Campbell, D. (2014) - European Web viewThis section is dedicated to the second conference held by...
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EUROPEAN GROUP FOR THE STUDY OF DEVIANCE AND SOCIAL CONTROL ESTABLISHED 1973 Coordinator: Emma Bell Secretary: Monish Bhatia
Transcript of Campbell, D. (2014) - European Web viewThis section is dedicated to the second conference held by...
EUROPEAN GROUP FOR THE STUDY OF DEVIANCE AND
SOCIAL CONTROLESTABLISHED 1973
Coordinator: Emma Bell Secretary: Monish Bhatia
AUTUMN NEWSLETTER III
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. Annual Conference Tallinn 2014
Call for PapersAssisted PlacesAccommodation
II. European Group News Campaign update: Hassan DiabPublicationsConference 2016PodcastsCall for Papers
III. Comment & Analysis Sites of Confinement II
This section is dedicated to the second conference held by the Prisons, Punishment and Detention Working Group. It includes a conference report by organiser and working group coordinator, Vicky Canning, and summaries of presentations delivered
Belinda Carpenter and Gordon Tait: Investigating Death amongst Vulnerable and Marginalised Populations
Carly Speed: Degradation and Death: Psychiatric Detention in England and Wales
IV. News from Europe and around the world
AustraliaGermanyBelgiumNorwaySpain UKUSA International
I. European Group Conference
Social Divisions, Surveillance and the Security State43rd Annual Conference of the European Group for the Study of
Deviance and Social Control26th - 29th August 2015
Faculty of LawUniversity of Tartu
TallinnEstonia
CALL FOR PAPERS
Despite the existence of widespread public discourse about equality and human rights, social, racial, sexual, ethnic, religious, political and economic divisions continue to mark societies across the globe. In many countries, these divisions have even widened under the pressure of competing nationalist and populist discourses which highlight difference rather than common humanity. Today, new technologies of surveillance are used on both a national and supra-national level to classify, segregate and control all those who are thought to threaten the mythical cohesion and security of nation-states. Whilst it was thought that the end of the Cold War and the spread of globalisation would lead to the erosion of boundaries of all kinds, on the contrary old boundaries are being rebuilt and new ones created. These boundaries have spread far beyond the traditional borders of nation state as surveillance and security have come to dominate the agendas of international organisations.
This conference will be particularly interested in exploring the rise of security obsessions on a micro and macro level, examining what the future holds in terms of surveillance practices. It will look at the consequences of these trends in terms of exacerbating social divisions. It will seek to examine forms of resistance and to propose practical ways out of the current security impasse. As has traditionally been the case with European Group conferences, the conference will connect with local problems and activist groups. Papers connecting the conference theme with local issues in Eastern Europe will be particularly welcome.
Academics, activists and all those targeted by mechanisms of state control and segregation (people in prison, migrants, people who have come into conflict with the police etc.) are encouraged to participate.
We welcome papers on the themes below which reflect the general values and principles of the European Group.
Further information on the 43rd annual conference may be found at www.europeangroup.org. Please submit all abstracts by 31 March 2015 to the email contact provided under the stream you wish to present at. For all general enquiries please contact Anna Markina at [email protected]. For questions about the European Group, please contact the current co-ordinator, Emma Bell at [email protected].
Processes of Violence and VictimisationContact: Alejandro ForeroEmail: [email protected] and Rita FariaEmail: [email protected]
Global crime State-corporate crime The social and environmental harms of
neoliberal capitalism Collective harms Gendered harm
Surveillance futuresContact: Alberto TestaEmail: [email protected] Assisting: Maryja Supa/ Steve Wright
Futures of social control Extra-national surveillance Fortress Europe Dataveillance and data flow Social sorting
The rise of the security stateContact: Paddy RawlinsonEmail: [email protected] Assisting: Georgios Papanicolaou, Francesca Vianello, John Moore, Scott Poynting, Luca Follis, Antonio Munoz
Imperialism/post-colonialism The harms of policing State-corporate control Incarceration and control Governance and security
Social divisions and classificationContact: Monish BhatiaEmail: [email protected] Assisting: Tunde Zack-Williams/ Andrea Beckmann
The demonisation of young people The criminalisation of poverty Gendered critiques of the application of criminal
law and criminal /social policy Identity, diversity and criminalisation Immigration control
Resistance and radical alternativesContact: Gilles ChantraineEmail: [email protected] Assisting: Samantha Fletcher, Nicolas Carrier
Abolitionist approaches Unsilencing the silenced Collective action and collective resistance The new politics of the Left
Policing and Security Working Group StreamContact: Georgios Papanicolaou Assisting: Will Jackson, Waqas Tufail, Joanna GilmoreE-mail: [email protected]
Legacies of radical thinking about the police Capitalism, pacification and the police Democratizing the police: problems and
prospects Organisational change: beyond militarism and
bureaucratism in policing Alternatives to policing Activist and community resistance movements:
possibilities for autogestion in security Challenging for-profit policing
experiences and prospects of security cooperatives
Tallinn Christmas Market
ASSISTED PLACES
Please note that there will be at least one assisted place available for the conference. This will be allocated in priority to applicants who meet some / all of the below criteria:
* Does not have a tenured position in academia or has no means of providing alternative means of support through employment schemes.
* An MA / PhD student / part-time member of staff who is ineligible for university department/school/faculty funding to attend conferences.
* Is confronted with other significant difficulties which would merit special support to attend the conference.
