EUROPEAN GROUP FOR THE STUDY OF
DEVIANCE AND SOCIAL CONTROL
ESTABLISHED 1973
Coordinator: Emma Bell
Secretary: Monish Bhatia
THE EUROPEAN GROUP REMEMBERS ALL THOSE MIGRANTS WHO LOST THEIR LIVES
IN THE LAMPEDUSA BOAT TRAGEDY AND ALL THOSE WHO HAVE DIED WHILST
TRYING TO CROSS ‘BORDERS’. IT LENDS ITS SUPPORT TO THOSE WHO HAVE
SURVIVED THE TREACHEROUS JOURNEY
AUTUMN NEWSLETTER I
Website Administrator: Kirsty Ellis
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. European Group
42nd Conference
II. Celebrating
Barbara Hudson
Call for Papers
Rehumanising the Other and the meaning of
justice: David Scott writes on the contribution of
Barbara Hudson
Condolences from Group members
III. Comment and
Analysis
Critical criminology, power and systemic conflicts:
Vincenzo Ruggiero highlights the continued relevance
of critical criminology today
IV. European Group
News
Anthology
Publications by Group members
Call for papers
Working Groups
British/Irish section conference
New national Representative
Future conferences
V. News from Europe
and Around the
World
Australia
Cyprus
Europe
France
Portugal
Sweden
UK
USA
TENTS
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
I. European Group Conference
Resisting the demonisation of ‘the Other’:
State, nationalism and social control in a time of crisis
42nd Annual Conference of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control
3rd - 6th September, 2014
Liverpool
United Kingdom
CALL FOR PAPERS
Six years into the financial crisis that began to unfold in 2008, we have witnessed a renewed
politics of ‘the Other’. Processes of exclusion have intensified due to the onslaught of
ruthless welfare reforms, mass unemployment and enforced poverty. The increasing evidence
of hostility towards people considered as ‘the Other’ is further evidenced by the mobilisation
of the far right across Europe. Meanwhile, activists and anti-capitalists are increasingly
targeted for criminalisation and placed under surveillance. Systems of social control –
including both formal mechanisms such as policing and prisons and informal mechanisms,
such as those organised by voluntary organisations – are in a period of perpetual crisis: as
punitive responses intensify, the poor and the unemployed are responsibilised for their own
poverty. Anti-immigration policies, housing repossessions, and forced debt repayment have
revealed new forms of state violence and have intensified processes of othering and
exclusion. At the same time, the crisis has strengthened institutional practices widening class,
gender, age and racialised inequalities whilst the impunity of powerful elites is sustained.
This conference calls for papers exploring the demonisation of ‘the Other’ in our time
of economic, political and social crises. How can we most effectively challenge the growing
reach of social control apparatus and the rise of right wing extremism in Europe and beyond?
What are the factors contributing to growing social and economic inequalities and their
collateral consequences? How can we best promote principles of social justice, tolerance and
social inclusion in times of crisis? How can academics most effectively make connections
with grass roots resistance movements? What alternative values, principles and policies
should be promoted? We particularly welcome papers focussing upon 'race', especially
regarding the intersections between racism, sexism, classism and national identity and papers
exploring the relationship between imperialism, sovereignty and processes of Othering. We
are also keen to invite activist groups and social movements to present and participate in this
conference.
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
We welcome papers on the themes below which reflect the general values and principles of
the European Group.
Processes of Othering

Contact: Vicky Canning
Email: V.Canning@ljmu.ac.uk

Social control in a time of
crisis
Contact: Vickie Cooper
Email:
V.F.Cooper@ljmu.ac.uk
Sovereignty, imperialism,
nationalism and racism
Contact: Giles Barrett
Email:
G.A.Barrett@ljmu.ac.uk
The harms of neoliberal
capitalism
Contact: David Scott
Email: D.G.Scott@ljmu.ac.uk
Exclusion, marginalisation
and criminalisation
Contact: Helen Monk
Email: H.L.Monk@ljmu.ac.uk



























Fortress Europe and the reinforcement of
immigration controls
The persecution and exclusion of minority
groups
The rise of the far right in Europe and beyond
Immigration and the ‘war on terror’
The ‘other’ in divided societies
Welfare and social control
Policing and the crisis
Prisons in the age of austerity
Surveillance technologies and CCTV
Decarceration and abolitionist critiques
Futures of social control
Volunteers and the managerial state
Racism and the State
The return of imperialism
The meaning of sovereignty
Explorations of the neo-colonial / post-colonial
condition
Sectarianism
The different manifestations of nationalism
(from racism to welfare nationalism)
The social and environmental consequences of
capitalism and consumerism
The harms of the powerful
State violence
The responsibilisation of the powerless
The demonisation and punishment of children
and young people
The criminalisation of poverty
Gendered critiques of the application of
criminal law and criminal /social policy
Gendered violence
Violence against women
Identity, diversity and criminalisation
The regulation of ‘sexuality’
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
Resistance and radical
alternatives


Contact: Jim Hollinshead
Email:
J.M.Hollinshead@ljmu.ac.uk



Moving beyond criminology towards a social
harm approach to deviance
Radical alternatives and struggles for social
justice
Universities and local activism
The othering of radical activism
Resistance and the view from below
Further information on the 42nd annual conference may be found at
http://www.europeangroup.org. Please submit all abstracts by 30 April 2014 to the email
contact provided under the stream you wish to present at. For all general enquiries please
contact Anne Hayes at EGC2014@ljmu.ac.uk.
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
II. Celebrating Barbara Hudson
Rehumanising the Other and the meaning of justice: David Scott writes on the
contribution of Barbara Hudson
Barbara Hudson died on the 9th September 2013. A longstanding member of the European
Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control she not only cherished, but lived, its
principles and values. She was a PhD student of Stanley Cohen in the early 1980s and his
work inspired her to write on a number of topics, such as social control, the sociology of
punishment and penal abolitionism (1984, 1997a, 1997b, 2002a). Ultimately though the
leitmotiv running through her life work was an exploration of the meaning of justice: the
failure of punishment and criminal processes to deliver justice (1987, 1993a, 1996, 1996b,
1999, 2000a); the importance of doing justice to difference / diversity in structurally unequal
societies (1993b, 1998a, 2000b, 2006a, 2007b); the foundations and practices of ‘restorative
justice’ (1998b, 2002c, 2003a, 2003b) and, in more recent times, developing and applying the
idea of ‘cosmopolitan justice’ (2007a, 2009a, 2011, 2012). An internationalist and socialist
who felt passionately about Europe and the need for strong commitments to human rights and
social justice, her most well-known books are Justice Through Punishment (1987); Penal
Policy and Social Justice (1993a); Understanding Justice (1996, 2003b); and, what many
consider to be her magnum opus, Justice in the Risk Society (2003a).
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
Known for her integrity and scholarship, Barbara Hudson was an innovative and groundbreaking thinker who, by drawing upon moral and political philosophy and legal
jurisprudence alongside sociological, criminological and penological studies, opened up new
avenues for critical analysis. She was a proud representative of the tradition known as
‘critical criminology’ and her own contributions brought into sharp relief the close
relationships between penalisation and social inequalities. Throughout her body of work she
placed human beings at the centre of her analysis and constantly challenged the
demonisation, dehumanisation and monstering of the ‘Other’. Alongside critiques of
injustice and inhumanity and charting contemporary threats to justice, her work was also
characterised by the endeavour to present a modernist normative framework that could both
protect and promote justice, reflecting our common humanity. Indeed, it was her dual
emphasis on both the need for the deconstruction of existing capitalist, patriarchal and neocolonial structural inequalities and the in-depth exploration of possibilities of reconstruction
that made her one of the most important criminological thinkers of our time.
The failure of punishment to deliver justice
Barbara Hudson took the principled stance that punishment can never lead to justice. In her
first book, Justice Through Punishment (1987),1 she critically explored one of the most
influential attempts to couple together ‘punishment and justice’: just deserts. Arising out of
the ashes of the discredited rehabilitative ideal and the failings of indeterminate sentences, the
‘justice as deserts’ movement placed legal rights, proportionality, transparency and due
process at the heart of its penal philosophy. Claiming to provide a more humane, fair and less
oppressive justification of imprisonment, just deserts returned to a focus upon ‘crimes’ rather
than criminals in the hope that by removing sentencers’ discretion unjust decisions based
upon ‘non-legal factors’ such as ‘race’, gender, age and employment status would be
eradicated. Predicated on the assumption that all are equal under the law, the justice model
reflected a retributive logic that justice would be done if law breakers were punished exactly
according to what they deserved.
Barbara Hudson identified that in reality ‘just deserts’ was neither fair nor humane, failing
both in philosophy and practice. Philosophically the ideals of justice deserts were
compromised in two ways. First, they failed to adequately take account of existing structural
divisions, inequitable power relations, and social injustices. Indeed, to talk of dishing out
desert exclusively through the criminal law in contemporary societies is nothing but
hogwash. To be sure, where rewards are unevenly distributed in society so inevitably are
obligations and responsibilities. Rather than deliver justice, ‘just deserts’ simply renders
invisible the very real human costs of economic and social inequalities. As discretion and
discriminatory stereotyping continue to operate across the criminal process, just deserts
‘freezes in’ (1987: 114) rather than ‘magically eliminates’ injustice. Second, through its focus
on the act of ‘crime’ just deserts became a ‘dehumanising ideology’ (1987:166) leading to
abstractions, reification and inadequate reflections of humanity. Given the complexity and
diversity of human life a more holistic analysis was clearly required. Philosophically just
deserts left criminology ‘in danger of losing its humanity’ (1987: 62). Instead of looking at
human life as an abstraction, criminologists should focus upon individual lived experiences
within their given social, economic and political contexts.
