EUROPEAN GROUP FOR THE STUDY OF
DEVIANCE AND SOCIAL CONTROL
ESTABLISHED 1973
Coordinator: Emma Bell
Secretary: Monish Bhatia
SUMMER NEWSLETTER II
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I.
Annual
Conference
Tallinn 2015
Accommodation
Confirmed speakers
Conference Programme
II. European Group
News
Crimes of the Powerful
working group
conference report
Prisons, Punishment and
Detention working group
resolution
III. Comment &
Analysis
Margot Olesk reflects on
the state of prisons in
contemporary Estonia
IV. News from
Europe
Holland
United Kingdom
I. European Group Conference
Social Divisions, Surveillance and the Security State
43rd Annual Conference of the European Group for the Study of
Deviance and Social Control
26th - 29th August 2015
Faculty of Law
University of Tartu
Tallinn
Estonia
Tallinn
ACCOMMODATION
Rooms have been pre-booked at the following hotels for four nights (arriving 25th
August, leaving 29th August). In order to guarantee your place, you will need to reserve
one month before the conference at the very latest.
Nordic Hotel Forum (upscale) 105€/room/night.
Viru väljak 3, Tallinn, Estonia
15 min walk from the university
Tallink City Hotel (mid-range) 60€/room/night
15 min walk from the university, just 100 m form the Nordic Hotel Forum.
Park Inn by Radisson Central Tallinn (mid-range) 65€/room/night
17 min walk from the university
See our website for more details: http://www.europeangroup.org/?q=node/47
CONFIRMED SPEAKERS
Monika Platek, Professor of Law, Warsaw University, Poland.
Modern faces of suitable enemies
May-Len Skilbrei, Professor, Department of Criminology and Sociology of Law,
University of Oslo.
Transnational Victimhood: Challenges for prosecution and victim protection
*Steve Tombs, Professor of Criminology, Open University, UK* (new speaker!)
‘Surveillance’: States, corporations, and the ‘post-crisis’
CONFERENCE PROGRAMME
The full book of abstracts and the short conference programme can be downloaded
from our website: http://www.europeangroup.org/?q=node/89
Please note that some minor changes have been made to the programme since it was
first sent out to delegates a couple of weeks ago.
TOURIST INFORMATION
Anna Markina, the conference organiser, will be sending out some practical information
about Tallinn in due course.
II. European Group News
Crimes of the Powerful Conference Report
The inaugural conference to launch the Crimes of the Powerful Working Group took place at
Abertay University in Scotland on Friday 5th June 2015. We were delighted to have a range of
engaging and informative papers which stimulated a series of important discussions and
debates throughout the conference proceedings and well into the evening and beyond.
The first session, entitled ‘Crimes of the Powerful: Where are we now?’, saw papers from Hazel
Croall, Simon Pemberton and Steve Tombs. The first paper from the sagacious Hazel Croall was
an ideal start to the proceedings, providing a detailed and informative consideration of the key
revelations of the twenty first century, including the exposure and greater censure of state and
corporate harms. This was followed by a critical discussion regarding the extent of real progress
in challenging such harms given that criminology arguably, in many ways, continues to be
dominated by issues of so-called ‘conventional crime’. The second panel presenter was Steve
Tombs who took the audience through a personal narrative that simultaneously told the story of
the philosophical developments and the emergence of discourses within critical criminology
that sought to examine and refocus our attention towards the crimes and harms perpetrated by
those who hold significant economic, social and political power. Steve, with his well known
academic verve and panache, painted an important picture of the development of the Crimes of
the Powerful discourse starting with the seminal work of Frank Pearce in 1976 through to the
proposed efforts of our very own working group today. Simon Pemberton completed the panel
with some key considerations from his new book Harmful Societies: Understanding Social Harm
(published in 2015 and available from The Policy Press), providing a framework for
understanding how social harms are far from inevitable or unavoidable events but instead are a
product of how societies are organised. Simon also provided a stylish and adroit assessment of
the impact of contemporary austerity programmes that continue to unabatedly burgeon in
many societies today.
Our second panel Researching the Crimes of the Powerful began with a paper from Tobias Kelly
who eloquently elucidated the difficulties in documenting the state crime of torture. Toby
expertly demonstrated the challenges of documenting this particular state crime in terms of the
impact that the trauma experienced by survivors can have on accounts of this experience.
