinely denied access to
fair justice and the right of sanctuary. We offer our solidarity to activists across the globe
seeking to protect the rights and interests of migrants
YouTube Channel:
Please subscribe to the European Group youtube channel. The number of subscribers is directly
linked to the length of the broadcasts allowed on the channel, so to help establish this new
initiative please subscribe (click at the top of the page 'subscribe') as soon as you can
http://www.youtube.com/europeangroup. Please send ideas for programmes and recorded
lectures that you would like adding to our youtube channel to Emma and Monish at
europeancoordinator@gmail.com. Please also let Emma and Monish know if you think you
might be interested in helping to maintain our YouTube channel.
III Comment and analysis
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
Phil Scraton
Notes from the Inside: Experiences of Young Women in Prison
Over a decade ago I was walking between the cell blocks, euphemistically named ‘houses’, in
Cornton Vale women’s prison in Scotland. In an area adjacent to one of the Blocks a woman
walked erratically close to the high perimeter fence. Her arms were outstretched, she was
speaking loudly and listening intently. It appeared the conversation was inside her head. She
wore a canvas gown, her feet were bare. In the corner of the yard adjacent to a door two women
prison guards were talking, apparently oblivious to the prisoner in their charge. She had been
unlocked for thirty minutes ‘recreation’ from the isolation of her cell.
I asked to view the conditions in which this distressed woman was being held. My request was
granted. The corridor had cells either side. At its end, across the width of the corridor, were
two padded doors. Inside was the cell door, to either side a raised walkway encircling the cell
with spy-holes set in the wall. It was a cell within a cell. The cell had no ablutions, no bed, but
a built-in raised plinth on which she slept in a canvas sleeping bag. Her toilet was a cardboard
potty. Once the outer doors were closed regardless of how loud she shouted, her voice was
silenced, her body entombed and her dignity stripped. At that moment, in a place of extreme
suffering, I confronted what amounted to domestic rendition.
******
In August 2002 Annie Kelly, who had been held in Mourne House Women’s Unit at
Maghaberry Prison in the north of Ireland, wrote a letter to her sister. She had been imprisoned
since the age of 15 - on 28 occasions in five years. Within a month of writing this letter, held
in isolation, she took her own life:
‘Then they [prison guards] all held me out in the corrider. I only had the suicide dress on and
I was told I could keep my pants cause I’d a s.t. [sanitary towel] on. But when the men were
holding me they got a woman screw to pull my pants off. That shouldn’t have happened. Then
they covered me in celatape to keep the dress closed and handcuffed me and dragged me off to
the male hospital. I’ve hung myself a pile of times. I just rip the dress and make a noose. But I
am only doing that cause of the way their treating me. The cell floor is covered in phiss cause
they took the phiss pot out the other night. Their flies in the cell. They won’t let me clean it. I
haven’t had a shower now in 4 days. I’ve had no mattress or blanket either the past few nights.’
******
Following Annie’s death, the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission (NIHRC)
commissioned Linda Moore and I to conduct independent research with women held in the
Mourne House Unit. Within hours of entering the prison, a nun whispered that a ‘girl’ was
being held in the prison’s punishment block ‘because she self-harmed and couldn’t be
accommodated anywhere else in the prison’. Unannounced, we walked to the block and asked
that, with her permission, her cell be opened. Without hesitation, the young woman agreed.
It was a strip cell. She slept on a concrete plinth with no mattress, just a canvas blanket. Dressed
in a canvas ‘anti-suicide’ gown, the Velcro fastenings removed, she was not permitted
underwear, even during menstruation, but held a sanitary towel between her legs. Her toilet
was a small cardboard pot and she had no in-cell access to running water. Her arms were torn,
cut and scoured from her wrists to her shoulders, her legs from her ankles to her hips. When
she slept she lay in a foetal position on the plinth.
She was just 17, held in the punishment cells of an adult women’s maximum security prison
unit. Initially admitted to the male prison hospital, she was transferred to the women’s
punishment block. She recalled, ‘That night I tried to hang myself’, using strips of material
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
torn from a pillow case. She scoured her skin using the hard edges of her gown, ‘Because I
hear voices and see things. The voices tell me to do them’.