1
As all references cited refer to the writings of Barbara Hudson, throughout the paper I refer to the year / page
only of her publications rather than providing both surname and year / page as is normal academic convention.
Full details of all references can be found in the bibliography.
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
In practice, rather than reducing penal severity and delivering just and non-discriminatory
penalties, ‘just deserts’ actually made things worse. Prisoner populations increased and what
is more, harsh penal systems used the just deserts sentencing guidelines to rationalise existing
punitiveness. In short, just deserts became a tool to justify the neglect of the poor whose
difficulties in life could now be passed off as criminality. The ideals of just deserts thus
dovetailed with the ideology of the new right where punishment not welfare is presented as
the answer.
Far from bringing about a new regard for defendants’ rights,
restricting the powers of correctional personnel over offenders’ lives,
and returning to a more modest, minimalist role for the state’s
coercive apparatus, the justice model has provided ideological
legitimation for the new rights policy of incarcerating more people,
for longer periods, in the name of public protection. (1987: 93)
For Barbara Hudson there could be no legal justice in a socially unjust society. In the context
of what Stuart Hall refers to as ‘authoritarian populism’ and the rise of the ‘law and order
society’ the State washes its hands of genuinely helping the socially disadvantaged – as it
now seeks legitimacy via controlling and ‘punishing the poor’ (2000a). Especially in times of
economic crisis, the ‘crimes of the poor’ are presented as a threat to social order. Indeed,
such a strategy of blaming the poor for their poverty and associated difficulties was essential:
anything other than their inherent criminality and individual pathology might lead to
questions being asked as to why the economically powerful did not do more help ease their
predicament. Drawing upon the notion of the ‘authoritarian state’ as articulated in the
writings of Phil Scraton and Joe Sim, Barbara Hudson argued that criminalisation and
penalisation, not welfare, care and assistance, were now the order of the day. In Penal
Policy and Social Justice she explained:
Excessive policing of deprived urban areas is not the result of concern
for their inhabitants … This inconsistency can be understood in terms
of the (establishment’s) necessity to create and sustain a public
mythology of black and poor crime, to justify neglect in social policy
and provision. There is a necessity for a received ideology of
fecklessness and instability, rather than recognition of structural
unemployment, flight of capital as the reason for worklessness, and
the necessity for an ideology of lawlessness rather than racism as the
problem of the ghetto. Mythologising poor, and especially poor
black, criminality is revealed as a necessity not just of contemporary
racism, but as a necessity for the survival of contemporary laissezfaire conservatism. Periodic police crackdowns provide an image of
concerned state responses to the troubles of the inner city; they
provide an image of the state doing something vigorous about crime,
whilst at the time they provide a dramatic imagery of criminality as
characteristic of the urban ghetto. (1993a:85)
The criminal process was one way in which poverty could be managed and this became a key
strategy following the embracement of neo-liberalism in the late 1970s. Indeed, “a map
showing the new prisons looks very much like a map of closed coal-mines” (2003a:64). The
penal apparatus of the capitalist state was in fact a ‘subsystem’ aiming to control and regulate
the poor and other risk posers. She was concerned about the extent of risk blaming in
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
modern societies which scapegoated and individualised responsibility for risky behaviour.
Undoubtedly the targets of ‘risk control’ policies are disproportionately the most
disadvantaged people in society. Though the rich and powerful are ‘overprotected and
undercontrolled’ the poor are ‘overcontrolled and underprotected’ (1993a:72). Drawing
inspiration from Jeffrey Reiman, Barbara Hudson argued that whereas the rich were largely
filtered out of criminal processes, with treatment and counselling considered the most
appropriate response to their problematic conduct, the poor – well, ‘the poor get
prison’(1997: 137).
But how did this all come about? Why was there so much concentration on acts of the
powerless and neglect of the harms of the powerful, and why was the bias within the criminal
process so taken for granted by the general public? In part the answer lay with the social
construction of ‘crime’. Barbara Hudson argued that there was a distinction between ‘serious
crimes’ and ‘crimes which are taken seriously’ (1987:126). Seriousness of a given behaviour
is open to negotiation. Both definitions of seriousness and enforcement of laws reflected not
only familiarity - that is, acts that we can easily understand and identify as problematic - but
also stereotypes about the perpetrator and victim. It is not just what you do, but who you are,
and how closely you conform to stereotypes of respectability or un-respectability. Those
people who belong to certain social groupings (labelled as high risk with low respectability)
are most likely to come under police suspicion and surveillance. Stereotypes, group
characteristics and ‘class bound definitions of harm’ lead to constructions of particular
individuals as ‘threats’, ‘dangers’ and ‘risks’ to the existing social order. The poor are not
more criminogenic than the middle classes but their ‘crimes’ are taken more seriously by law
enforcers (1987). Subsequently it is the poor who are distanced, Othered, criminalised and
then penalised. It is the poor who are subject to ‘categorical suspicion’: people regarded as
criminal not because of what they have done ‘but because of the groups to which they
belong’ (2003a:61).
The ‘high risk’ posers to be ‘controlled’ by the penal law include ‘addicts’ and substance
users; the homeless and people living in the ‘sink estates’; people with previous criminal
records such as persistent and prolific young offenders; unemployed people and those on
benefits; and those who have experienced failure in relationships, educational settings and /
or within their families. Barbara Hudson argued that social deprivation can be multi-faceted
and high risk posers in different categories may well be ‘the same people’ (1993a, 2003a).
Through focus on aggregates and risk classifications we lose sight of the difficulties and
troubles people face; the harms and traumas they have experienced; their impoverished social
backgrounds and their impoverished future life chances. The targeting of ‘incorrigible’ and
‘undeserving’ poor sharing such ‘categorical characteristics’ may or may not deliver
increased security and safety for the rich but it definitely does lead to ‘exclusion by
stereotypes’ (2003a: 69). Through such Othering processes we inevitably also start to lose
sight of their common humanity.
Neither risk aggregates, with their focus on categories of people, nor ‘just deserts’, with its
focus on the criminal act, can lead us down a path going anywhere near justice. Just deserts
arose as a response to the failure of the rehabilitative ideal in prison. As a consequence the
idea of rehabilitation was rejected and new attempts were made to justify penal incarceration.
In Justice Through Punishment (1987) Barbara Hudson argued that the advocates of ‘just
deserts’ had got things the wrong way round. We should actually focus on the problem of the
prison and the possibilities of un-coerced rehabilitation. Rehabilitation can never work in the
punitive context, but it could be proposed as one possible alternative to imprisonment. In
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
both Penal Policy and Social Justice (1993a) and Understanding Justice (1996, 2003b) the
potential of State obligated rehabilitation is presented as an ‘idea whose time has come’.
Justice Through Punishment (1987) challenges the idea that prison should be assumed as the
normal or natural response to ‘run-of-the-mill crimes’. The dehumanising context of
imprisonment inevitably subverts humanitarian interventions and we must always be on
guard against quick fix policy suggestions. Not only will they fail, but they may make the
prison look like a more attractive option and ease the conscience of the judge or magistrate to
pass a prison sentence. But Barbara Hudson went much further than simply suggesting an
abolitionist critique of the limits of penal reform: the abolitionist approach was absolutely
essential if we were to radically reduce our reliance upon the penal machine. Humanitarian
reformers generally hope that prisons will become safer and more humane institutions and
that less people will be incarcerated. Unfortunately on many occasions the proposals of
reductionists, moderates, minimalists and humanitarian reformers are co-opted and used to
further strengthen the legitimacy of the prison and fuel penal expansion.
For abolitionists, however, prison has no moral value; it must always be used as the exception
rather than the norm; and its use must always be restricted (1987:183). Only abolitionism can
fundamentally challenge both classification and sequestration and ‘pose questions that that
cannot be answered by more or better prisons’. It is only abolitionists who consistently
recognise prisons’ inherent iatrogenesis, challenge the taken-for-granted assumptions and
logic of penal incarceration, and propose radical alternatives in place of prison. Only
abolitionism consistently critiques prison from a principled position in the knowledge that it
cannot be subsequently manipulated and co-opted by penal authorities.
Abolitionist strategies are the only way to ensure that prison becomes
the exceptionally severe penalty for exceptionally serious crime, that
it becomes residual, that it is reserved for ‘those few from whom
society can be protected in no other way’. Wherever policy draws the
prison / non-prison line, only protection of the line by abolitionism
can ensure that it is held. (1993a: 152)
Abolitionists generally call for the closure of prisons (or at the very least a heavily reduced
maximum capacity) before alternatives are introduced in the community. It is only when
prisons are being closed down that we have hope of radical reduction in penal incarceration
without encountering the equally problematic issue of ‘net widening’. Only when people
have been decarcerated and are back in mainstream society can we be sure that ‘alternatives
to custody’ are really being deployed as such (1984).
Barbara Hudson also adopted an abolitionist perspective when looking at the relationship
between justice and the law (2003a), punishment (1993a, 2003b) and a number of other forms
of state detention, such as mental health asylums (1993a) and immigration removal centres
(2011, 2012, 2013). She argued that there will always be a gap between law and justice
(2003a). Justice is aspirational and shaped by equal respect and non-hierarchal relationships
whereas law is characterised by hierarchies of power, inflexible rules and violence. In Justice
in the Risk Society the violence of law, both threatened and actual, is exposed and laid bare.
Prisoners conform to rules; immigration detainees obey orders; and mental health patients
acquiesce to the psychiatric authority because they know if they do not then violence
legitimated by, and sanctioned in the name of, the law awaits them. Law in practice is not
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
justice but oppression. Consequently its colonisation of the life world should be checked and
its expansion resisted (2003a).