* Is currently undertaking research or activism in an area that reflects the themes and values of the European Group
* Is planning to deliver a paper at the conference on a theme that reflects the work of Stan Cohen. It may, for example, reflect on the concept of moral panic, social control, the psychological impact of atrocities and imprisonment…
The deadline for applications is 31st March. Those wishing to apply should write a 150-300 word statement in support of their application. A copy of the conference paper abstract should also be included in the submission. The conference place is free and the European Group will help support travel and accommodation costs. Please send all applications and enquiries to Emma Bell: [email protected]
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) (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.
BOOKING
Booking for conference places will be available shortly via our website. More details will be posted in next month’s newsletter.
II. European Group News
CAMPAIGN UPDATE: Hassan Diab
November 24, 2014
As many of you are aware, since the Fall of 2008 France has been seeking the extradition of Canadian citizen Dr. Hassan Diab, a sociologist who had been teaching at the University of Ottawa and Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada. The French authorities allege that Hassan Diab was involved in a bombing near a Paris synagogue in October 1980. From the outset, Dr. Diab has asserted his innocence and condemned the attack.
Despite the extreme weakness of the case put forward by French authorities, Canada agreed to the extradition of Dr. Diab, which took place on November 14, 2014. Dr. Diab is currently incarcerated in France under judicial investigation ("mis en examen"). He can expect to remain incarcerated for up to two years or more, while waiting for the French magistrate to conclude his investigation and decide whether or not to put him on trial.
The European Group has previously expressed grave concerns about the extradition law and process in Canada, as evidenced by the case of Hassan Diab. In a petition sent to the Canadian Minister of Justice in September 2011, European Group members urged the Canadian government to legally remedy and reform aspects of Canadian extradition law that are not currently in conformity with international norms concerning respect for due process and principles of fundamental justice. See:
http://www.justiceforhassandiab.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/European_Group_to_Nicholson_Sep2011.pdf
At this time, we (Maeve McMahon and the Hassan Diab Support Committee) urge you to familiarize yourselves with the latest information about this travesty of justice, and to bring this case to the attention of other individuals and organizations concerned with due process, human rights, and social justice. Latest information can be found at http://www.justiceforhassandiab.org
From the outset, we have been deeply concerned that Dr. Diab is wrongfully accused. Now that he has been extradited, we are concerned that, following a lengthy detention and investigation, he may also be facing wrongful conviction and life imprisonment.
We will keep you informed about this case. In the meantime, please email [email protected] if you can assist in identifying any individual or organizational contacts in France that can help with public education and advocacy on behalf of Dr. Diab. Also, please let us know if you can assist with English to French translation of documents.
Maeve McMahon and the Hassan Diab Support Committee
PUBLICATIONS
New publication
Sites of Confinement (edited by Victoria Canning). Can be purchased for only £5.50 on http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sites-Confinement-Victoria-Canning/dp/0951170864/ All proceeds go directly to the European Group
CONTENTS: Introduction VICTORIA CANNING Chapter One EMMA BELL: The Confines of Neoliberalism Chapter Two VICKIE COOPER: Gendered Geographies of Punishment Chapter Three ANDREW JEFFERSON: Political Detainees in the Philippines Chapter Four MONISH BHATIA: Creating and Managing ‘Mad’, ‘Bad’ and
‘Dangerous’: The Role of the Immigration System Chapter Five ELOISE COCKCROFT: Detention And Asylum: Who Safe Guards Out
Most Vulnerable People? Chapter Six JOE SIM: Exploring the ‘Edges of What Is Possible: Abolitionist
Activism and Neoliberal Austerity Chapter Seven DAVID SCOTT: Playing The Get Out of Jail For Free Card: Creating
A New ‘Abolitionist Consensus’? Conclusion VICTORIA CANNING
Discounted publication!
Copies of the EG published book Beyond Criminal Justice have been reduced to just £8 including UK p&p (other countries 8 euros and p&p at cost) Please e-mail John Moore at [email protected]
CONFERENCE 2016
Our 2016 conference will be held at the University of Minho, Braga, Portugal. The conference organiser is Luísa Saavedra.
PODCASTS
Many podcasts from our last annual conference in Liverpool are available on our Soundcloud page: https://soundcloud.com/europeangroup. Many thanks to John Moore for uploading these.
CALL FOR PAPERS
We’d like to encourage academics, activists and those targeted 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 [email protected]
III. Comment & Analysis
Conference Report: Sites of Confinement - Problematising Prisons
Victoria Canning, Liverpool John Moores University
Conference organiser & coordinator of the Prisons, Punishment and Detention Working Group
Following the success of the first ‘Sites of Confinement’ day conference in March of 2013, the Prisons, Punishment and Detention Working Group hosted our second symposium – a half-day seminar – in October. Focussing on the harms of incarceration, the role of prison officers and coroners, and deaths in psychiatric and state custody, the afternoon provided an opportunity for much critical consideration of imprisonment and hyper-incarceration.
The presentations were opened by John Moore with an historical analysis of Maconochie’s role in ‘prison reform’ in the mid-1800s. The paper highlighted uses of violence, cruel and inhuman treatment, and arduous work in poor prison conditions for men and boys in Birmingham prison. Critically unpacking the view of Maconochie as a positive contributor to prison reform agendas, Moore meticulously documented ways in which his agenda oozed humiliation and abuse, including extended use of straight-jackets, use of the crank and forcing a ‘work for food’ approach to prisoners.