Cutting ‘released the pain’ she felt deep inside: ‘It’s how I cope. I shouldn’t be down here.
There’s nothing to do. It’s worse in the night. I hear voices and see things. But no-one helps
me ... Just look at what they make me go to the toilet in. That’s for night time. It’s a disgrace.’
The ‘standard’ regime was 23 hour lock-up with one hour’s ‘recreation’ alone. The cell she
occupied was the cell in which Annie Kelly had taken her own life.
We walked from the cell, her words on tape, the emotional mix of sadness, anger and
incredulity was overwhelming. As I have written elsewhere, doctors, nurses, probation officers,
clergy, prison visitors, prison guards and their managers were complicit in the regime’s routine,
as they had been at Cornton Vale. Academics who had researched recently in both prisons,
walking the same landings as us, had remained silent. On that occasion we convinced a judge
to order her immediate release from solitary but our concern was that our intervention would
change little institutionally.
******
TIME TO DIE
On 4 May 2011 Frances McKeown, aged 23, took her own life in Hydebank Wood Women’s
Prison where women are now incarcerated alongside young men in the Hydebank Wood Young
Offenders’ Centre. This was the final entry in her journal:
Today has been an ok week and day except this evening the voices are getting really bad. I
can’t put up with them much more. There was a code blue tonight on the wee lads in Elm. Code
blue is when someone has hung themselves and died, se we are locked all night. If these voices
keep up there will be another code blue tonight. I already have a noose made and ready but I
can’t do anything until the night staff do the alarms. Then I have an hour ... I’ve got it planned
and tonight is the night.
******
The NIHRC research reports referenced are: The Hurt Inside: The Imprisonment of Women
and Girls in Northern Ireland and The Prison Within: The Imprisonment of Women in
Hydebank Wood. For copies contact p.scraton@qub.ac.uk
Dominique Moran
Bastoy Prison Island: “loss of liberty is all the punishment they suffer”
Dominique Moran reflects on differences in carceral geographies
In The Guardian [on 25 February], Erwin James visits Norway’s Bastoy prison [see
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2013/feb/25/norwegian-prison-inmates-treated-likepeople] to look at conditions branded ‘cushy’ and ‘luxurious’, but which deliver the lowest
recidivism rates in Europe. The report details the conditions in which prisoners live in Bastoy
(in self-catering ‘pod’ communities) rather than in mass cellular accommodation, and the
attitude towards punishment which prevails in Scandinavia. Even in Norway’s Skien maximum
security prison, the loss of liberty is all the punishment that prisoners are intended to suffer.
This report from Bastoy reinforces the differences in penal systems with which carceral
geographers are concerned, and recalls the philosophy towards the conditions of imprisonment
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
in neighbouring Finland which is displayed in the Sentences Enforcement Act: “Punishment
is a mere loss of liberty: The enforcement of sentence must be organised so that the sentence
is only loss of liberty. Punishment shall be enforced so that it does not unnecessarily impede
but, if possible, promotes a prisoner’s placement in society. Harms caused by imprisonment
must be prevented, if possible. The circumstances in a penal institution must be organised so
that they correspond to those prevailing in the rest of society. Prisoners must be treated justly
and respecting their human dignity.”
What this essentially means is that Finland has for decades been decoupled from the
US (and increasingly the European) tendency to politicize criminal justice policy to the extent
that criminal justice becomes a political tool rather than a balanced assessment of criminal
justice interventions. As Lappi-Seppälä (2002, 33) observes, in these contexts ‘the higher the
level of political authority, the more simplistic the approaches advocated. The results can be
seen in slogans that are compressed into two or three words, including “prison works”, “war
on drugs” and “zero tolerance”’ which in turn leads politicians to ‘pander to punitive (or
presumably punitive) public opinion with harsh tough-on-crime campaigns’. In Finland, prison
is not considered to “work” and the solutions to social problems are not ‘sought where they
cannot be found – the penal system’ (ibid 33). In Norway and Finland, then, it may be argued
that prison policy is informed more by an understanding of the likely success of specific
interventions for the stated aims of incarceration, than by a political imperative to respond to
public opinion, or as Ruth Wilson Gilmore (2002, 16) has argued, to use the prison system as
‘a project of state-building’ (Moran & Keinänen, 2012).