The essence of punishment for Barbara Hudson was ‘deterrence, retribution and
incapacitation’ (2003b). She argued that prison abolitionism could only be successful if the
right to punish was questioned and restricted. Alongside asking the question ‘Why Prison?’
we should then also ask the question ‘Why Punish?’ In Understanding Justice (1996, 2003b)
the sociological and philosophical underpinnings of punishment are scrutinised. In Penal
Policy and Social Justice she reiterated her commitment to penal abolitionism, arguing that
we must insist that the penal rationale is problematic if we are to achieve a radical reduction
in prison populations without actualising what Michel Foucault called the ‘carceral
archipelago’.
Thinking about penal reform without thinking about punishment,
then, leads to muddle and ambiguity, and leaves any apparent
progress prone to unintended but predictable consequences of either
strengthening segregative institutions or extending segregative traits
in supposedly non-carceral sanctions. (1993a:182)
There could be no moral legitimacy for pain delivery. Punishment is a tragedy and its
justifications a farce. Pain delivery was a sign of failure – a reflection of injustice. For
Barbara Hudson penal abolitionism was an ‘ideal theory’ (1993a) that provided an invaluable
lens and framework for looking rationally at human misconduct, but she did not completely
rule out the application of the penal law:
Punishment, rather than non-punitive responses, needs to be justified
in [each] actual case … Punishment should be treated as a scarce
resource. We need to ration punishment. (1993a: 188)
We should not forget that pain infliction is directed against the human being rather than the
wrong perpetrated and that ‘punishment cannot thus be a synonym for justice’ (2003b: 186).
To follow Barbara Hudson we must chart a course that can strike a balance between
consequentialism and deontological approaches to punishment, but crucially it must always
be one which is firmly grounded in penal abolitionism.
Doing justice to difference
Difference and diversity were central to Barbara Hudson’s work. As detailed above,
important differences existed between people because of social and material inequalities, but
irrespective of these structural fault lines human lives would always be diverse. Humans
were not one-dimensional but unique, complex beings. Difference was inevitable.
We cannot, therefore, expect ever to be able to avoid dilemmas of
difference: difference in levels of capacity, difference in opportunities
to acquire possessions, excitement, status or mere survival in noncriminal ways, and therefore differences in levels of obligations,
differences in appropriate responses to law-breaking. (1993a:194)
Barbara Hudson explored differences around class, ‘race’ and gender (1993a, 1993b, 2000a,
2006a, 2007b). Through ‘asking the woman question’ feminists revealed that certain laws,
values, ideas and principles that are presented as gender neutral are actually grounded in
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
masculinist assumptions. For some feminists, such as Carol Gilligan, the abstract and
universalistic reasoning of ‘justice’ should be exposed as being a profoundly masculine form
of logic. Feminine logic is relational, situational and interested in solving problems and
promoting an ‘ethic of care’. Rather than focus on ‘equality before a universal law’,
feminists recognise that human subjects are not ‘unencumbered selves’ but instead each one
of us has an individualised biography shaped by contexts and contingencies (2003a). All
human beings have a socially ‘situated self’. In other words, though never fully constituted
by our life worlds, we all have different subjectivities reflecting our specific social
backgrounds and lived experiences. Thus there is ‘no single voice of all human kind’
(2003a) and to be treated the same is not equivalent to being treated equally. For Barbara
Hudson ‘to do justice, we need to be alert not just to disparities arising from the unlike
treatment of sameness, but also to discrimination in the like treatment of difference’
(1993a:194). What is required then is a reconstruction of ‘equality and justice which can
accommodate difference’ (2003a:111). This normative framework must recognise the fluidity
and contingency of categorisations; demonstrate a willingness to pay attention to the voices
of ‘concrete others’; and acknowledge that each voice comes from a specifically situated
position, standpoint or worldview rather than a generalised and abstract universalism.
Such a focus on human context inevitably highlights the dual problems discussed earlier of
(1) the abstraction and reification of law and (2) the differences generated by social
inequalities such as racism and sexism. Barbara Hudson’s extensive writings on ‘race’ and
racism also illustrate these points point well (1993b, 1998b, 2006a, 2005 with Bramhall).
Drawing upon the insights of Paul Gilroy, she identified that rather than being neutral the law
reflected existing discriminatory power relations: the presuppositions of law were male, white
and middle class and reflected their material and property interests. Given the extent of
human diversity and that we are not all the same, genuine equality for all was impossible
under ‘white man’s law’ (2006a). ‘White man’s law’ failed to adequately protect Black and
Minority Ethnic groups and migrant populations and led to the sometimes blatantly
discriminatory enforcement of law - for example in the construction of ‘Asianess’ in
probation reports in Lancashire (2005, with Bramhall). Most pertinently she identified the
problem of ‘accumulative racial discrimination’ and the vulnerability of black offenders to
sentences of penal custody.
As well as influencing prosecutors, race has been found to affect the
way the case is put in court, the strength of the evidence presented,
the credibility accorded to defendants, complainants and witnesses.
Whites are more often believed than blacks, and white victims’
misfortunes are treated as more worthy of concern – and therefore the
offenders more deserving of severe penalties – than those of black
victims. (1987: 105)
For Barbara Hudson we have a choice in terms of how we respond to human troubles: welfare
or punishment. However, the two do not have to be distinct: penal policy is as a form of
public policy and the goal of public policy must always be to work towards human welfare
and social justice. ‘A straw is just a straw, but penal policy ought to ensure it is removing
straws from the camel’s back of inequality rather than adding to them’ (1993a:15).
Penal policies focus on people with poor risk profiles, especially regarding property offences.
These people are often the very same people who have the greatest social disadvantages and
individual need. Barbara Hudson argued that rather than the current presumption of
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
imprisonment, criminalised impoverished and disadvantaged risk posers should, except when
they had perpetrated the most serious of offences, have a presumption of a non-custodial
sanction. Punishing acts the same actually ‘means punishing people differently’ (1998c,
1999, 2000a). The extent a wrongdoer deserves to be punished must be linked to their
culpability, individual responsibility and levels of blameworthiness. The consequences of
law do not have equality of impact or provide equal justice in unequal societies. Where an
individual’s social situation may not only leave them more vulnerable to offending but also,
whatever their behaviour, more vulnerable to criminalisation, their culpability must be
evaluated. Punishment sends a moral message that conveys blame, but obligations to obey
‘white middle class man’s law’ are not something possessed equally by all. In a materially
unequal society we do not all have the same life opportunities or attachments. A person’s
choices are constrained by their socially situated set of lived circumstances. ‘That individuals
have choices is a basic legal assumption; that circumstances constrain choices is not’
(1993a:195). Poor offenders will have less attachment to society and ‘it may be that their
attitudes and beliefs about crime, and its likely costs and benefits, are different’ (2003b:21).
There may well be ‘degrees of human wickedness’ (1999) and if this is the case then we must
ask if the wrath of the law should fall with the same weight upon the heads of all offenders?
Social inequalities are central to considerations of blame, culpability and responsibility and
consequently in the allocation of benefits or pains. Barbara Hudson inverted current legal
logic arguing that those people with the least favourable social characteristics should be
treated the most leniently. She identified three ways in which penal policy could potentially
facilitate this: ‘feasibility considerations’ in sentencing, ‘selective abolitionism’ and the
‘hardship defence’. Almost like a death by a thousand cuts, the accumulative effect of these
three interventions would be to slowly strip away the defences of the penal rationale.
First, many of the risk posers sentenced by the courts have little chances of completing the
conditions imposed. Indeed, the criminal process simply creates new hurdles for offenders to
fall over. Under the ‘feasibility consideration’ (1993a:154) a sentence could only be imposed
if it is clear that the person can comply with the criteria demanded. Second, prisons are filled
to the brim with humans who have experienced great social hardship, something which the
government of the United Kingdom acknowledged in the 2002 Social Exclusion Unit report
on reoffending. ‘Selective abolitionism’ looks to remove people with vulnerabilities from
custody and in Penal Policy and Social Justice Barbara Hudson presented such a case for
women lawbreakers and people with mental health problems (1993a).
Third, people experiencing medical, emotional and financial difficulties could be considered
to have ‘low culpability’. Those who offend due to economic or other necessity could be
given a ‘hardship defence’ leading to more lenient sentences. She called this ‘categorical
leniency’: ‘in other words there should be lower tariffs for those offences which typically
have high rates of participation by the poor and disadvantaged’ (1993a:82). Counselling,
therapy, rehabilitation and other means of aid should be forthcoming with punishment kept to
a minimum.
Punishment may be available in theory for all cases, but should not be
inflicted in every case, only in cases where the offender has an
effective share of social benefits, and an effective freedom of choice.
(1993a: 198)
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
Yet Barbara Hudson also raised important concerns regarding ‘selective abolitionism’ and the
‘differential sentencing’ of offenders. For her it ultimately made much more sense to stop
sending people to prison in the first instance rather than looking for criteria of ‘vulnerability’
to remove people from prison. Selective abolitionism has some policy advantages and
political plausibility in our punitive times, but it must always be underscored by a broader
abolitionist strategy in which prison is the exception for all offenders irrespective of their
vulnerabilities. In terms of hardship defences and pleas for mitigation, some pleas based on
an offender’s background may lead to lesser sentences, but the end result is not always just.
Here she problematised the creation of the ‘sympathetic self’, where offenders can be
categorised as either ‘deserving or undeserving’ (1998c: 206). The danger was that such a
strategy could be predicated on the empathetic construction of the offender rather than
recognition of their common humanity.