Belinda Carpenter moved from focussing on life in prison to deaths and the coronial system in Queensland. While discrimination against indigenous and minority ethnic and religious groups in penal and immigration systems in Australia are well-documented, little research has been done into the treatment of deceased individuals and individuals’ families throughout the coronial system, particularly from a criminological perspective. Reflecting on interviews with coronial personnel, Carpenter outlined ways in which discrimination against indigenous groups in particular is embedded in the system after death, including when the person has died in custody. The paper specifically highlighted non-consensual experimentation in autopsy, discriminatory interpretations of indigenous grieving practices, and poor relations between police and Muslim groups. All these factors have the capacity to affect coronial processes when, for example, homicide occurs.
Belinda Carpenter was followed by Carly Speed, whose presentation outlined the under-researched problem of deaths in psychiatric custody. Linking the discussion to debates on death and degradation in state care more broadly, Speed highlighted that in the UK alone from 1999-2009 there were 3810 deaths of detained patients. Despite this, as Speed’s paper emphasised, there has never been a criminal conviction regarding failures in psychiatric institutions relating to deaths, and there remains no independent reviewer for deaths in psychiatric custody. The paper concluded with some food for thought: that over half of those who have died in state custody have died while detained
under Mental Health Act. This statistic is particularly concerning given that the number of people detained under this Act in the UK is at an all-time high.
After a short break, critical thought was resumed when our next presenter, Alessandro Maculan, provided insight into the role and function of prison guards in Italian prisons. Outlining differences in staff attitudes and cultures, his research demonstrated that a ‘high-risk’ approach is often taken to the handling and treatment of prisoners, despite relatively rare attacks on guards. This, he argued, seemingly facilitates the use of authority and control in prisons. This perspective was subsequently picked up in the final presentation from Sacha Darke, who extended our international perspective on prisons to consider incarceration in Latin America. This paper drew together a number of key issues discussed throughout the day, namely the problems of prison-overcrowding, inhumane conditions, poor resources, the spread of illness, and a lack of rehabilitation opportunities. Darke argued that, rather than securing prisoners, a correctional approach is often taken alongside situational adjustment, where a lack of prison guards lends to a culture of self-governance, substituted by Non-Governmental Organisations when the state fails to provide services. Thus prisons become ‘sites of containment and abandonment’.
As with all seminars, one key objective was to generate discussion, which the presenters certainly did. Concerns were raised by the audience in relation to dehumanisation and the abuse of human rights, the State’s control of death, and the inherent control of poor and minority groups. Echoing concerns raised by the Working Group more broadly, audience contributors drew attention to the increase in most forms of confinement, including immigration detention, young people and those held in psychiatric institutions. In debating the role of the prison and its limitations, John Moore observed that ‘it isn’t that prisons don’t work – they work for the agendas of the state, maintaining power relationships and hierarchies. We have to tell people WHY prison works’.
The afternoon closed with the launch of the European Group’s latest publication, Sites of Confinement: Prisons, Punishment and Detention. Edited by Victoria Canning, this short collection of essays provides an outline of the papers delivered at the first conference. Authors include Emma Bell, Andrew Jefferson, Vickie Cooper, Monish Bhatia, Eloise Cockcroft, Joe Sim and David Scott. We were pleased to welcome members of ‘Revive’ asylum support group to the launch, particularly Fozia and Nawaz to whom the book is dedicated. Fozia and Nawaz participated in the first conference, where they discussed the Home Office handling of their cases and the impacts that that had on each of them. It was especially great to welcome their new-born twin daughters, who quietly listened to their first ever conference presentations! Thanks again to Revive for making it to the launch, and a special thanks to all of the presenters whose excellent papers and research made for a fantastic seminar.
Now that we have some momentum, the group hopes to hold a third Sites of Confinement conference, and will aim for this to take place at the University of Ulster in 2015. Further information to follow soon – hope to see you there.
For further information on Fozia and Nawaz’s campaign, please see here: http://feministcollective.org.uk/action-save-fozia-and-nawaz-from-honour-crime/
For further information the new ‘Sites of Confinement’ book, please see http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sites-Confinement-Victoria-Canning/dp/0951170864
Investigating Death amongst Vulnerable and Marginalised Populations
Belinda Carpenter and Gordon Tait
Introduction
As criminologists we are already very aware of the ways in which prejudice and moral panics can influence how criminal justice personnel engage certain populations in the criminal justice system (Hudson 2008). What may be less well-known is how similar ways of thinking and acting also occur in non-suspicious coronial death investigations. This is because these systems have a lot in common. Similar populations are over-represented in both and this tends to mean that the same populations come to the attention of police, magistrates and pathologists as offenders in the criminal justice system and when their families are victims in the coronial system (Carpenter and Tait 2009; Cuneen 2006). It is also the case that a criminal lens can pervade non-criminal death investigations especially when the experience and training of many coronial professionals is in the criminal justice system (Carpenter, Tait and Quadrelli 2013). This can mean that similar strategies are relied upon by personnel when dealing with families when they are both victims and offenders. This paper discusses the findings from our interview-based research with 34 coronial personnel (10 coroners, 7 pathologists, 3 counsellors, 3 nurses, 7 police and 4 police liaison officers) in one state jurisdiction in Australia in order to elucidate how certain strategies, taken from criminal investigations, work to exclude familial remembering of the deceased in non-suspicious death investigations.
Stereotypinga) Indigenous invisibility and incapacity
Indigenous people constitute a vulnerable and marginalised population, over-represented in coronial death investigations due to structural factors such as endemic violence, poor access to health care, low life expectancies and high rates of chronic disease (Tatz 2005). Part of the problem in a death investigation is that police are required by law to investigate all coronial deaths (the vast majority of which are neither suspicious nor criminal) but this occurs within a long and well-documented history of poor relations between police and Indigenous people (Cuneen 2006). As a consequence, Indigenous people are unlikely to raise a concern against the autopsy despite their statutory right to do so (Carpenter and Tait 2009). The recognition that police were not the best people to investigate deaths in Indigenous families was well understood by the coroners we interviewed.