Further to this, Toby explained how torture is often inflicted in a way that leaves few 'visible'
traces and the limitations of the institutional capacity and priorities of human rights
organisations. I would like to take the opportunity once again to apologise to Toby who was
victim of my (Sam’s) technological incompetency when I failed to record the paper for
Soundcloud (sorry, Toby!). However, for those who wish to follow up the content of this paper
in greater detail, Tobias' talk was derived from a co-authored paper with Steffen Jensen as part
of a wider project with our colleagues and friends at Dignity: Danish Institute Against Torture.
Vicky Canning was next to present on Gender, Harm and Power in the British Asylum System,
providing a dynamic and important account, delivered as always with boundless fervour and
zeal, of the interrelated aspects of state crime, gendered structural violence, and social harm.
Vicky also provided a vivid and accessible account, seeking to disentangle the politicised
decisions made in terms of asylum law and policy and the resulting everyday harms inherent in
the daily lives of women. Both papers by Tobias and Vicky brought to the fore the key concern
that the extent of torture, harm and ill treatment that exists, including its long term impacts, are
often and problematically underestimated.
In the afternoon we were delighted to have two stimulating roundtable discussions. Firstly,
Asylum seekers’ resistance to state abuse with speakers from the Unity Centre in Glasgow and
Scottish Detainee Visitors. In this first roundtable we heard from a series of local campaigners
seeking to resist and contest state abuse in the asylum system. The accounts and narratives
provided powerful insights into not only state forms of abuse, experienced by those seeking
refuge from persecution and harm, but also the nuances of a complex state-corporate nexus of
harms present and inherent to the asylum system in the UK. In our final session, Helen Monk
and Will Jackson concluded the day with important considerations regarding police powers and
actions in the Resisting and contesting the crimes of the powerful policing roundtable. Will began
by outlining recent high-profile cases around undercover policing, deaths in police custody, and
public order policing through a dexterous analysis that placed these concepts in the broader
context of state and corporate criminality and actions being done in the name of ‘security’. Will's
paper also discussed the productive nature of state violence that seeks to reproduce a classed,
raced and gendered social order. We were especially pleased that Will was present for our
inaugural conference as Will Jackson is one of coordinators for the forthcoming Policing and
Security working group and we look forward to the potential for collaborative projects across
this and the other working groups. The notion of the productive nature of pacification was
further illustrated in the illuminating final paper from Helen Monk who took us on a journey
discussing the gendered nature of protest policing experienced by women and girls at the
Barton Moss antifracking protests in 2013 – 2014. Helen developed further shrewd arguments
regarding pacification as both a destructive and productive force that in this context served to
reinforce messages of protest as illegitimate and dangerous and in the social construction of
acceptable forms of protest and femininity.
Overall, the day presented the opportunity to discuss the gauntlet of challenges faced in
confronting and challenging institutional power and formed a strong basis from which to work
in terms of the group’s endeavour to provide a network for teachers, researchers, students,
practitioners and activists across and beyond Europe who have an interest in studying and
confronting corporate and state crimes and harms in all their multifarious forms. A sample of
the papers presented on the day will be available on the EG Soundcloud in due course. The basis
of the group’s working document manifesto (with thanks to Steve Tombs and David Whyte for
formulating the initial document) will be presented at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) in
Tallinn 2015 where there will be a further opportunity for input and contributions alongside
the proposed theme and details of the second conference meeting for 2016. The Crimes of the
Powerful working group will also host a stream at the 2016 Annual Conference in Braga,
Portugal which seeks contributions related to any of the following overarching themes:
- Corporate and state crimes/harms/violence
- Resistance, contestation and class war
- Economic, physical, emotional and social costs of the crimes of the powerful
- Eco-harms and green criminology
- Crimes of the Powerful criminal justice, civil law, critical legal perspectives and social justice
We would once again like to take the opportunity to thank all the speakers, attendees and
participants for their stimulating questions and contributions and all those involved in the
conference organisation especially Monish Bhatia and all the support staff at Abertay University
who made this event possible.