Promoting and defending justice
Though Barbara Hudson talked about ‘doing justice to difference’ she never rejected the idea
that genuine equality and equal respect were fundamental to justice. Other people should
always be regarded as our equals and we should avoid constructing false hierarchies that
either superficially raise an individual’s sense of importance or degrade another human.
Always suspicious of power, she called for the need to guard against dominance and to find
the right balance between competing demands. Majorities should not be allowed to dominate
but to negotiate and hear the voice of minorities with equanimity. They must also be
prepared to interrogate their own values and assumptions.
Equality will be complex but we must somehow find a way in which it can encompass the
diversity of human subjectivities. Rather than abandon reason, Barbara Hudson looked for a
modernist and rationalist foundation for justice; rather than dogma she looked for reflexivity
and the promotion of freedom and autonomy; rather than endorse one vision she called for us
to hear different voices; and rather than abandon universals she looked for a reconstructed
notion of universality that could be ‘sensitive to situational and structural contexts’. We must
have clear principles and values that aspire to universality but recognise that in certain
circumstances we should not follow them. Human relationships must be at the heart of
justice, for justice and injustice are more than processes: they are intimately tied to human
outcomes and lived realities (2003a).The key question for Barbara Hudson was not simply ‘is
this just?’ but also ‘who is granted justice and to whom is justice denied’?
Those who most lacked justice (and indeed also security) were the poor, powerless and
disadvantaged (2012). Too often their sufferings are neglected or marginalised; too often
their voice de-legitimated; and too often their claims to equal respect denied. Barbara
Hudson considered herself as ‘working on behalf of those on the downside of power
relations’ (1993:7) and looked to champion not only the recognition of the needs of the
powerless but our general ‘responsibility for the Other’. Taking inspiration from a range of
thinkers including Emmanuel Levinas, Jacque Derrida, Zygmunt Bauman, Seyla Benhabib
and Drucila Cornell, she drew attention to the ‘ethics of alterity [difference]’. This ‘ethics of
difference’ requires acknowledgement and respect towards people not like us.
… justice involves recognition of the likeness in the sense of shared
humanness, but not insistence on reduction or elimination of
differences, rather the respecting of differences. (2003b:190)
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
Justice as alterity demands that we meet the other without violence and this approach in
effect, I think, translates into love of the other. In terms of slogans, whilst equality, liberty
and fraternity still pertain we could perhaps articulate them today in terms of recognition and
respect for irreducible differences; freedom from dominance and oppression of the majority;
and solidarity with, and responsibility for, sufferers. In short, this is a not too far away from
the old (and academically old fashioned) socialist ideas of the love of humanity and social
justice. Indeed the personal ethical demands of ‘responsibility for the other’ would be
impossible without radical egalitarian transformations at a political level.
Justice is clearly not adhered to in patriarchal, hetero-normative, capitalist and neo-colonial
societies like the United Kingdom. Indeed justice is under threat. For Barbara
Hudson in our ‘risk society’ people are much more concerned about safety and security than
justice (2003a). Those who appear to threaten ‘the propertied white man’s’ security – be they
lawbreakers, ‘alien’ migrants or terror suspects – are placed beyond the realms of our
comprehension and compassion. Their needs are invisibilised and their claims to legal rights
ignored. For some – such as terror suspects – torture is considered permissible (2009a, 2011,
2012). Yet even in a ‘time of terror’ we still require justice and even the alleged ‘worst of the
worst’ need legal protections and human rights. Indeed no-one should be tortured ‘because
of the very fact that they are human’ (2009a). For Barbara Hudson human rights could act as
the basis for normative reconstruction of justice that could protect the Other in our disturbing
times.
Defending human rights … demands challenging the dehumanisation
of anyone. Whatever their crime, no person is devoid of humanity,
and labels such as ‘evil’, animal and super-predator which define
people entirely by their wrongdoing should be contested. The
universalism of human rights is a vital counter-discourse ... While the
content of human rights may be a minimalist core of overlapping
cross-cultural values, the reach of human rights could not be more
extensive: all persons, not just members of one’s own community, not
just members in good standing in any community, have rights that
each of us is morally obliged to uphold. (2003a:223)
In the last few years of her life Barbara Hudson became increasingly interested in an
approach known as ‘cosmopolitan justice’. Taking inspiration from the ‘perpetual peace’
essays of Immanuel Kant and Jacque Derrida’s notion of ‘hospitality’, she explored the
ethical dimensions of encounters with people conceived as radically different; people she
referred to as ‘outcasts’ and ‘strangers’. For Barbara Hudson our responsibilities to other
humans stretched way beyond our close family, friends and community to also include the
‘stranger’, ‘outcast’ and others not known to us directly or sharing similar characteristics or
social backgrounds.
For me, cosmopolitan justice … takes into account the outcast, the
impoverished, the homeless and stateless, the person without
possessions and without membership of a state or society.
Cosmopolitan justice responds to the powerless, the non-citizen, to
members of excluded and subordinate groups, to the deviant and the
different. (2011:119)
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
We must learn to accept differences, acknowledge the existence of the stranger, but also to
recognise what we share – common humanity. It is important that rather than focus on the
‘enemies within’ we should look to find new suitable friends. In a recent book chapter
entitled ‘all the people in all the world’ (2011) she considered the need for safety and
sanctuary for migrants and the asylum seekers, emphasising their right to be ‘met with nonviolence’. Deprived of both security and justice, she considered the migrant as especially
vulnerable to dehumanisation, monstering and State detention (2006a, 2012).
Far too often, in the real rather than the theoretical world, the
response to the presence of the stranger – the application for entry, the
beggar, the disorderly and disreputable – is to confine them, to
segregate them, or to exclude them altogether. Prisons, detention
centres, ghettoes and gated estates demonstrate the refusal of
hospitality and the desire to avoid encounters with strangers, rather
than to respond to their claims and needs. (2011:120)
Making links to the work of Giorgio Agamben and Mike Davis, she explored interconnections between strangers and outcasts – the poor, the migrant, the ‘worst of the worst’ –
through the metaphors of the ‘slum’ and the ‘camp’. The ‘camp’ was a place where law and
legal protections were suspended. They were ‘places of exception’ where raw power was
exercised and those confined reduced to ‘bare life’ (2011). Migrants have thus become our
contemporary ‘suspect community’ and the exemplars of social exclusion.
Barbara Hudson’s abolitionist instincts are also found in her work on cosmopolitan justice
(2011, 2012), though here it expands beyond critiques of the prison (1987) and mental health
asylums (1993) towards immigration removal centres and other forms of involuntary
detention. There is a clear recognition of the symbiotic relationship between sites of
confinement and the lived realities of those housed in ‘camps’ and ‘slums’. She focused
upon the problem of detention – whether justified in terms of medicine, pain delivery,
security or national interest – and continued to question the logic of the punitive rationale.
Aspirations of justice could only be realised through expressions of care, compassion, love
and understanding. Not pain. Never deliberate pain infliction.
Her desire to promote justice in a way that moved beyond the punitive rationale was also
expressed in her work on ‘restorative justice’. She was not naïve about the potential and
pitfalls of restorative justice (1984). She had learned from her PhD supervisor Stan Cohen
that interventions that may initially be presented as caring and benevolent can in practice turn
out to be as painful, if not more so, as existing penal sanctions and lead to a greater dispersal
of disciplinary controls. Non-custodial responses to wrongdoing must never follow the logic
that there must be a strengthening of community punishments or that such sanctions must
‘embody essential characteristics of incarceration’ (1984) to appear politically plausible.
Though abolitionism and restorative justice in practice have a rather ambiguous relationship,
the focus on placing the victim at the centre of analysis; providing a voice to all parties,
including the voice of the offender; downplaying or removing coercive solutions; placing
relationships at the heart of the response to a given problematic or troublesome act; focusing
on positive and constructive outcomes and emphasising fixing, compensating, repairing or
restoring balance, are all connected at least in part to themes raised by ‘European
abolitionists’, such as Nils Christie. Restorative justice in the abolitionist vision is grounded
in communication and openness. Following Jurgen Habermas, Barbara Hudson believed that
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
justice must have a discursive element that never allowed for a complete closure in terms of
setting the boundaries and meanings of justice (2003a). A focus on dialogue, discursiveness
and negotiation was central to the early abolitionist promotion of restorative justice, although
it somewhat disappeared in contemporary restorative justice practice. What restorative
justice still did though was to help draw attention to the ‘why punish?’ question. For her it
allowed space for the following question (2003a:29) to be raised: ‘Why punishment and not
reparation? Why is a stern lecture from a judge not sufficient?’
Yet restorative justice in reality was no rose garden. Barbara Hudson was concerned about
whether restorative justice was applicable for ‘serious’ crimes like racial and sexual violence
or could be considered as ‘second class justice’; whether solutions could be disproportionate
to the wrong undertaken; and that there were inadequate legal and procedural safeguards for
wrongdoers. Yet she remained positive about the potential of this intervention as a small step
towards justice.
For Barbara Hudson justice must always be aspirational: always ‘just out of reach’; ‘always
yet to be achieved’ (2003a). In Justice in the Risk Society she provides a tenuous definition
of the meaning of justice:
Justice must be:
Relational – it must take account of relationships between
individuals, groups and communities;
Discursive – it must allow claims and counter-claims, critiques and
defences of existing values to be weighed against each other in
undominated discourse;
Plurivocal – it must recognise and hear the different voices of the
plurality of identities and social groups that must have their claims
met and find ways of living together, in radically pluralist
contemporary societies;
Rights regarding – justice involves defending the rights of individuals
and of communities;
Reflective – justice must flow from consideration of the particulars of
the individual case rather than subsuming unique circumstances under
general categories.