I would expect that more often than not Indigenous communities didn’t understand what their options were, and more often than not—you know—subjugated springs to mind. They just went along with what the police and authority figures have always told them (Coroner 8).
Such outcomes occur against a backdrop of ‘the endemic losses of colonialism and the heightened mortality of ongoing alienation’, and which in other contexts, such as that of the Maori in New Zealand, have arguably increased, rather than decreased, the relevance of cultural practices in relation to loss and death, many of which are interrupted by the removal of the body during a coronial death investigation (Clarke and McCreanor 2006, 27).
b) Muslim suspicion
The issues for Islamic families are quite different to those experienced by Indigenous communities. First, Muslims are not over-represented in coronial death investigations, and when their religious objections are heard, research suggests they are supported by coroners who order less invasive autopsies as a consequence (Carpenter et al 2011). However, like Indigenous families, Muslims must first negotiate the validity of their objection to police.
And I have found that the Muslims have a tendency to object big time. And it seems that the Muslims, it’s not that I hate Muslims *laughs* it’s just that they are prominent on the objection side. ‘Oh you don’t need to do this because you’re cutting up the body’… I immediately get suspicious when somebody says, ‘Oh no you shouldn’t you shouldn’t’. What have you had to do with this death in that case? I think we need to look at this a little bit further if you’re objecting so strongly and putting it under the guise of religious or cultural concerns (police officer 2).
While rising Islamophobia in western nations post 9/11 (Poynting and Mason 2006) is the backdrop to this pronouncement, police culture has embraced the recent moral panic around terrorism, whereby any expression of Islamic religious identity is considered as suspicious, indicative of an underlying and dangerous fundamentalism (Humphrey 2007, 13). However, in a death investigation, Muslim families are also positioned by police as being in opposition to modernity due to their non-normative practices around death and dying. Such practices are positioned as traditional, and as religiously dogmatic which is contrasted with the rationalism of modernity and its claims to truth through scientific investigations – a position with which police readily align themselves. Muslim families, like Indigenous families, are in a quandary: if they make themselves known to police they risk being positioned as suspicious and possibly guilty of a crime, but if they don’t identify themselves, their grieving practices will be severely interrupted at a time when they are suffering the trauma and shock of a sudden death.
Scientific Methods
In a coronial death investigation, the legislative necessity of an autopsy means that the pathologist is required to search the dead body in order to discover the disease or injury that resulted in the death. By employing scientific methods, the body reveals its knowledge to the pathologist who has the expertise ‘to read from the body surfaces and its internal sites’ (Hallam, Hockey and Howarth 1999, 94). By virtue of the ideological dominance of scientific discourse in modernist societies, such expert knowledge of the pathologist ‘asserts dominance over lay accounts’ of the deceased (Hallam, Hockey and Howarth 1999, 95).
I think we shouldn’t sanction cultural and religious views as much as we do. I don’t like to use the word superstitious, I don’t think we’re allowed to, but views which are not based on any tangible evidence are given too much weight in the current process in my opinion. I would like to see less reliance or less ability for families to successfully not have their relative subjected to an autopsy on the basis of cultural or religious views. Is that fair, possibly not, I don’t know (Pathologist 4).
In such conversations, it is argued that two competing representations of the dead body are evident: the medico-legal body which is ‘mechanistic’, ‘devoid of personality’, ‘tissue’; and the body as ‘beloved and lamented’ (Drayton 2011:240). Families who seek to challenge the autopsy on religious or cultural grounds are positioned as holding superstitious beliefs and suspicious behaviours. Pathologists thus stand in opposition to familial involvement in a death investigation – wedded as they are to science as the point of access for the truth of the death (Carpenter and Tait 2010). In contrast, a continuing familial connection with the body has been argued to be a normal part of suffering, grief and loss but intensified during a coronial death investigation. Such powerlessness is exacerbated for certain families since a death investigation interrupts culturally specific grieving practices, many of which focus on the presence of a body (Clarke and McCreanor 2006).
Emotional distance
In a similar fashion, all coroners interviewed suggested that distance from the family was important for fair and impartial decision making:
I tend to keep a distance. Different people do different things … there’s still an emotional involvement that you have to manage and you have to manage your own capacity to rationally make decisions in accordance with legislation while balancing emotional involvement. And to some extent you have to be protective of yourself to be able to do that properly (Coroner 3)
As Bandes and Blumenthal (2012, 162) note, the role of emotion within the law has been that to which the law has sought to avoid or counteract. Emotion is said to pose a challenge to rational deliberation and to influence decision making beyond the evidence, in a biased or unfair manner. This has had considerable attention in the criminal justice system, less so in the coronial jurisdiction. However, if the concern is based on an ‘impulse to respond with sensitivity and care to the suffering of another’ it is arguably, an essential capacity for all judicial officers (Bandes and Blumenthal 2012, 170). Families suffering a sudden and traumatic death may be best served by a form of therapeutic jurisprudence, where the law is not simply a set of codes to be followed without reflection, but rather one which is seen to have consequences for all those caught up in the proceedings (Tait and Carpenter 2013). Within such a framework, our legal institutions, and those charged with making them work, are positioned as having some responsibility for the mental and emotional wellbeing of participants. For families already vulnerable and marginalised, this approach may be particularly warranted.