In solidarity
Samantha Fletcher and Jessica Dietzler
Coordinators of the Crimes of the Powerful Working Group
Prisons, Punishment and Detention Working Group Resolution
Borallon Resolution, 10th July 2015, Brisbane, Australia
The Working Group on Prisons, Punishment and Detention (PPD) oppose proposed moves by
the Brisbane State Labour Government to re-commission the Borallon Correctional Centre as a
‘training centre’ for 18-30 year prisoners, a disproportionate number of whom will be young
Aboriginal men. Previously a privately run prison, Borallon was de-commissioned in 2012, the
centre would be re-opened in the face of an overcrowding crisis in Queensland prisons wherein
more than 1400 prisoners are currently sharing cells. We stand publicly in solidarity with
Queensland prisoner advocacy group Sisters Inside to oppose this move given the controversial
prison has 244 in-built hanging points in cells. Hanging points refer to any fitting or structure
that prisoners can tie something to.
Our objections to these proposals are threefold. Firstly, we are particularly troubled that the
centre has been reopened with hanging points that have previously contributed to deaths in
custody. From 1979–80 to 2010–11 Australia faced 2,319 individual custodial deaths. We see all
deaths in custody as indicative of structural violence, and particularly view the deaths of 38
prisoners who died from hanging between 2008–09 and 2010–11 as such.
Secondly, the PPD working group share the concerns of Sisters Inside for the safety, wellbeing
and freedom of Aboriginal people, who represent over one quarter (26%) of incarcerated
peoples in the Australian prison system, yet comprise only 2.5% of the general population. We
argue that this disproportional representation is indicative of institutional inequalities and
racism. We also point out that this move has insensitively been announced during NAIDOC
Week (National Aboriginal and Islander Day Observance Committee), which involves a series of
cultural celebrations and events to raise public awareness about the status and treatment of
Indigenous communities in Australia.
Finally, we draw attention to the justification of the reopening of Borallon. According to Jo-Ann
Miller, Correctional Services Minister, the facility will alleviate the overcrowding of other
detention centres. We argue that overcrowding is more likely indicative of the highly punitive
landscape of contemporary Australian justice. We point to the number of prisoners in adult
corrective services custody, which increased substantively from 24,171 in 2004 to 33,791 in
2014. Considering the longer term harms inherent in imprisonment, including the social,
emotional and economic cost of incarceration, we argue for a reduction in prison sentencing,
rather than an increase in prison capacity.
We are concerned that the re-opening of Borallan would lead to suicide-related deaths in
custody and more than likely Aboriginal deaths. The Government will be legally accountable for
such deaths especially in light of the Coronial inquest findings made as recently as 28 th May
2015 in relation to the death of Farrin John Vetters found hanging points to be the cause of
suicide in Borallon.
In Solidarity,
Dr. Victoria Canning (Co-Ordinator), Agnieszka Martynowicz (Secretary), Dr. Bree Carlton
(Committee Member) on behalf of the Prisons, Punishment and Detention Working Group
III. Comment & Analysis
Estonian Prisons –
Discussion of Some Encouraging and Unwelcome Changes
Margot Olesk
“…prisoners were not allowed to carry watches;
the authorities knew the time for them.”
Alexander Solzhenitsyn
“One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich”
Introductory remarks
Estonia is a member state of the Council of Europe; therefore, the spectrum of the
European prison law – including the vast jurisprudence of the European Court of
Human Rights (hereinafter ECtHR) – has been the umbrella under which reforms of
Estonian prisons have been carried out. Over the last two decades, these have meant
that the prison has ceased to be a semi-totalitarian institution and is opening up to
society and that it has increasingly come to respect human rights and to focus on
rehabilitation. We could even advance that the prison of the 21st century is defined
through rights and not through limitations. The development of the notion of the
European prison in the jurisprudence of the ECtHR has been so remarkable that in the
United States the new model has been referred to as a utopia and in the New York Times
defined as “radical humaneness”.
Yet, de facto the image of the European prisons is not stainless. This essay is about one
of them, the Estonian prison. Despite the fact that Estonia has been an exemplary state,
with rapid and efficient prison reforms in the last fifteen years, to many member states
of the Council of Europe and abroad, the shadow of the gulag-style prison persists and
somewhat surprisingly the American security-based approach has started to insinuate
itself in the recent changes.
I Encouraging developments in the process of Europeanization and the
emphasis on humanity
As the conditions and services in Western European prisons started to improve slowly and
incrementally from the end of the Second World War, the reforms in Estonia had to be rapid,
because they only began in 1991, after the end of the Soviet Occupation. It was only in 1993
when prisoners acquired the right to have contact with the outside world by sending letters and
making phone calls. A few years later, in 1996, the Government stated that the overall
conditions of imprisonment would need to be softened. The landmark year was in 2000, when
the modern Imprisonment Act came into force. The modern law was largely based on German
laws with the emphasis on the socialisation process.