(2003a:206)
A torch-bearer of justice
Barbara Hudson engaged with the most prescient issues of the day. Her writings on ‘just
deserts’ were produced at a time when the concept dominated both jurisprudence and penal
policy. Recognising its limitations, she was motivated to write Justice Through Punishment
because she was unable to find an appropriate book length treatise which critically engaged
with the concept. Her recent work also engaged with the key issues of our time – risk
consciousness and risk control; torture; hyper-incarceration; poverty; the detention of
migrants; the promotion of global injustice. At times she seemed to present a lone voice on
justice, and she felt that not only had the general public lost interest in justice, but perhaps
also her ‘fellow criminologists’ (2003a). Barbara Hudson looked for balance and was always
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
against domination, whether in wider society or the academy. For example, in the mid-1990s
she was concerned about the dominance of both the ‘masculinities’ thesis – primarily because
it led us back in effect to the old criminological focus on delinquent working class boys – and
the Foucauldian inspired governmentality perspective.
There was an openness in her writings and through her extraordinarily rich analysis she
destroyed the myth that critical criminology has nothing new to say. There was consistency in
her analysis and she is deservedly recognised as one of the most influential criminologists
and ‘European abolitionists’ in recent years. Though a confirmed atheist and humanist she
often described the ethos underscoring her work as ‘hate sin, but love the sinner’. Her
writings are characterised by not only scholarship and inter-disciplinary work but also
understandability – she aimed to communicate rather than bamboozle readers with academic
jargon. Her clarifications of complex and convoluted arguments made her work invaluable in
the elaboration and advancement of the critical criminology. As a result her writings were
accessible to a wide audience. This is perhaps nowhere more so than in her book
Understanding Justice (1996, 2003b). This book, read primarily by students, can also be
considered as exercise in public criminology, for it is often overlooked that students are
members of the public too. In Understanding Justice she influenced therefore not only the
curriculum in universities but also the views of literally tens of thousands of people.
Barbara Hudson was very proud of her intellectual heritage – Steven Box taught her at MA
Level; her PhD was supervised by Stan Cohen; and her PhD external examiner was Antony
Giddens. His first viva question for her was ‘what do you mean by truth?’ which perhaps
was appropriate for someone who had read philosophy before ‘anyone told [her] it was
difficult’. She was particularly well read in phenomenology, reading Jacque Derrida’s
Writing and Difference as early as the 1970s for example. Stan Cohen had told her that she
must ‘get those philosophical eagles off her shoulder’ when she was doing her PhD but that at
some point ‘they would come home to roost’. That this prediction proved accurate is evident
in scholarship found in her last single authored book Justice in the Risk Society (2003a). She
was also a ‘renaissance woman’ – well read in many different disciplines and schools of
thought, whether it be academia, science or literature. Indeed, one of favourite her discussion
areas concerned the differences between nuclear fusion and nuclear fission.
That Barbara Hudson took the values and principle of ‘cosmopolitan justice’ seriously could
be seen in how this philosophy influenced her non-hierarchical relationships with others and
her ability to relate to people from different social backgrounds, for she possessed not only a
remarkable intellect but also a wonderful sense of compassion and understanding for others.
Her non-hierarchical approach can perhaps be summed up by one illustrative example. The
day after appearing on a local Northwest TV programme she was very warmly welcomed by
the cleaners where she worked in the Harris Building, Lancashire law school. They were
both delighted and surprised in equal measure to have seen her on television the previous
evening for though they had known her for a number of years they had never realised that she
was a professor.
Barbara Hudson carried the torch of justice for some 30 years and in so doing not only lit up
critical criminology but also shed new light upon contemporary injustices and the meaning of
justice itself. It is now time, sadly, for new touch-bearers to journey down a path she
dedicated her life to illuminate.
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
References
Hudson, B.A. (1984) “The rising use of imprisonment: the impact of decarceration policies”
in Critical Social Policy Volume 11 pp 46-59
Hudson, B.A (1987) Justice Through Punishment London: Macmillan
Hudson, B.A. (1993a) Penal Policy and Social Justice London: Macmillan
Hudson, B.A. (1993b) “Racism and criminology: concepts and controversies” in Cook, D. &
Hudson, B.A. (eds) (1993) Racism and Criminology London: Sage
Hudson, B.A. (1996) Understanding Justice Buckingham: Open University Press
Hudson, B.A. (1997a) “Punishment or redress: Current themes in European Abolitionism” in
Maclean, B. & Milanovic, D. (eds) (1997) Thinking Critically About Crime
Hudson, B.A. (1997b) “Social Control” in Maguire, M., Morgan, R. and Reiner, R. (eds)
(1997) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (2nd Edition) Oxford: Oxford University
Press
Hudson, B.A. (1998a) ‘Doing Justice to Difference’, in A. Ashworth and M. Wasik (eds)
Fundamentals of Sentencing Theory. Oxford: Clarendon Press.
Hudson, B.A. (1998b) ‘Restorative Justice: The Challenge of Sexual and Racial Violence’,
Journal of Law and Society Volume25(2): 237–56
Hudson, B.A. (1998c) "Mitigation for socially deprived offenders" pp 205-208 in Von
Hirsch, A.& Ashworth, A. (eds) (1998)Principled Sentencing: Readings On Theory&
Policy [Second Edition] Oxford: Hart
Hudson, B.A. (1999) “Punishment, Poverty and Responsibility: The Case for a Hardship
Defence” in Social Legal Studies 1999, Volume 8 pp 583-91
Hudson, B.A. (2000a) ‘Punishing the Poor: Dilemmas of Justice and Difference’, in W.
Haffernan and J. Kleinig (eds) From Social Justice to Criminal Justice. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Hudson, B.A. (2000b) “Criminology, difference and justice” in Australian and New Zealand
Journal of Criminology Volume 33, No. 2, pp 168-82
Hudson, B.A. (2002a) “Punishment and Control” in Maguire, M., Morgan, R. and Reiner, R.
(eds) (2002) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (3rd Edition) Oxford: Oxford
University Press
Hudson, B.A. (2002b) “Gender issues in penal policy and penal theory” in Carlen, P. (ed)
(2002) Women and Punishment Devon: Willan
Hudson, B.A. (2002c) “Restorative Justice and Gendered Violence: Diversion or Effective
Justice?” in British Journal of Criminology (2002) Volume 42 (3): 616-634.
Hudson, B.A. (2003a) Justice in the Risk Society London: Sage
Hudson, B.A. (2003b) Understanding Justice [2nd edition] Buckingham: Open University
Press
Hudson, B.A. (2006a) “Beyond white man’s justice: race, gender and justice in late
modernity” in Theoretical Criminology Volume 10, No. 1 pp 29-47
Hudson, B.A. (2006b) “Punishing Monsters, Judging Aliens: Justice at the Borders of
Community” Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology Volume
Hudson, B.A. (2007a) “The rights of strangers: policies, theories and philosophies” in Lee,
M. (ed) Human Trafficking Devon: Willan
Hudson, B.A. (2007b) “Diversity, crime and criminal justice” in Maguire, M., Morgan, R.
and Reiner, R. (eds) (2007) The Oxford Handbook of Criminology (4thEdition) Oxford:
Oxford University Press
Hudson, B.A. (2008) “Re-imagining justice: principles for justice for divided societies in a
globalised world” in Carlen, P. (ed) (2008) Imaginary Penalties Devon: Willan
Hudson, B.A. (2009a) ‘Justice in a time of terror’ in British Journal of Criminology Volume
48, No 4, pp 702-17
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
Hudson, B.A. (2009b) “Security and the risky other: doing justice in a world of strangers” in
Hildebrandt, M., Makinwa, A .&Oehmichen, A. (eds) (2009) Controlling Security in a
Culture of Fear The Hague: Boom Legal Publishers
Hudson, B.A. (2011) “All the people in all the world: a cosmopolitan perspective on
migration and torture” in Baillet, C, &Franko-Aas, K. (eds)(2011) Cosmopolitan Justice
and its Discontents London: Routledge
Hudson, B.A. (2012) “Who needs justice? Who needs Security” in Hudson, B.A. &Ugelvik,
S. (eds) (2012) Justice and Security in the 21st Century London: Routledge
Hudson, B.A. (2013) “Key thinkers in criminology guest lecture”, unpublished lecture
delivered at University of Central Lancashire, March 2013
Hudson, B.A. and Bramhall, G. (2005) “Assessing the ‘Other’: constructions of ‘Asianness’
in risk assessments by probation officers” in British Journal of Criminology Volume 45,
No 5 pp 721-40
Author biography
David Scott completed his PhD under the supervision of Barbara Hudson and is a former
coordinator of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control. He is
currently senior lecturer in Criminology at Liverpool John Moores University. David has
published widely on prisons, punishment and critical criminology. Recent and forthcoming
books include Critique and Dissent; Beyond Criminal Justice; Prisons and Punishment: The
Essentials and Why Prison? He is currently completing a book entitled The Caretakers of
Punishment: Power , Legitimacy and the Prison Officer.
Email: d.g.scott@ljmu.ac.uk
Condolences
Barbara was a wonderful friend to us and our family. David's dedication reflects
precisely our love and admiration for a very special person. She was always there in
times of trouble, she was hilarious in times of fun and she was formidable in her
knowledge and her intellect ... so generous, so warm and so inspiring. Profoundly we
mourn her death but we will always celebrate her life.
-Phil Scraton and Deena Haydon
I am deeply saddened by this news. Barbara was and imaginative, compassionate and
loyal colleague.