Conclusion
Having inherited the coronial system of death investigation from England, this paper has suggested that a criminal lens pervades the investigation of non-suspicious coronial deaths in countries such as England and Australia. In order to demonstrate this, this paper has explored the ways in which coronial personnel in one Australian jurisdiction engage with families during a death investigation. It has argued that the criminal lens becomes apparent in three distinct ways. First, specific historical and contemporary events are utilised to cast suspicion or incompetence on marginalised communities such as Indigenous Australians or Muslim communities. Second, the dominance of modernity through scientific investigations such as the autopsy serves to position cultural and
religious belief as non-modern and thus as superstitious and irrational. Third, the need for emotional distance in order to make rational judicial decisions continues to position familial remembering as the antithesis of a coronial death investigation.
References
Bandes, S. and Blumenthal, J. (2012) ‘Emotion and the Law’. The Annual Review of Law and Social Science. 8:161-181
Carpenter, B., Tait, G. and Quadrelli, C. (2013) ‘Arguing the Autopsy: mutual suspicion, jurisdictional confusion and the socially marginal’. Proceedings of the 2nd International Conference on Crime, Justice and Social Democracy. http://crimejusticeconference.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Conference-Proceedings_Vol-1_2013.pdf, p10-18
Carpenter, B., G Tait, G Adkins, M Barnes, C Naylor and N Begum (2011) ‘Communicating with the Coroner: how religion, culture and family concerns influence autopsy decision making’. Death Studies. 35(4): 316-337
Carpenter, B. and G Tait (2010) ‘The Autopsy Imperative: medicine, law and the coronial investigation’. Journal of Medical Humanities. 31(3), September :205-222.
Carpenter, B. and G Tait (2009) ‘Death, Health and Indigenous Australians in the Queensland Coronial System”. Australian Aboriginal Studies. 1:29-41.
Clarke, E. and T McCreanor (2006) ‘He wahine tangi tikapa ...: Statutory investigative processes and the grieving of Maori families who have lost a baby to SIDS’. Kotuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online. 1(1):25-43.
Cuneen, C. (2006) ‘Aboriginal Deaths in Custody: a continuing systematic abuse’. Social Justice. 33(4):37-51.
Drayton, D. (2011) ‘Organ retention and bereavement: family counselling and the ethics of consultation’. Ethics and Social Welfare. 5(3):227-246.
Hallam, E., Hockey, J. and Howarth, G. (1999) Beyond the Body: Death and Social Identity. Routledge: London.
Hudson, B. (2008) “Difference, diversity and criminology: The cosmopolitan vision”. Theoretical Criminology. 12(3): 275-292.
Humphrey, M. (2007) ‘Culturalising the Abject: Islam, Law and Moral Panic in the West. Australian Journal of Social Issues. 42(1):9-25
Poynting, S. and Mason, V. (2006) “Tolerance, Freedom, Justice and Peace?: Britain, Australia and Anti-Muslim Racism since 11 September 2001”. Journal of Intercultural Studies. 27(4): 365-391.
Tait, G. and B. Carpenter (2013). “Suicide and the therapeutic coroner: inquests, governance and the grieving family”. International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy . 2(3): 92–104
Tatz, C. (2005) Aboriginal Suicide is Different. Aboriginal Studies Press: Canberra
Author biographies
Associate Professor Gordon Tait teaches philosophy at Queensland University of Technology. His research expertise includes the philosophy of education, young people and governance, the pathologising of conduct, and the links between suicide and coronial practice.
Professor Belinda Carpenter is a member of the School of Justice in the Faculty of Law, and is Director of the Crime and Justice Research Centre, at Queensland University of Technology. Since 2004, Professor Carpenter has been researching coronial decision-making.
Degradation and Death: Psychiatric Detention in England and Wales
Carly Speed
Statistics have suggested that each year one in four people in the United Kingdom will experience a mental health problem (MIND, 2013). Therefore, it was by no means surprising that 50,408 people were detained under the Mental Health Act 2007 in 2012-2013, the highest number in history (Health and Social Care Information Centre, 2013). What is more surprising, however, was the sheer number of deaths of individuals detained under the Mental Health Act 2007. Between 1999 and 2009, there were 3,810 deaths of detained patients (Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody 2010:1). More recently, between 2011 and 2013 there were 511 deaths of detained patients (Care Quality Commission, 2014:3).
Despite the fact that the deaths of detained patients actually account for 60% of all deaths in state custody (Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody, 2012:12) the deaths of detained patients have remained somewhat an ‘invisible’ topic, widely ignored in critical academic research. This was to the extent that INQUEST, the leading charity investigating deaths in custody, stated that progress related to deaths in psychiatric facilities was thirty years behind the progress made regarding police and prison custody deaths (Speed, 2013:86).
In 2014 the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) launched an inquiry into the non-natural deaths of those suffering from mental health problems in differing forms of state custody. Due to the nature of my own research in this area (Speed, 2013), I was able to assist with this inquiry which was primarily concerned with the extent to which different organisations have complied with Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights. Article 2 is the ‘right to life’ and states that everyone’s life should be protected by law. Furthermore, the state must never arbitrarily take someone’s life and must safeguard the lives of those in its care. Finally, Article 2 states that if someone is to lose their life whilst in its care then the state must carry out an effective investigation which is independent, open to public scrutiny and involve the bereaved family (EHRC, 2012:25). The Commission recognised that the right to life is the most fundamental right we all share. Despite efforts by the various authorities to prevent deaths of people in psychiatric hospitals prisons and police custody, every year there are preventable deaths (Hammond cited in EHRC, 2014). This inquiry was preceded by a judicial review which took place in 2013 and challenged the current investigation system when an individual dies in psychiatric detention. The central argument of this judicial review was that the investigations into these deaths were not in compliance with Article 2 as they were conducted by the same hospital trust which was responsible for individuals’ care at the time of their death. This was unlike police and prison custody deaths which were independently investigated. Furthermore, it was said that these investigations rarely involved the bereaved family and were seldom open to public scrutiny. The judgement of the judicial review stated that an independent investigation system was not required
as a coroner’s inquest alone was enough to fulfil the Article 2 requirement of the state (Aikens, 2013; INQUEST, 2013).