Much of the work within the new sub-discipline of carceral geography originates in or
pertains to the highly incarcerative, or ‘hypercarcerative’ contexts of the US, the UK and the
Russian Federation, raising questions over the transferability of theorisations of the carceral to
other less carcerative, or actively ‘de-carcerative’ settings. By drawing attention to the penal
context of Scandinavia, this Guardian article underlines the need to pay particular attention to
context when theorising carceral space.
First published on the blog ‘carceral geographies’, 25 February 2013. See
http://carceralgeography.com/2013/02/25/bastoy-prison-island-loss-of-liberty-is-all-thepunishment-they-suffer/
Author Biography: Dominique Moran is Senior Lecturer in Human and Carceral Geography
in the School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences at the University of Birmingh
am, UK and member of the Global Prisons Research Network, a multi-disciplinary network fo
r scholars worldwide researching prisons and other institutions of confinement – from the eve
ryday life of specific institutions, to the wider political impact of penal policy changes.
IV News from Europe and the world
Australia
Job Opportunity
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
Lecturer in Historical Criminology, School of Humanities and the School of Behavioural
Cognitive and Social Sciences, University of New England. See:
https://admin.une.edu.au/v12/WK8127$APP.draw_attachments?P_VACANCY_REF_NO=2
13055&P_CALLER_URL=WK8127ZZDOLLARZZAPP.QueryListZZQMARKZZZ_VAC
ANCY_CAT%3DACADZZAMPZZZ_ORDER_BY%3D1
Closing Date: 9 April 2013
Canada
Conference
The International Conference on Penal Abolition (ICOPA) is a bi-annual gathering of
activists, academics, journalists, practitioners, people currently or formerly imprisoned,
survivors of state and personal harm, and others from across the world who are working
towards the abolition of imprisonment, the penal system, carceral controls and the prison
industrial complex.The next conference – ICOPA 15 – is being held on Algonquin Territory
in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada at the University of Ottawa from June 13 to 15, 2014. See
http://www.actionicopa.org/
Denmark
Conference: The Stuck, the Mobile and the Dislocated: Reflections on Life in Ghettos, Slums,
Camps and Prisons
The Conference will take place at Aalborg University’s Copenhagen Campus between October
30 and November 1, 2013.
The conference will combine key note addresses and workshop presentations. Confirmed
keynote speakers will be:





Mary Bosworth, Faculty of Law, Oxford University
Elizabeth Povinelli, Department of Anthropology, Columbia University
Michel Agier, EHESS, Paris
Daniel Hoffman, Department of Anthropology, University of Washington
If you are interested in participating, please register and/or submit an abstract of no more than
250 words before May 15, 2013 to either Simon Turner (sturner@dps.aau.dk) or Steffen Jensen
(sje@dignityinstitute.dk).
For more information, see: http://www.dignityinstitute.dk/servicenavigation/nyheder-ogaktiviteter/aktiviteter/2013/10/konference-the-stuck,-the-mobile-and-the-dislocatedreflections-on-life-in-ghettos,-slums,-camps-and-prisons.aspx
Europe
Report
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
A report by Caritas Europa analyses the impact of the economic crisis in Ireland, Greece, Italy,
Portugal and Spain, focusing particularly on unemployment, child poverty and in-work
poverty. See http://www.caritas-europa.org/code/EN/inte.asp?Page=1505 The report is also
available to download in French.