Besides legislative changes, the second aspect was to replace the old deteriorated buildings that
were not compatible with European standards. The first one to fall into disuse was the Central
Prison (Keskvangla), constructed in the beginning of the 19th century as a sea fortress for the
Russian czar and converted to a prison in the 1920s. The closure was made following urgent
alarm calls from the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or
Degrading Treatment or Punishment (hereinafter the CPT). The prison ended up serving as the
stage for the first court case about inhuman and degrading treatment against Estonia in the
ECtHR. In the last fifteen years, the Estonian prison estate has been reduced to four prisons
(from nine old prisons), out of which two (Tartu and Viru) are modern new buildings. In 2017
the last building used during the Soviet occupation will be closed.
Another crucial question concerns prison security and the fight against corruption. In the 1990s
one could read in the media how a few “high-rank” prisoners were having privileges, such as
being allowed to redecorate their cells to the highest level of comfort or being provided with
ice-cream with raspberry jam at any moment of the day…. One story documented a prison
governor who would drive a luxurious BMW belonging to a prisoner. With a new meticulous
selection of prison staff and zero-tolerance for any sort of familiarization with prisoners, such
behaviors were rooted out.
What is important from the perspective of human rights is the conscientious incorporation of
human rights in the prisons everyday life. For example, from 2006, the Ministry of Justice
opened a position for an advisor specialising in human rights issues, and from 2007 all future
prison staff in the Academy of Security Sciences have had to go through a comprehensive class
about human rights protection in prisons. In 2010 a detailed book about the jurisprudence of
the ECtHR in prison matters was published. We can see the fruits of this work: in 2014 up to
64% (1100 out of 1800) of the complaints in Tartu Administrative Court came from prisoners,
who evidently are well informed of their rights. Since there are no limits to the right to recourse
to the courts, they have to meticulously supervise prison life, even cases that have been absurd
in nature. For example, there have been complaints where the prisoner found that serving his
morning porridge with jam or giving up his Jeep Grand Cherokee yearly books should be
considered as violations of his human rights.
II Negative aspects, the process of Americanization and the emphasis on
security
Despite these rapid, apparently positive developments, the Estonian prison system has some
negative characteristics that should not be neglected. Estonia continues to be a prison state. The
number of inmates per 100 000 inhabitants is 245 and with that Estonia holds the third place in
Europe after Latvia (297) and Lithuania (314), placing herself far ahead of the rest of Europe
where the number is several times smaller (in Western Europe, 100-150, and in South-East
Europe, 150-200). Prisons are still criminogenic, because almost half (45%) of the released
inmates commit a new crime after one year of release.
Estonian prisons are dangerously stigmatizing and othering. Small human-scale institutions
have been and are being replaced by large-scale prisons far from city centres. For example, the
new Tallinn prison (now in the centre of Tallinn) will house 1200 prisoners and 255 arrested
persons in 60 000 square meters. Furthermore, since 2009, all convicted prisoners have been
obliged to wear prison uniform, a brown outfit with “VANGLA” (“PRISON”) written on the back
in block-letters. This uniform must be worn, even in public. When studying the latest Yearbook
of the Estonian prison system, one can find disturbing images – in the photos, the prison staff
are presented as highly armed and equipped, while the inmates are in brown and orange
uniforms whose human faces are not shown and who are mainly looking down either
voluntarily or by order (for example out of 68 pages there are no photos among the staged
pictures where one would see the face of a prisoner).
Stigmatization can be further described by the fact that even political prisoners are not seen as
members of the society. ECtHR stated already in 2006 that a blank and total prohibition of the
right to vote of prisoners is against the European Convention of Human Rights. Even today,
almost a decade later, prisoners still cannot vote, as the question has been jumping between the
executive, judicial and legislative powers, no one has showed willingness to make necessary
legal amendment. The reason is probably that it is not a topic that would gain popularity and
votes from the public.
In addition, several other aspects of the right to have contact with the outside world have
become more restrictive in the last decade. For example, family visits that before lasted up to 72
hours are now 24 hours long; visitors cannot bring food nor beverages from outside; they have
to buy prison food; and all correspondence between prisoners and outside is meticulously
registered (not the content, but the fact of communication). Following tradition, weekly visits
are carried out through a glass wall, preventing any sort of human contact.