The findings of the EHRC inquiry are due to be published in the spring of 2015, so cannot be discussed within this article. However, the findings of my own previous research in this area can be examined in order to gain an understanding of the issues apparent in psychiatric detention in England and Wales, in addition to the vast number of examples of non-compliance with Article 2 (Speed, 2013). As discussed in a previous European Group publication (Speed, 2014:35) this research was concerned with gathering the views of legal practitioners who had extensive experience of working in this area and had worked directly with bereaved families. Regarding the first crucial aspect of Article 2, the obligation of the state to protect those in its care, my research suggested that there was concern regarding the promptness of both medical and mental health care for those who were detained, twinned with the often poor attitudes of those who are providing this care. Here participants stated that disrespectful treatment of patients by staff was apparent, coupled with discrimination against patients by staff (Speed, 2013:65). The unlawful restraint of detained patients had also been consistently recognised. This was reflected by the publication of MIND’s 2013 report entitled ‘Mental Health Crisis Care: Physical Restraint in Crisis’ (MIND, 2013). This report stated that it was ‘unacceptable that successive governments have neglected to take action, failed to establish national standards for the use of physical restraint in England and to introduce accredited training for healthcare staff’ (MIND, 2013:3). To add to this already negative picture which had formed regarding the state’s obligation to protect those in its care, my research then highlighted the inadequacy of risk assessments for detained patients, specifically their promptness, effectiveness, follow up and finally how appropriately the findings of these assessments were disseminated (Speed, 2013:64). This is especially concerning when one considers the sheer numbers of individuals in psychiatric detention who are deemed to be at risk of self-harm and suicide (Campbell, 2014).
With regard to the second crucial aspect of Article 2 – the state’s obligation to investigate – my research highlighted major concerns regarding the fact that investigations in to deaths in psychiatric detention were being conducted by the same hospital trust responsible for an individual’s care at the time of their death. Participants believed that these investigations have not been open to public scrutiny due to them lacking independency (Speed, 2013:74). Numerous other problems which have resulted from this lack of independent investigation were highlighted, including participants stating that relevant evidence was repeatedly ignored or not gathered in the first place. Links can also be drawn here with the fact that professionals have rarely been held to account for failings related to deaths in psychiatric detention. Furthermore, participants emphasised their concern regarding the lack of consideration towards bereaved families following the death of their family member in psychiatric detention, from the slow manner in which families were often informed of the death, through to persistent failures to involve these families through the journey of the investigation. Finally, it was
hardly surprising that participants believed that lessons were still not being learnt from previous deaths in psychiatric detention (Speed, 2013:83).
This brings us to consider just why there is such widespread disregard for the lives of those detained under the Mental Health Act 2007. There is an entire thesis to be written regarding the differing views surrounding this matter, however this article will briefly consider one of the most relevant issues, that of the dominant positivistic approach towards those with mental health problems. Those with mental health problems have long been viewed as ‘mad’ or ‘bad’ and this has resulted in those individuals being associated with deviancy and offending (Farrow, Kelly and Wilkinson, 2007:201). Historically this positivistic view of mental health problems has remained unchallenged and this has contributed to the social injustice and inequality affecting those with mental health problems. This has been demonstrated by the social and judicial intolerance surrounding the general ‘mentally healthy’ population ‘allowing’ those with mental health problems to be in the community. This is not surprising when you examine newspaper coverage of mental health problems with headlines such as ‘Bonkers Bruno Locked Up’ (The Sun, 2003:1) and ‘Exclusive Investigation: 1,200 Killed by Mental Health Patients’ (Parry, 2013:1). Despite this, my previous research and my ongoing PhD study aimed to move away from this positivistic standpoint by adopting a critical criminological approach, allowing for the examination of the oppression and marginalisation that those with mental health problems experience. This has allowed alternative truths to emerge which have worked to challenge state-defined truths surrounding deaths in psychiatric detention. My PhD research will directly gather the views of bereaved families, combined with the views of mental health organisations, pressure groups and coroners. The aim is to provide a comprehensive exploration into deaths in psychiatric detention which is critical yet recognises the positive work which is ongoing and has worked to promote better care for detained patients whilst attempting to reform the ineffective investigation system following the deaths of a detained patient.
To conclude, the numbers of people being detained under the Mental Health Act 2007 is at an all-time high, yet the positivistic view of mental health problems is still dominant and is demonstrated in public opinion, media coverage and inadequate policies which supposedly aim to ensure appropriate care in state custody. Despite this, there is growing public, political and critical academic interest in this issue and alternative views of mental health problems are successfully emerging thanks to critical research and the work of pressure groups such as INQUEST. Will this growing attention and interest combined with the findings of the EHRC inquiry finally prompt the much needed change and improvement that this dreadful problem so desperately requires?
Bibliography
Aikens, Lord Justice. (2013) R (On the application of Antoniou) and (1) Central And North West London NHS Foundation Trust (2) The Secretary of State for Health (3) NHS England, (Online) Available From: http://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/Admin/2013/3055.html. Date Accessed: 9th November 2014.