-Mick Ryan
I am so shocked by this very, very sad news – Barbara was a wonderful person – really
can’t believe it - what a huge loss for us all,
-Paula Wilcox
I am in shock to learn of the death of Barbara, whom I first met all those years ago when
she was teaching at Northumbria and I was external examiner. Later we became
colleagues at UCLAN, and one of the first things she did on assuming duties was visit my
office to tell me how pleased she was to be able to work with me. She was a fantastic
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
colleague, great criminologist and a wonderful person. May her soul rest in peace.
- Tunde (Alfred Zack-Williams)
I was very sad to hear of the death of Barbara. I had known her for many years and
collaborated with her on a book project. She was always very warm, supportive and
gave good critical advice even though on a number of issues we disagreed strongly
(without falling out over it). What a wonderful creative writer and superbly clear
lecturer she was! One of the best. Most of all I remember her as a lot of fun. She went not
long after one of great heroes, Stan Cohen, who I also knew. Not sure if either of them
really believed in a hereafter, but it almost makes you want to believe in one because
they would be great company for each other.
-Kevin Stenson
Sorry to hear about the sudden death of Barbara. May she be remembered by all of us.
-Brenda Geiger
The news of Barbara's death is incredibly sad, she was a tireless advocate for
Criminology and social change. Her input will be missed greatly.
- Kaaren Malcolm
I am very saddened and shocked to hear of Barbara's untimely death. An amazing
woman and intellect doing such important work. We were discussing in recent
months her 'Peace at Borders' project examining 'moral communities across borders:
the particularism of law meets the universalism of ethics'. Durham colleagues will
remember a fabulous seminar she gave here. Barbara will, indeed, be greatly missed.
-Maggie O’Neill
Another one of us! I’m so sorry on behalf of her friends and of course of her family and
beloved.
-Ida Koch
What a shock. Met Barbara at conferences. A lovely person. Please pass on my
condolences
-Paul Norris
Barbara Hudson had been a trustee, and friend, of the Howard League and I would be
grateful if you could keep me in touch with arrangements. It is very sad.
-Frances Crook
I’m really sorry to hear this news.
Regards,
RISE Admin
Refugee Survivors and Ex-detainees
level 1, Ross House 247 Flinders Lane, Melbourne, Victoria 3000
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
III. Comment and analysis
Critical Criminology, Power and Systemic Conflicts: Vincenzo Ruggiero
highlights the continued relevance of critical criminology today
This is an abridged version of Vincenzo Ruggiero’s plenary talk to the European Group,
Oslo, 29 August – 1 September 2013
I have been asked to address the following themes: what was critical criminology in the past,
what is it today and what is it likely to be tomorrow? A daunting task, no doubt, but I will try
to make my task easier by using an analytical artifice. Instead of looking at conventional
criminology in a critical way, I will look at critical criminology in a conventional way. What
I mean is that critical criminology, as I see it, is not a mad invention of some lunatic leftwingers, as its concerns were (and are) also the major concerns of sociological theory in
general. I am thinking of three key concepts: conflict, movements and social change.
Durkheim, for instance, argues that action is the result of a conflict generated by a division of
labour in society which is experienced as unjust, and that the outcome of action is change,
namely a rearrangement of the division of labour that is felt to be more satisfactory by those
acting. Of course, for a sociologist avant la lettre like Marx conflict, movement and social
change are the core, if not the exclusive foci on which any theorizing should be based. How
to bring change, rather than just how to explain the status quo, is the Marxist task. But why
not include Max Weber in this list? Weber expresses in his way a Marxian concept when, in
Class, Work, Party observes that collective action requires not only a distinctively
recognizable condition of social injustice, but also an awareness that such injustice is
unacceptable, because based on an arbitrary distribution of resources and power. This echoes
the Marxian concepts of the ‘class in itself’ and the ‘class for itself’. Finally, Simmel’s notion
of fluidity and movement describes a feeling of dizziness but also of perpetual change: in his
Philosophy of Money one perceives a constant conflict between the objectivity of
technological production and financial exchange and the subjectivity of individuals and
groups making choices in their daily life.
Yes, I am looking for friends, not foes. I am looking for the fathers and mothers of
critical thought, and in my search I am prepared to be inclusive, ecumenical, and draw on all
aspects of our Western tradition. And I am even prepared to access sources of inspiration
which possess a religious character. As a ‘practicing’ atheist, as someone who takes his own
atheism very religiously, I was forced to access religious sources when working on my book
on penal abolitionism, particularly when writing the chapter in that book devoted to Louk
Hulsman. Here are a few things I found in the Bible.
In the Old Testament we read that the Lord has to be served with fear, ‘lest He be
angry, and you perish in the way; for His wrath is quickly kindled’. We hear of sinners
having their teeth broken and ‘recidivists’ being consumed by fire. Surely, Louk Hulsman did
not build his abolitionist ideas upon these divine teachings. Rather, he followed some aspects
of the New Testament, for example those we find in Mark whispering that those ‘who are
well have no need of a physician, while those who are sick do’, and that Jesus ‘came not for
the righteous, but for the sinners’. ‘Judge not, and you will not be judged’ is, of course,
another biblical formula adopted by Hulsman, while the critical criminological notion that the
justice system is ‘ignorant’ or ‘blind’ echoes a parable told by Jesus, whose conclusion is
‘Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit?’ Our other friend is St
Paul, a real abolitionist, who warns that ‘those who teach should teach themselves first’.
‘While you preach against stealing, do you steal?’ Here is a precise allusion to white collar
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
crime. And Paul continues: ‘Those who feel strong ought to bear with the failings of the
weak, not please themselves with inflicting pain on them’ […]
[…] Critical criminology and abolitionism could even claim that their roots are in classical
philosophy: perhaps the first critical criminologist was Spinoza, who said that sins do not
exist, only human acts exist. Does this not remind us of a classical argument put forward by
Nils Christie, in which he says that crime does not exists, only acts do?
Critical criminology and the European Group, however, were and are not merely
idealistic, namely they do not derive action from abstract thought. On the contrary, attention
in the past was addressed to the interaction between material conditions, collective action,
contentious politics and ideas. Something that still sticks in my mind about this relationship is
expressed in the title of a well known play set up in Italy in the 1970s: ‘There is going to be a
revolution tomorrow, and I don’t know what to wear’. The title referred to the necessity to be
‘prepared’ culturally, in our daily relationships, to match the political and institutional change
that, we hoped, was coming about. The collective action I am referring to manifested itself in
all social spheres involving all sorts of groups: women, young people, the elderly, prisoners,
the mentally ill. And it is among these widespread expressions of social conflict that critical
criminology found its place.
It can be argued that Marxist theory and, within sociology, conflict theory were
among the paradigms providing critical criminology with a solid background. But again, it
could be added that classical sociology did the same. For example, let us bear in mind
Simmel’s contribution, particularly his argument that conflict is one of the most vivid
interactions that ‘cannot possibly be carried out by one individual alone’. Even apparent
disintegration caused by conflict, in his view, may help resolve divergent dualisms and lead
to some form of unity. In his own words:
‘Just as the universe needs “love and hate”, that is, attractive and repulsive forces, in
order to have any form at all, so, society, too, in order to attain a determinate shape,
needs some quantitative ratio of harmony and disharmony, of association and
competition, of favourable and unfavourable tendencies’.
Simmel uses a pictorial metaphor to distinguish static from dynamic societies. The
society of Saints described by Dante in the Rose of Paradise is a centripetal depiction of pure
unification, but it is unreal as it lacks a life process, and shows no sign of possible change or
development. On the contrary, the holy assembly of the Church Fathers in Raphael’s Disputa
shows a considerable differentiation of moods and thoughts, from which vitality flows. In
brief, conflict is neither the effect of self-interest nor the result of calculating monads; rather,
it is the very essence of a collectivity.
By focusing on some aspects of conflict theory and critical, new or Marxist
criminology, we encounter issues which still confront us today […] Such aspects return, for
example, disguised in a different manner and affect the contemporary debate around public
criminology. Within the past and the contemporary debate, a notion seems to emerge
whereby crime and deviance have a pre-political character, and that deviants and criminals
need us, the criminologists, to bestow on them the politicality of which they are unaware.
This is a form of paternalism: it reeks of philanthropy, of missionary zeal, Salvation Army
stuff […] In the past as well as in the present there is, therefore, an innate ‘arrogance’ in most
criminology, a discipline which needs ‘informants’ not peers, a type of social enquiry that
needs to teach others in what contexts they are situated, which the others presumably ignore.
Criminologists, Olympian observers, believe they can see the whole picture. We should
always bear in mind, instead, that our objects of study are not ‘dumb’ (or ignorant about
themselves) by nature, but they need to be made ‘dumb’ in order for us to retain our status
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
and to secure the sovereign authority of our pronouncements […] I have to say that, with the
exception of the 1970s movements I referred to earlier, I know only one criminological
school which can claim to have always adopted a public stance. I am thinking of abolitionism
[…] Nils Christie talks to serial killers and former concentration camp officers, Thomas
Mathiesen spends as much time with students as he does with prisoners, while Louk Hulsman
is (was, sadly) engaged in practical experiments, meeting disputants in problematic situations,
all individuals who are the protagonists within the domain of crime and justice monopolized
by experts […]
These are important areas in which the contribution of critical criminology is still
relevant. One is the area of the crimes of the powerful, which receive growing attention
exactly thanks to critical criminology and the European Group […] We should emphasize
that many crimes are expressions of power: domestic violence, racist violence, pollution, war
crimes, but even war tout court. All these remain key areas in which the contribution of
critical criminology will not easily be exhausted […]
Author biography
Vincenzo Ruggiero is Professor of Sociology and Director of the 'Crime and Conflict
Research Centre' at Middlesex University in London. His most recent books are 'Corruption
and Organised Crime in Europe' (2012), 'Punishment in Europe' (edited with M. Ryan)
(2013), and 'The Crimes of the Economy' (2013).