Although Estonian prisons have been under close scrutiny by domesticcourts, the ECtHR has
found several violations in the last ten years and Estonian tax-payers have paid almost 30 000 €
for prisoners’ for non-pecuniary damage. For example, Estonia placed a prisoner for years in
extremely bad conditions in the Central Prison where he was infected with hepatitis; it
excessively used restraint beds during several hours; and placed a prisoner in a cell of just 3.2
m2 for three years, allowing him only a one-hour daily walk in a concrete box of 15m2.
Conclusion and proposals
Today, in Estonia, prisoners can wear their watches, but the rest of their existence is still under
the absolute control of the state, thus obscuring their individuality. The new prison juggernauts
will not be taken down, but with small modifications, Estonia could still incorporate some
aspects of the Northern European prison model into these American-sized prisons.
An example of small modifications would be to stop the usage of a glass-wall separating visitors
from prisoners; to allow prisoners to receive packages from family during winter holidays and
on their birthday; to permit the family visiting the prisoner to bring a limited amount of food to
family visits; to allow prisoners to wear personal clothes; to grant them access to personal
computers for educational purposes; to allow Skype calls from relatives living far away... And
why not just listen to what prisoners have to say by inviting their representatives to speak at a
conference about prison (a practice that the French have used). Furthermore, the motherchildren unit of the prison should be turned into a parents-children unit, allowing some fathers
to have their children up to three years with them. In addition, same-sex people would need to
have access to family visits in the same way as any couple. This is just a non-exhaustive list of
some possible changes.
So the fact that Estonia has been closing old Soviet-style prisons does not mean that the
violations of human rights have ceased to exist or that humanity has been adopted in prison
philosophy. The emphasis is no longer just on the conditions of imprisonment, but on the
human factor and the treatment of prisoners. French writer Victor Hugo wisely described prison
as a weird beast made of half-building material, half human material. Almost a century later,
Foucault noted that the aim of punishment was no more the body, but the soul. In order to teach
humans how to live responsibly with a free soul, we cannot imprison them in stigmatising,
artificial conditions that are cut off from the outside world.
Author biography
Margot Olesk is a PhD student at the University of Tartu in Estonia. She is the author of the book
Human and Fundamental Rights in Prison. The principles of European prison law (2010, in
Estonian). She is working on her doctoral thesis about freedoms in prisons. She is a vocal
advocate of prison reform where human rights are not only granted to prisoners because they
are part of a mankind, but also because human rights are the finest tool for their rehabilitation.
IV. News from Europe
Holland
Seminar
Public Space and Vulnerable Groups
GERN will be holding its next interlabo study day together with the Hulsman Foundation in
Dordrecht (Pays-Bas) on 25 September 2015. See: http://www.gern-cnrs.com/en/
UK
Calls for Papers
The Howard League for Penal Reform will be hosting a 3-day international conference
entitled Justice and Penal Reform: Re-shaping the penal landscape from 16–18 March
2016, Keble College Oxford. See http://www.howardleague.org/justice-penal-refmcallforpapers/
Report
The latest annual report by the Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales is available
to download here: https://www.justiceinspectorates.gov.uk/hmiprisons/wpcontent/uploads/sites/4/2015/07/HMIP-AR_2014-15_TSO_Final1.pdf
Seminars/conferences
The 7th Annual Postgraduate Criminology Conference will be hosted by Queen’s
University Belfast (QUB). The event will be held at QUB on Monday 31st August and 1st
September 2015. See http://blogs.qub.ac.uk/pgcc2015/
What do young black Londoners think about the ethnic penalty?
As part of the Justice Matter project, the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies is seeking the
views of young black Londoners about our work on the 'ethnic penalty'. This event is being held
in collaboration with the 20:20 Change Foundation on 3rd September. See:
http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=76
When evidence and politics collide: The David Nutt affair. What happens when
scientific evidence clashes with political calculation? With Deborah Drake and Reece
Walters, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, 14th September 2015. See:
http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=74
Hearing the Hidden Voice: Researching Prisoners' Lives and Perspectives
This one-day workshop will be held at the University of Dundee, Scotland, DD1 4HN, UK
on 23 October 2015. See: http://www.dundee.ac.uk/humanities/poi/events/hiddenvoice/
Image courtesy of http://www.bootsnall.com/europe-estonia-tallinn
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).