Campbell, D. (2014) Self-Harm by Mental Health Patients in NHS has Risen by 56%, Figures Show, (Online) Available From: http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/aug/27/self-harm-suicide-mental-health-patients-nhs-rises-56-per-cent. Date Accessed: 10th November 2014.
Care Quality Commission. (2014) Monitoring the Mental Health Act in 2012/13, Newcastle upon Tyne: Care Quality Commission.
Equality and Human Rights Commission. (2012) Human Rights Commission 2012, (Online) Available From: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/documents/humanrights/ehrc_hrr_full_v1.pdf. Date Accessed: 9th November 2014.
Equality and Human Rights Commission. (2014) Commission Launches Inquiry into Non-Natural Deaths of People in with Mental Health Conditions in State Detention, (Online) Available From: http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/commission-launches-inquiry-non-natural-deaths-people-mental-health-conditions-state-detention. Date Accessed: 9th November 2014.
Farrow, K. Kelly, G. and Wilkinson, B. (2007) Offenders in Focus, Bristol: The Policy Press.
Health and Social Care Information Centre. (2013) Inpatients Formally Detained in Hospitals Under the Mental Health Act 1983 and Patients Subject to Supervised Community Treatment, England - 2012-2013, Annual figures, (Online) Available From: http://www.hscic.gov.uk/searchcatalogue?productid=13209&q=title%3a%22Inpatients+formally+detained+in+hospitals+under+the+Mental+Health+Act%22+&sort=Most+recent&size=10&page=1#to p . Date Accessed: 8th November 2014.
Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody. (2010) Deaths of Patients Detained under the Mental Health Act (MHA), (Online) Available From: http://iapdeathsincustody.independent.gov.uk/work-of-the-iap/working-groups/deaths-of-patients-detained-under-the-mental-health-act-mha/. Date Accessed: 8th November 2014.
Independent Advisory Panel on Deaths in Custody. (2012) Statistical Analysis of all recorded deaths of individuals detained in state custody between 1 January 2000 and 31 December 2011, (Online) Available From: http://iapdeathsincustody.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/11/Statistical-analysis-of-recorded-deaths-between-2000-and-2011.doc. Date Accessed: 8th November 2014.
INQUEST. (2013) High Court Rules on Investigation of Deaths in Psychiatric Detention , (Online) Available From: http://www.inquest.org.uk/press-releases/press-releases-2013/high-court-rules-on-investigation-of-deaths-in-psychiatric-detention.Date Accessed: 9th November 2014.
MIND. (2013) Mental Health Crisis Care: Physical Restraint in Crisis, London: MIND.
MIND. (2013) Mental Health Facts and Statistics, (Online) Available at http://www.mind.org.uk/information-support/types-of-mental-health-problems/statistics-and-facts-about-mental-health/how-common-are-mental-health-problems/. Date Accessed: 8th November 2014.
Parry, R. (2013) ‘1,200 Killed by Mental Patients’ The Sun, October 7th.
Speed, C. (2013) Making the Invisible Visible: A Critical Analysis of Deaths in Psychiatric Detention. Master of Research Thesis, Liverpool John Moores University.
Speed, C. (2014) ‘Making the Invisible Visible: A Critical Analysis of Deaths in Psychiatric Detention’, European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control Summer Newsletter II.
The Sun. (2003) ‘Bonkers Bruno Locked Up’, The Sun, September 23rd.
Author Biography
Carly Speed is a PhD student, sessional lecturer and teaching support officer at Liverpool John Moores University. Carly was invited as a keynote speaker at the 42 nd
Annual Conference for the Study of Deviance and Social Control in 2014. The research discussed within this article was shortlisted for the Howard League John Sunley Prize 2014. Email: [email protected]
IV. News from Europe and around the world
Australia
Call for papers : The Crime, Justice and Social Democracy International Conference is a biennial conference hosted by the Crime and Justice Research Centre, QUT. The conference brings distinguished international speakers together from UK, US, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Europe, New Zealand and Australia. It rotates every alternate year to the Critical Criminology conference convened in Australia. See http://crimejusticeconference.com
Belgium
The ninth annual conference of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy (ISSDP) will be held in Ghent (Belgium), from Wednesday 20th to Friday 22nd May, 2015. The event will be hosted by the Institute for Social Drug research (ISD), Ghent University. Visitwww.issdp2015.ugent.be
Germany
Call for papers: Are we living in a decade dominated by an underestimation of forms of violence causing a lack of investment in prevention and intervention? The international Conference on "Violent Conflicts 2015: The violent decade?! Recent Domains of Violent Conflicts and Counteracting" in Bielefeld provides a state-of-the-art description and analyses of current inner-societal forms of violence which have the potential to cause massive crisis within as well as between societies. See: http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/%28en%29/ikg/konferenz.html
Norway
KROM, the Norwegian prison abolitionist group, is holding a conference on 15th January 2015 in Oslo.
KROM holder sin 44. kriminalpolitiske konferanse på Storefjell Resort Hotel i tiden 15.-18. januar 2015. Det er ankomst på Storefjell Resort Hotel torsdag 15. januar om kvelden, og avreise søndag 18. januar kl. 14. Prisen for full pensjon (kost og losji på dobbeltrom) er kr. 2800,- for tre døgn. I tillegg kommer seminaravgift, som er kr. 700,- for de som betaler selv, og kr. 1400,- for de som får oppholdet dekket av arbeidsstedet. All betaling vedrørende konferansen gjøres på hotellet. KROM arrangerer felles bussreise Oslo-Storefjell for de som er interessert. Bussreisen koster kr. 500,- tur-retur. Bussavgang fra Oslo torsdag 14. januar kl. 1600 ved Rådhuset (Fr. Nansens plass). Så langt det er mulig vil KROM yte tilskudd til fangers opphold.
Spain
Interesting article in French about torture in Spain : http://supermax.be/les-tortures-ne-relevent-pas-de-lexception-en-espagne-un-article-de-iker-armentia-12-novembre-2014/
UK
Seminars/conferences
Mapping Anti-Muslim Hate Crime Seminar, Prof. Matthew Feldman (Teesside University), Wednesday 3rd December 2014 from 3.30 - 6.00pm, Foster Foyer, and Foster LT 3. To book on this FREE event please click here: http://uclancrimeandsecuritypolicy3.eventbrite.co.uk
The NAYJ is holding a training seminar on 8th December 2014 hosted by Liverpool John Moores University. With the introduction by Professor Barry Goldson (University of Liverpool) Plenary speakers confirmed are Dr. Tim Bateman (University of Bedfordshire), Professor Jo Phoenix (University of Leicester), Dr. Laura Kelly (Liverpool John Moores University), and Dr. Vici Armitage (University of Leicester). For details, contact [email protected]
Centre for Crime and Justice Seminars
Preventing mistreatment in detention: How is the UK doing?, Tuesday, 16 December 2014, 11.00 am to 2.00 pm at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, London.This conference will examine the United Kingdom’s record on meeting its international obligations to prevent the mistreatment of prisoners and others held against their will. It will draw on research carried out by the Centre as part of a pan-European Union project on promoting better practice in custodial settings. Click here to register today for this event.
The CCJS will be holding a symposium on criminology and war on 20th January 2015. Speakers will include Ali Wardak, Sandra Walklate and David Whyte. See http://www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=58
Justice Matters for young black men: tackling the ethnic penalty. Wednesday, 28 January 2015, 1.30 pm to 4.00 pm, Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, London.This event will discuss the reasons for the disproportionate involvement of young black men in the criminal justice system. Rather than concentrating on the ‘gateways’, ‘pathways’ or ‘presence’ of young black men in the system it will instead focus on the social context for such disproportionate and harmful punishment. Click here to register today for this event.
The CCJS will be holding an event on 28th January 2015 – ‘Justice Matters: tackling the ethnic penalty’ – that will discuss the reasons for the over-representation of young black men in the criminal justice system and how to tackle it. Our focus will be on the wider social environment that creates the context for such disproportionate and harmful punishment. Click here to register today.
The Centre for Mobilities Research at Lancaster University (CeMoRe) is hosting an ESRC sponsored conference January 22-23th 2015 “The Business of Immigration Detention: Activisms, Resistances, Critical Interventions” (which is the final event in part of a larger series of workshops titled ‘Exploring Everyday Practice and Resistance in Immigration Detention’). Bringing together a range of leading academics, post-
graduate researchers, practitioners, artists, activists and former detainees this seminar series will investigate the ways in which the UK experience of detention reflects and re-produces the contradictory logics inherent in contemporary global detention practices. “The Business of Immigration Detention” will consider the challenges facing academics and activists in the area of immigration detention and related border-security practices. SPACES LIMITED, BOOK HERE: (£10 unwaged, £4O waged includes lunch) http://online-payments.lancaster-university.co.uk/browse/extra_info.asp?compid=1&modid=1&deptid=6&catid=504&prodvarid=165
Nottingham Trent University is now accepting submissions for their 2015 conference on Michel Foucault‘s “Discipline and Punish.” The deadline for submissions is March 1, 2015. See http://www.critical-theory.com/submit-your-papers-discipline-and-punish-40-years-on/
JobsVacancy for Professor of Criminology at Sussex: http://www.sussex.ac.uk/aboutus/jobs/928Fellow post (one year initially), Institute of Criminology, Forensics and Secure Societies, University of Huddersfield: http://www.jobs.ac.uk/job/AKB182/research-fellow/
USA
The European Group conference held in Liverpool last September welcomed Robert King as a guest speaker (listen to his talk here: https://soundcloud.com/europeangroup/robert-king-2014-struggle-and-revolution-in-the-usas-injustice-system). Robert is one of three men imprisoned for a crime he did not commit and held in solitary confinement at Angola prison in Louisiana. Along with Albert Woodfox and Herman Wallace, they were known as the ‘Angola 3’. Robert was released in 2001 and since then has been campaigning for the release of Albert and Herman. Herman was released in 2013 and sadly died soon afterwards. We are delighted to announce that Albert has just had his conviction quashed. It is hoped that he will be released soon. To find out more about the Angola 3, see http://angola3.org. The Guardian reports on the latest court ruling here : http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2014/nov/21/albert-woodfox-angola-three-solitary-confinement-42-years-conviction-overturned#start-of-comments>
International
Members may be interested in the first call for papers for a new peer-reviewed international academic journal The Brazilian Journal of Law and Justice (BJLJ) Professor Dr. Eliezer Gomes da Silva [District Attorney of the Public Prosecution Service, Paraná, Brazil] is the editor in chief and Sue Uttley-Evans from UCLan is one of the members of the international advisory board. We appreciate if you could circulate this first call and stimulate your colleagues and best students to submit articles to BJLJ., which is an open-access- biannual journal The approved articles written in English will be simultaneously published in English and Portuguese (and vice versa).
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 : [email protected]
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).
Tallinn
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