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
IV. European Group News
European Group Anthology
The European Group anthology, Critique and Dissent, is now out!
Please address UK orders in £sterling to John Moore (J.Moore@uwe.ac.uk). Please send a
cheque for £22 (incl. P&P) directly payable to John Moore at 17 Atlantic Road, Westonsuper-Mare, BS23 2DG.
For orders within the Eurozone, please contact Emma Bell
(europeangroupcoordinator@gmail.com) who will send you out the Group's bank details so
you can make payment (29€ incl.P&P).
When ordering please make clear what address you want the anthology delivered to.
For all other orders, please order directly from Red Quill.
See http://www.redquillbooks.com/Critique_and_Dissent.html
Recent publications by European Group members
The Group would like to encourage members to send references for their new publications to
the Group coordinator. These will be published in the newsletter and then will appear on the
website. The aim is to build up a directory of members’ work over the coming years. Please
use the Harvard system of referencing for all publications sent to us.
The Observatory of the Penal System and Human Rights from the University of Barcelona
has published a new special issue of the Journal Critica Penal y Poder on State Crime, Mass
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
Atrocities and Social Harm (nº 5, September 2013), with some collaborations from EG
members. Content (in English and Spanish) can be accessed at www.criticapenalypoder.com
Cruz, José N., Cardoso, Carla S., Lamas Leite, André and Faria, Rita (eds) Infrações
Económicas e Financeiras: Estudos de Criminologia e Direito (Economic and Financial
Crime: Criminology & Law Studies), Coimbra Editora, 2013.
Call for papers
We’d like to encourage academics, activists and those targetted by mechanisms of state
control (people in prison, migrants, people who have come into conflict with the police etc.)
to contribute short pieces of approximately 1,500 words to our monthly newsletter ‘comment
and analysis’ section. Contributions from across the globe are welcome. Please contact Emma
Bell at europeangroupcoordinator@gmail.com
Working Groups
The new Prisons, Detention and Punishment Group has announced the members of its
steering committee: Agnieszka Martynowicz; Ann Singleton; Anne Egelund; Bree Carlton;
David Scott; Emma Bell; Gilles Chantraine; Linda Moore; Monish Bhatia; Victoria Canning.
Vicky and Agnieszka will aim to send out a short monthly info update on areas
pertinent to the group's interests. They hope to include news articles, funding bid information,
and academic articles/research reports that span the study and politics of prisons, punishment
and detention, and particularly welcome information that may go under the radar of group
more widely.
They are also planning to hold a second ‘Sites of Confinement’ one day seminar at the
Belfast campus of the University of Ulster (courtesy of Agnieszka and Linda Moore) in either
April or May (call for papers and details to follow over the next few months).
For more information about the working group, please contact Vicky
(v.canning@ljmu.ac.uk) or Agnieszka (Martynowicz-A@email.ulster.ac.uk)
British/Irish Conference
‘Penal Law, Abolitionism and Anarchism’, a conference hosted by the British/Irish section
of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control and the Hulsman
Foundation will take place from Saturday 26th – Sunday 27th April 2014 at Shire Hall,
Nottingham. Can we imagine law without the state? Could what we now call ‘crime’ be dealt
with by means other than criminal law and punishment? This conference seeks to explore
interrelationships and tensions that exist between the philosophies and practices associated
with penal law, abolitionism and anarchism. It aims to provide a space for the
interdisciplinary exploration of complex critiques of state law and legality, criminalization
and other forms of state and corporate power in neoliberal contexts. The rich and complex
European tradition of abolition recently explored in great detail by Vincenzo Ruggiero, to
which Louk Hulsman made such a creative contribution, provides important intellectual
resources to challenge neoliberal penal and social [well/war –fare] politics and policies and to
expose their harms and underlying power-dynamics. Joe Sim underlined the continued
importance of Angela Davis’ concept of ‘abolitionist alternatives’ as well as of forms of a
renewed penal activism. These and other abolitionist or minimalist approaches to criminal
justice challenge existing hegemonic belief systems that continue to legitimate the generation
of harms via the operations of law, psychology, criminology, the media and frequently shape
public opinion. For some critical criminologists such reflections might imply promoting an
Anarchist Criminology, while for others this might involve the use of courts to challenge
decisions made by ministers. The direct action taken by the Occupy movement and similar
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
movements (e.g. UK Uncut) can of course also be linked to a diversity of philosophies and
principles of anarchism as well as to contemporary media movements and digital activism
that are of crucial relevance in the current context.
Deadline for abstracts: 30th November 2013
For further details please contact Andrea Beckmann [abeckmann@lincoln.ac.uk] or Tony
Ward [A.Ward@hull.ac.uk]
New national representative
Ragnhild Sollund has decided to step down as national representative for Norway after
many years of dedication to the Group. She will, however, continue to be involved as a
member of the Group’s steering committee. She will be replaced by Per Jørgen:
p.j.ystehede@jus.uio.no.
Future Conferences
We are looking for people who would be willing to host the annual European Group
conference in 2015 and 2016. The steering group would provide whatever help possible to
the on-site organising committee and the conference fee should cover all costs. If you are
interested and would like more information, please contact the Group coordinator:
europeangroupcoordinator@gmail.com.
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
V. News from Europe and the World
Australia
Call for Papers
Monash University will be hosting the 8th Annual Australian & New Zealand Critical
Criminology Conference, Critical Criminology: Research Praxis and Social Transformation
in a Global Era?, from Thursday 4th - Friday 5th December 2014 in Melbourne, Victoria
(Australia)
Streams include:
 Punishment’s Borders and Boundaries
 Challenges and Responses to State and Corporate Harm
 Access to Justice
 Challenges and Opportunities for Transformative Justice
 Campaigns for Justice
 Technologies of Control
 From Theory to Praxis: Research that makes a difference
The conference welcomes papers that reflect these streams and address questions such as:
What is the role played by research ethics and power in securing institutional access in the
current climate? How do we facilitate and maximize community engagement through
interdisciplinary research methods? In what ways might research contribute to social
transformation? How can we align academic research with projects and movements for social
change and increase opportunities for transnational solidarity?
For further information contact the conference convenors: Dr Asher Flynn:
asher.flynn@monash.edu or Dr Bree Carlton: bree.carlton@monash.edu
Cyprus
Call for papers
PROSTITUTION AND CRIMINAL LAW
We live in a neo-liberal globalized environment prone to let egregious crimes like human
trafficking flourish. To a significant degree there is a clear connection of such systemic
criminal wrong with prostitution, which itself undergoes a certain kind of
‘transubstantiation’, as it tends all the more towards commercialization abandoning the
nuance of some particular but nonetheless tolerable form of self-fulfillment. In this
framework very important issues become thematic, like: how feminism (liberal or radical)
may under these terms approach the relation between prostitution and criminal law; whether
liberalism is an adequate basis for the treatment of prostitution through criminal law; in how
far prostitution may doctrinally be seen as victimization and thus primarily unjustified;
whether conclusions can be drawn as to operative criminal policy models dealing with
prostitution at an international and specifically European law comparative level; last but not
least, whether the Swedish model of incrimination of the ‘client’s’ conduct may serve as a
guiding approach as to prostitution, an issue which is also in Cyprus very much at stake.
Your contributions to this Volume, to be entitled “Prostitution and its penalization: the
dilemma between personal freedom and commercialization of sex” and issued under the
auspices of our two institutions (Law Depts. of University of Cyprus and Nicosia University),
will honor us and will fruitfully promote the scientific discussion on the above described
topic.
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
It would be best if we had your confirmation that you will contribute to the Volume until the
end of November, your abstracts until the end of December and your paper in full by the end
of February 2014.
For more information, contact the editors:
Charis Papacharalambous, Asst. Prof. in Criminal Law, Law Dept., University of Cyprus, email: papacha@ucy.ac.cy
Dimitra Sorvatzioti, Law Dept., Asst. Prof. in Criminal Law, Law Dept., University of
Nicosia, e-mail: sorvatzioti.d@unic.ac.cy
Europe
Migration issues
We’d like to draw attention to ‘Frontexit’, an international campaign for the defence of
migrants' human rights at the external borders of the European Union. This campaign,
bringing together associations, researchers and individuals from both North and South of the
Mediterranean (Belgium, Cameroon, France, Italy, Mali, Morocco, Mauritania, international
organisations, regional networks), aims to inform a wide audience about the impacts of
Frontex operations in terms of human rights, and to denounce these impacts to the political
representatives who are directly involved. See http://www.frontexit.org/en/ (site in English
and French).