Campaign
The FRONTEXIT campaign was launched at meetings in Match in Mauritiania, Belgium and
Tunisia. The campaign brings together human rights organisations to attempt to force
FRONTEX, the EU border agency, to be transparent and accountable in its management of
Europe’s external borders. Most importantly, they demand that the rights of migrants are
respected at the borders.
For more info (in English, Spanish, Italian and French), see:
http://www.migreurop.org/article2233.html and www.frontexit.org
France
News
The forced evacuation of Roma people from illegal camps continues in France. Camps housing
approximately 230 people in the Essonne and in Villeurbanne near Lyon were bulldozed last
week, leaving families homeless. Manuel Valls, the Home Secretary, recently reaffirmed his
determination to see these camps destroyed, declaring ‘unfortunately those who live in these
camps do not want to integrate into our country either for cultural reasons or because they are
involved with organised gangs dealing in begging and prostitution’ («hélas, les occupants des
campements ne souhaitent pas s’intégrer dans notre pays pour des raisons culturelles ou parce
qu’ils sont entre les mains de réseaux versés dans la mendicité ou la prostitution»). See :
http://www.liberation.fr/societe/2013/03/28/deux-campements-roms-evacues-dans-lamatinee_891944
Conferences
A study-day organised by the GISTI (immigration support group) will be held in Paris on 16th
April to provide information on the current socialist government’s immigration policies and
reforms. See: http://www.gisti.org/spip.php?article3041
Angela Davis gave a conference at Paris III University on 19th March. You can watch it here:
http://www.univ-paris3.fr/angela-davis-conference-exceptionnelle-a-la-sorbonne-nouvelle211403.kjsp?RH=ACCUEIL
Greece
Statewatch analysis: The rise of xenophobia and the migration crisis in Greece: The Council
of Europe’s wake-up call: “Europe cannot afford to look away”:
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
http://www.statewatch.org/analyses/no-218-greece-coe.pdf
REECE & CoE Committee for the Prevention of Torture visit to Greece: Letter:
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2013/mar/greece-letter-to-cpt.pdf
Public statement by academic criminologists in Greece
The regeneration of the centre of the Greek capital city has been closely associated with
systematic operations of mass coercion targeting a large and diverse population of
impoverished people. The systematic concentration of the latter by any means in the inner
city, having contributed decisively to the degeneration and the readjustment of the local real
estate market, is now succeeded by the expulsion and humiliation, also by any means of the
very same populations. Following the migrants and the suspects of any kind, now drug
dependent individuals, HIV patients and every other group needing social care are dealt with
by police operations whose mandate appears to be summarised in the motto 'let everything
disgusting disappear'.
Last week, 132 drug addicts were suddenly arrested in the Athens downtown area and
were transferred to the migrants’ detention centre of Hellenic Police Academy near Athens
(‘Amygdaleza’ camp) on the pretext of public health concerns. They now appear to constitute
the preferential object of a brand new criminal policy doctrine. Under this doctrine, the
Hellenic Police merges with and absorbs all health and welfare services and, for all practical
purposes, neutralise all relevant competent authorities such as OKANA (Organisation
Against Drugs) or KETHEA (Therapy Centre for Dependent Individuals) and so on. This
development obfuscates the real stakes by relegating the issue of drugs to a matter for an
inhumane collaboration between police, EKEPY (National Health Operations Centre) and
KEELPNO (Hellenic Centre for Disease Control and Prevention). Thus, yet again, a complex
social issue is being reduced to a question of aesthetics, police coercion and infectious
disease.
As academics, criminologists and citizens, we cannot remain silent. We express our
grave concerns regarding and our complete and resolute opposition against these
developments in criminal policy. We join our voices with those of the competent services that
have already reacted against these operations aiming to merely remove human misery from
all public view. We note that the right to therapy of those individuals experiencing the plight
of drug addiction a right which has been affirmed by the recent drug reform legislation, is
now being annulled because of this official fanfare. This right cannot possibly be exercised in
the context of police clean-up operations, which only reinforce the exclusion and
stigmatisation of these fellow humans.
The combination of the spectacle of coercive power, embellished as it may be with
occassional touches of humanitarianism, with the policies that weaken rehabilitation services
and compress social welfare blatantly violates the constitutional guarantees of social welfare
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
and rule of law. It offends human dignity and makes the condition of the weaker in society
even worse.
In today's extreme conditions, which are conducive to all kinds of aberration and
strengthen those who act against all democratic and social guarantees, human rights and
scientific truths, the institutional guarantors of legality should act more responsibly and
thoughtfully. They should determine with precision the limits of public action and not
transgress them. Police crackdowns, however elaborately they may be disguised, are not a
response that may satisfy any conscientious human being.
We call upon our colleagues, all professional and scientific organizations, the Greek
society, the democratic parties, members of parliament, the media and all conscientious
fellow citizens, to react with all legitimate means against this escalating humanitarian crisis,
the violations of legality and the further erosion of whatever is still left of the welfare state in
our country.
Georgios Antonopoulos, Teesside University, UK
Stratos Georgoulas, University of the Aegean
Nikos Koulouris, Democritus University of Thrace
Grigoris Lazos, Panteion University, Greece
Georgios Papanicolaou, Teesside University, UK
Olga Themeli, University of Crete
Sophia Vidali, Democritus University of Thrace
Ireland
Lecture
Linda Moore can be heard speaking at the Rosemary Nelson Annual Memorial Lecture on the
case of Marian Price, Frances McKeown and other women prisoners in Northern Ireland. She
draws on research carried out with Phil Scraton and highlights the impact of solitary
confinement on the health of prisoners and discusses how detention conditions breach basic
human rights. See http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vtB0osOYS8&feature=youtu.be
Portugal
Conference
The School of Criminology of the Faculty of Law of the University of Porto is pleased to
announce the International Seminar on Criminal Prevention, Justice and Security, to be held in
Porto during the 11th and 12th April of 2013. The Seminar will be a forum for discussing the
relationships between justice, criminal policies and human rights, but also juvenile delinquency
and urban safety at the international level: research experiences from Spain, Belgium, France
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
and Portugal will stimulate the debate and roundtables on the subjects considered. All those
interested must register through escolacr@direito.up.pt.
Fee: for one-day attendance: €30 for regular or €25 for students; for two-day attendance: €50
for regular or €40 for students.
Spain
News
The deliberate sinking of a ship carrying migrants by Spanish border control: (from Statewatch)
Following the release on 11 March 2013 of a shocking video on the Spanish radio station
Cadena Ser's website that shows a patrol boat striking and sinking a dinghy that carried 25
migrants on 13 December 2012 while it was pursuing it, the Spanish and international
organisations Andalucía Acoge, Asociación Pro-Derechos Humanos de Andalucía (APDHA),
Boats4People, Asociación Elin and the Federación estatal de SOS Racismo issued a press
statement in which they noted that the video belies previous official versions of the incident
and that the interior ministry is "responsible for the death and disappearance of eight people in
the
waters
off
the
Canary
Islands'
coast".
See:
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2013/mar/06spain-when-border-controls-kill.htm
United Kingdom
News and analysis
The UK Home Secretary, Theresa May, has announced that the United Kingdom Border
Agency is to be placed under the control of the Home Office. The announcement follows the
publication of a highly critical report of the agency by the Home Affairs Select Committee See:
http://www.medicaljustice.org.uk/images/stories/reports/ukbaresponsehascmarch2013.pdf
Reports/Statistics
The House of Commons Justice Committee has just published a report on the use of physical
restraint against vulnerable children in the UK. It reveals that 8,419 incidents of physical
restraint were recorded in 2011/12, up 17% on the previous year. See:
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201213/cmselect/cmjust/339/33902.htm
Prisons ill-equipped to manage the growing challenge of older inmates with dementia. New
report Losing Track of Time is based on research from prisons around the world dealing with
the challenges of an ageing prison population. See:
http://www.mentalhealth.org.uk/content/assets/PDF/publications/losing-track-of-timepdf?view=Standard
In 2011 Revolving Doors Agency was commissioned to undertake research to extract learning
and increase understanding of the dynamic between common mental health problems, social
exclusion and offending through first-hand accounts. See: http://www.revolvingdoors.org.uk/documents/hope-inside/
Conferences, seminars and lectures
Tommy McKearney (ex-IRA/Hunger Striker and leader of the Ex-Prisoners’ Assistance
Committee, Ireland) will be speaking at Solent University, Southampton on 10 April at 2pm in
the Sir James Matthews’ Building – all welcome!
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies will be hosting a seminar entitled Whose future is it
anyway? on Tuesday 16th April 213. Professor Danny Dorling and Dr Judith Watson will
discuss young people's life chances in the UK. This lunch time event (11.30 - 1.30pm) will be
an opportunity to examine the data and share ideas about practical solutions to the postcode
lottery for young people. It's free to attend but places are limited.
The University of Durham will host a seminar entitled Criminalising Extreme Pornography:
5 Years On on 8th May 2013, 14:00 to 17:30, Hogan Lovells Lecture Theatre. 5 years on from
the passing of legislation to criminalise the possession of extreme pornography, this seminar
will examine the effect of the 2008 Act. It will bring together academics, activists, policymakers and other regulatory authorities to evaluate the success or failure of the legislation and
to ask what, if any, reforms are necessary to secure progress toward this objective. Registration
opens at 1.30pm. Presentations will begin at 2pm and end at 5.30pm. The event is free, but
registration is required and places are limited. To book a place, please contact
law.events@dur.ac.uk. Contact n.j.evans@durham.ac.uk for more information about this
event.
How Corrupt is Britain?’ The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and the University Of
Liverpool School Of Law and Social Justice have jointly organized a conference on Friday 10th
May 2013. There will be an evening showing of the film `Who Polices the Police?' by Ken
Fero. For more details see: http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/hcib.html
Call for Papers
Keble College, Oxford, will host an international two-day conference entitled ‘A Liberal Tide:
Towards a Paradigm Shift in Latin American Migration and Asylum What is
Justice? Re-imagining penal policy’ from 1-2nd October 2013. This conference forms part
of the symposium What is Justice? Re-imagining penal policy. The symposium is charged with
generating intellectual debate that can act as a springboard to contest the conventional role of
the penal system, ultimately promoting a new, achievable paradigm that will deliver a reduced
role for the penal system while maintaining public confidence, fewer victims of crime and safer
communities.
The Howard League for Penal Reform is looking for papers and posters from academics,
policy makers, practitioners, PhD students and researchers from within the criminological and
legal disciplines. We are also keen to include contributions from those working within the fields
of philosophy, geography, political science and economics. We will consider theoretical, policy
and practice-based contributions on a wide range of issues that encompass the broad theme of
What is justice? as well as papers on the themes of: local justice and participation; social
justice,
human
rights
and
penal
policy;
the
role
of
the
state.
Proposals should be titled clearly and should not exceed 250 words. Please include the
proposer’s name and contact details along with their job title or role. Please submit abstracts
via email to: Eleanor.Biggin-Lamming@howardleague.org by 20th May 2013.
Job Opportunities
Liverpool John Moores University are advertising for a Professor and a Lecturer to join
Criminology in the School of Humanities and Social Science at LJMU. Closing date 8th April.
CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …
See:
https://jobs.ljmu.ac.uk/intranet/wd_portal.list?p_web_site_id=4005&p_function=map&p_titl
e=Current+vacancies
USA
Media:
A powerful account of one prisoner’s experience in solitary confinement in a maximum
security prison in New York State is available to read here:
http://solitarywatch.com/2013/03/11/voices-from-solitary-a-sentence-worse-than-death/
Temple University's Heather Ann Thompson talking about the history and legacy of mass
incarceration in the U.S. on Radio Times, WHYY
http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/2013/02/27/the-history-and-legacy-of-mass-incarceration-inthe-u-s/
A BIG THANKS to all the European Group
members for making this newsletter successful..
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CELEBRATING 40 YEARS …