Human Rights Watch comment on the Lampedusa tragedy by Judith Sunderland and Hugh
Williamson. See: http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/10/03/dispatches-boat-migrant-tragedyshould-shake-europe-s-conscience and http://www.hrw.org/news/2013/10/24/eu-shipwrecked
France
Call for Papers
LABELLING THE DEVIANT: Othering and exclusion in Britain from past to present
Throughout the ages, different labels have been applied to those who are regarded as a threat
to the prevailing value system and social order of British society. From the so-called
‘dangerous classes’ of 19th century London (see Bailey, 1993) to the ‘underclass’ of
contemporary Britain, composed of ‘chavs’ (Jones, 2011) and ‘hoodies’, a whole range of
groups have been subject to labelling which has set them apart from mainstream society and
portrayed them as being somehow ‘deviant’. Their deviance or ‘otherness’ is often linked to:









geography (from the ‘rookeries’ of Dickensian London to the ‘sink estates’ of
contemporary Britain)
clothing (from the cloth cap to the ‘hoodie’ or the Burberry baseball cap)
speech (from cockney rhyming slang to ‘Jafaican’ English)
religion (from Catholicism and dissenting Protestantism to Islam)
ethnicity (for example, Muslims have replaced the Irish as the new ‘suspect
community’ in Britain today – see Hillyard, 1993; Pantazis & Pemberton, 2009)
immigration status (from fears of Irish immigrants – see Engels, 1845 – to the
contemporary panic about ‘illegal’ immigration)
gender (from 19th century female ‘larrikins’ to the ‘ladettes’ of today)
age (from the Mods and Rockers – Cohen, 2005 – to contemporary hip hop culture)
class (from the dangerous classes to the underclass – see Murray, 1996)
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
These different indicators of ‘deviance’ are not of course indivisible but tend to be
interlinked, often tied together by common perceptions of social class or race. For example,
the term ‘chav’ is linked not just to the working class but also particularly to youth, to a
particular style of dress, to ethnicity (white) and to a particular way of talking. Those who are
targetted by these labels are associated with a whole range of social problems such as
illegitimacy, unemployment, poor parenting, welfare dependency and crime. They are thus
depicted as a threat to society as a whole, as the ‘enemy within’, responsible for creating what
David Cameron might term the ‘broken society’.
A special on-line edition of the peer-reviewed Revue Française de la Civilisation Britannique
(see http://www.crecib.fr/rfcb/?lang=en) will seek to address a number of questions:
1) How have these labels evolved throughout time? What continuities/departures can be
identified?
2) How are these labels used and by whom? The role of politicians, the media, the
intellectuals and think tanks, for example, is of interest.
3) What are the consequences of labelling? What social and political consequences are
likely to result? To what extent are these labels responsible for the creation of social
divisions and social exclusion, for example?
Please send abstracts of approximately 300 words and a short biography to Emma Bell
(bell.emma@neuf.fr) or Gilles Christoph (gilleschristoph@gmail.com) by 6th January 2014.
Articles of between 7 and 15 pages (notes and references included) must be submitted by 1st
May.
Debate
Gilles Chantraine, EG representative for France and co-author of Bastille Nation will be
participating in a debate with the national prisons inspector in Lille on 17th November. See
http://www.citephilo.org/manif/autour-du-rapport-2012-du-contrôleur-général-des-lieux-deprivation-de-liberté-en-france-dallo
Portugal
Book launch
Cruz, José N., Cardoso, Carla S., Lamas Leite, André and Faria, Rita (eds) Infrações
Económicas e Financeiras: Estudos de Criminologia e Direito (Economic and Financial
Crime: Criminology & Law Studies) includes contributions from leading scholars coming
from several countries, including Nicholas Dorn, David Nelken, Anthony Amicelle, Conor
O’Reilly, Carlos Martínez-Buján Pérez, Patricia Faraldo Cabana and many others. Papers
deal with types of offenses (tributary scams, money laundering, corruption…), at the national
and international level, reflecting on the current economic and financial crisis and recent
trends in social control.
On the 20th February 2014, the international conference ‘Economic and Financial
Crime: Criminology & Law Studies’ will take place at the Law Faculty of the University of
Porto. The main purpose is not only to launch the book but also to have the opportunity
of having the authors present their research on the topics, There will be two plenary
sessions, one in Criminology and another in Law, followed by parallel sessions in both
areas.
Conference
Personal Data and Privacy: Redefining privacy.
The Law Faculty of the University of Porto has been holding several conferences under
the topic "New rights". This time, on the 13th November, personal data and privacy
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
will be discussed. The conference will be held in Portuguese. Free entry; please register
with manuela@direito.up.pt. More information at:
http://sigarra.up.pt/fdup/pt/noticias_geral.ver_noticia?P_NR=4634
Sweden
Publications
Kristina Jerre’s (Stockholm University, Department of Criminology) thesis on “The Public's
Sense of Justice in Sweden - a Smorgasbord of Opinions”, exploring the public’s preference
for less severe punishment, can be accessed here: http://su.divaportal.org/smash/get/diva2:643158/FULLTEXT01.pdf. An abstract is available here:
http://su.diva-portal.org/smash/record.jsf?searchId=1&pid=diva2:643158
The following article by Anita Heber explores the dichotomy between offender and crime
victim in Swedish criminal justice policy. See:
http://euc.sagepub.com/content/early/2013/10/15/1477370813503920.abstract
United Kingdom
Events
The second Platforma Festival of arts and refugees will take place in Manchester in
October/November 2013. Bringing together artists, performers, academics, funders and
people from the public, private and not-for-profit sectors, the Platforma Festival will be a
showcase, a celebration and a chance to examine the development of arts by, with and about
refugees
in
the
UK
and
across
the
world.
See
more
at:
http://platforma.org.uk/events/platforma-festival-manchester-2013
The University of Brighton are hosting a conference from 7th-8th November 2013 to
investigate neoliberal rationalities, practices and regimes with particular attention to the
current conjuncture. It also theorises the limits of the different theoretical accounts of
contemporary capitalist politics, while investigating the news sites and agents of democratic
politics. For further details and registration, see:
http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/research/cappe/conferences,-seminars,-events/calendar/conflict,revolt-and-democracy-in-the-neoliberal-world2
The University of Central Lancashire's Distinguished Visitor Programme is organising a
symposium on 13th November. The speakers include: René van Swaaningen, David Wall,
John Lean, Katja Franko Aas, Helen Codd and Michael Cavadino. For booking, follow the
below link:
https://criminaljustice-uclan.eventbrite.co.uk/
The Centre for the Study of Crime, Criminalisation and Social Exclusion, Liverpool John
Moores University, have organised a seminar series. For dates and speakers see:
http://ljmu.ac.uk/HSS/117165.htm
The Centre for Applied Philosophy, Politics & Ethics, University of Brighton, have organised
a fortnightly seminar series aims to explore what it means to live in a neoliberal world, see:
http://arts.brighton.ac.uk/research/cappe/news2/seminar-series-201314-neoliberalism2
‘Penal Law, Abolitionism and Anarchism’, a conference hosted by the British/Irish section of
the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control and the Hulsman
Foundation will take place from 26th- 27th April 2014 at Shire Hall, Nottingham. Deadline
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
for abstracts: 30th November 2013. For more information, see above (under ‘European
Group news’)
The Teesside Centre for Realist Criminology is set to host the 2014 National Deviancy
Conference from 25-26 June 2014. The theme of the two day conference is 'critical
criminology and post-crash capitalism’. It will provide a constructive and supportive meeting
place for leftist sociologists and criminologists to debate the social harms, injustices and the
deep inequalities associated with 21st century liberal capitalism. See:
http://www.tees.ac.uk/sections/research/events_details.cfm?event_id=5719
Jobs
University of Hull, Senior Lectureship
https://jobs.hull.ac.uk/Vacancy.aspx?ref=FA0038
Leeds Metropolitan University, Senior Lectureship
http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AHM299/senior-lecturer-in-criminology/
News
To submit your views on the new Immigration Bill, please write to the House of Commons
Public Bill Committee which is going to consider the Bill. See the below link for further
instructions:
http://www.parliament.uk/business/news/2013/october/have-your-say-on-the-immigrationbill/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
The below article highlights the use of biometric scanners at certain universities, introduced
to keep tabs on overseas students, see:
http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/news/biometric-scanners-used-to-keep-tabs-onoverseas-students/2008205.article
The below video explores the absence of Black Professors in UK higher education
institutions:
http://vimeo.com/76725812
Freedom is a Constant Struggle: Closures and Continuities by Angela Davis with a response
from Michael Mansfield QC. For the audio recording of this talk, please see:
http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2013/10/angela-davis-freedom-is-a-constant-struggleclosures-and-continuities/
The ’52 minute documentary ‘Children on the move: Children First!’ gives a say to migrant
children who tell us the reasons for having taken the decision to leave their home countries.
The ‘violence’ of the trip, the appalling life conditions, the dangers, the threats they had to
face during their long journey and upon their arrival in Europe are testimonies expressed
throughout the documentary. See:
http://crin.org/enoc/resources/infoDetail.asp?id=31828
Report
The Prison Reform Trust has just released its latest Bromley Briefing prison factfile. It is
available to download here: http://info-prisonreformtrust.org.uk/47L-1X4PH-1UMUM3SW1XE-1/c.aspx
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION
USA
Activism
Prisoner Hunger Strike Solidarity (PHSS) is a coalition based in the Bay Area made up of
grassroots organizations & community members committed to amplifying the voices of and
supporting the prisoners at Pelican Bay & other CA prisons while on hunger strike. See
http://prisonerhungerstrikesolidarity.wordpress.com/
Report
The Guardian reports on the brutal tactics used to break the resolve of Guantanamo Bay
hunger
strikers
and
posts
a
harrowing
video.
See
here:
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/oct/12/us-military-stormed-hunger-strikercell?CMP=twt_fd
Event
Critical Resistance Event: ’Dreaming Wildly, Fighting to Win’. Angela Davis and Martín
Espada will be challenging the prison industrial complex and imagining alternative futures. 3
November, 7pm at the Scottish Rite Center, 1547 Lakeside Drive, Oakland, CA 94612.
See http://criticalresistance.org/angela-y-davis-martin-espada-dreaming-wildly-fighting-towin-tickets-on-sale-now/
A BIG THANKS to all the European Group
members for making this newsletter
successful.. Please feel free to contribute
to this newsletter by sending any
information that you think might be of
interest to the Group to Emma/Monish
at :
europeangroupcoordinator@gmail.com
Please try to send it in before the 25th of
each month if you wish to have it
included in the following month’s
newsletter. Please provide a web link
(wherever possible).
WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION