One-day conference - European Group · Web viewSix years into the financial crisis that began to...

EUROPEAN GROUP FOR THE STUDY OF DEVIANCE AND

SOCIAL CONTROLESTABLISHED 1973

Coordinator: Emma Bell Secretary: Monish Bhatia

AUTUMN NEWSLETTER II

TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. European Group 42nd Conference

Call for PapersCONFIRMED SPEAKERS

II. European Group History Project

Interview with Thomas Mathiesen

III. Jock Young In memoriam

IV. Comment and Analysis

René Fernando Gutiérrez Rocha discusses urban policing control and segregation in Colombia Rimple Mehta discusses the border experiences of Bangladeshi migrant women detained in IndiaVicky Canning discusses the paradox of border confinement

V. European Group News

AnthologyResolutionRecent publications by Group membersCall for papersFuture conferences

IV. News from Europe and around the World

BelgiumCanadaColombiaFranceGermanyGreecePortugalUKUSA

TENTS

WORKING FOR SOCIAL JUSTICE, STATE ACCOUNTABILITY AND DECARCERATION

Website Administrator: Kirsty Ellis

I. European Group 42nd 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 Control3rd - 6th September, 2014

LiverpoolUnited Kingdom

CALL FOR PAPERSSix 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. We welcome papers on the themes below which reflect the general values and principles of the European Group.



Processes of Othering

Contact: Vicky CanningEmail: [email protected]

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

Social control in a time of crisis

Contact: Vickie CooperEmail: [email protected]

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

Sovereignty, imperialism, nationalism and racism

Contact: Giles BarrettEmail: [email protected]

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 harms of neoliberal capitalism

Contact: David ScottEmail: [email protected]

The social and environmental consequences of capitalism and consumerism

The harms of the powerful State violence The responsibilisation of the powerless

Exclusion, marginalisation and criminalisation

Contact: Helen MonkEmail: [email protected]

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’

Resistance and radical alternatives

Contact: Jim HollinsheadEmail: [email protected]

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

mailto:[email protected]






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 [email protected].

Confirmed speakers: Paul Gilroy, Jo Phoenix, Joe Sim

Penal law, Abolitionism and Anarchism[hosted by the British/Irish section of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control and the Hulsman Foundation]

Saturday 26th – Sunday 27th April 2014Shire 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 Huslman 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 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.

Suggestions for presentations/posters/workshops on a range of foci are welcome:Anarchism and lawFeminisms and anarchism Anarchist criminology Anarchism in Media Movements and Digital ActivismMarkets and the State - Anarchist andMarxist perspectivesAbolitionism and resistance to imprisonmentDecarceration movements, eco-ability and animal rights Globalisation, ‘crime’ and political economy


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupy_movement


http://www.europeangroup.org/

Deadline for abstracts: 10.December 2013

For further details please contact Andrea Beckmann [[email protected]] or Tony Ward [[email protected]]

II. European Group History Project

The European Group has begun collecting reflections from its members on their personal experiences of the Group and its conferences since its inception in 1973. In this 40th

anniversary year, we decided to ask Thomas Mathiesen, a longstanding member of the Group, to share his memories with us. These are reproduced below and will soon be available as a recording on the new website which we hope will be up and running early in the new year. Should any other members wish to record their experiences, please get in touch with the Group coordinator: [email protected].

Thomas MathiesenInterview with Emma Bell31 October 2013

EMMA BELL(EB): As this year we’re celebrating the 40th anniversary of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control, I thought it appropriate to ask you, as someone who attended that very first conference back in 1973 and as someone who has been active in the Group over the years what your memories are of the Group and what you think its contemporary relevance is. So perhaps you could just begin by telling us what your memories are of how the Group was first formed, how exactly did it first get together?

THOMAS MATHIESEN(TM): Yes. It came together in Florence in Italy in 1973 and there were between 100 and 120 people attending from all over Europe. It was a European group largely. There were some Americans present, but there were not many. The British sub-group was very active in forming the first steps of the European Group. If I remember correctly, the initiative came from Britain to a large extent and from young British enthusiasts who were going to do something, and who wanted to do something, about the prison situation and criminal policy in Europe at the time. I remember details of the first meeting in 1973 in Florence quite well actually because it so happened that on the same day, on 11th September 1973, Allende died, or rather was killed, in Chile. And that of course became worldwide news immediately. Even at that time we had very quick news coming through the air from everywhere and we had that piece of news also. Allende was killed as you remember by his general – he had imparted a general a bit before and the insurrection was the general’s insurrection and they won the battle. There was some question whether he was actually killed at that point or not but that’s not important. He was definitely killed at that point to us. People were arrested. Other people were killed. There was an insurrection essentially by conservative forces in Chile. In a matter of hours in Florence, according to the press, there were 40,000 communists in the streets, demonstrating loudly and walking the streets of Florence. I don’t know whether the figure of 40,000 people is correct. There may have been fewer communists in Florence at the time but the figure of 40,000 became a kind of picture of the situation and we stood on the sidewalk and watched this happening. I also remember very well that we, the Norwegians present, were somewhat instrumental in carrying out the conference and in building the background of the conference, in addition to



the British. We also had our own organisation, KROM, the Norwegian Association for Penal Reform, established in May 1968. That organisation was only five years old at the time – in ’73, when we met in Florence. And in a sense the battle on the other side of the Ocean, in Chile, and the murder of Allende became a very important experience to us. And indeed it probably sent us on an avenue which we would not have walked if it hadn’t been for that occurrence. We were at the time small, it was a small organisation and we were fumbling our way in the dark a little bit, not knowing quite how to handle the situation – I mean in Norway, the prison situation, the criminal policy situation and so on. The murder of Allende at that Florence meeting of the European Group really radicalised us in this sense. It created an avenue to walk – we had to be careful with conservative forces in our own country, not only in Chile, but in our own country and in other countries as well. So this was a very important formative period and a formative point in time for the Norwegian delegation – we were three or four people there – and also for others, I think... It was a formative period for the European Group in general. EB: Absolutely. What were your expectations when you attended that first conference? What did you think the European Group was capable of achieving? TM: Well, it was a gathering of course of European countries, or at least representatives of countries, of those not in power. Those not in power gathered together in Florence. The European Group had some money – where it got the money, I don’t know – but at least they paid for an inmate, a released inmate from Norway, to fly to Florence and back. The others who were not inmates were funded by the Norwegian Research Council at the time. This had already begun to become a kind of venue for action research in Norway. This was the combination of political action with research, rather than bifurcating the two in two sides, which is the old Weberian point of view in a way (although he was a bit hesitant about it – he died in 1920, you know, to put him in his time). He always advocated a radical division between values and research. We didn’t. We opposed that and we got ammunition for opposing it in Florence at the European Group. All the countries that gathered in Florence got ammunition to combine politics with research. Doing so creates a number of problems and it is not easy at all... but it is in a way still with us, I think. I sensed this at the meeting in Oslo a couple of months ago in the summer when the European Group gathered here for its yearly conference. And I sensed it in Florence back in 1973 as an important dictum for the Group as a whole. So I think the expectation was that this would enliven us and it did. That was partly, partly only, due to the murder of Allende and the conservative or extremely conservative reaction in Chile that occurred at the time. E.B: OK. And what do you think the Group has achieved over the years?T.M: It has achieved well in terms of prison, which is one of my concerns. The Group achieved a great deal in the beginning. The curves, the number of inmates per capita, per 100,000 of the population, went down for a number of years and I think that was partly due to social forces, societal forces, changes in social and political structure and so on. Of course, this was in the aftermath of the 1960s revolt in Europe and you would expect that it did indeed happen that this had consequences for penal policy. But it was also a consequence, partly a consequence anyway, of the European Group gathering. These were people who were coming up in the ranks of academics in the universities around Europe, especially in Britain but also in other countries, and certainly in Norway. And I think it radicalised us in this sense and made us aware of the importance of... ourselves as important people. And that is important in itself: that we got this feeling that we had a say in the number of voices that took part in discussion and the debate on criminal policy at the time. So, in the beginning this was an important affirmative process. I remember also in the middle of the ‘70s ... I flew across Europe from Britain to a meeting in the Council of Europe where I had an appointment and I gazed down (this was at the time


when the planes flew low – they were jet planes but they flew relatively low) and I could see something. I didn’t see any prisons of course, but I saw houses and people and so on, and I thought at the time that I would experience a period, a life with only very few prisons or maybe no prisons. I was optimistic in a sense, sitting there on the plane. Then this changed over the years. It changed through to the ‘80s, the beginning of the ‘80s. The turning point came at the European Group in 1985 at the meeting in, was it Hamburg?1 Rolston and another British criminologist, Tomlinson, spoke on a paper they had prepared on the increase of prison numbers in Europe. There were a number of figures coming out showing that prisons were suddenly on the rise again. In 1986 they published this as a book which is the first book that I remember ever published on the increase of prison in Europe and on the danger that was ahead of us2. In the ‘80s, this also structured our opposition to the criminal policy at the time. Why would the figures increase this way although we were so optimistic in the beginning, having witnessed a downfall in prison figures? ... This had repercussions in all the European countries, certainly in Norway where the prison figures also increased. In 1970 we had 44 prisoners per 100,000 population. In 2010, we had 73 per 100,000 population. So it was a steady increase and this increase came through the beginning of the ‘80s and following in the ‘90s. I’ll return to that. This was of course not the greatest increase in prison figures at the time. It was smaller than in other countries. David Scott3 has assembled data on the period from 1970 to 2010 in terms of prison figures in twelve westernised societies4. It includes Australia and New Zealand... The United States is also included and it increased [its carceral population] tremendously from 166 prisoners per 100,000 population in 1970 to 748 in 2010 whereas we only had 73 in Norway.E.B: It was a huge increase.T.M: Yes, it was huge. Mass imprisonment occurred in the United States. Six of the twelve countries had over 100 inmates per 100,000 and five of the six had over 133 per 100,000 of the population. So it was a massive increase. Tomlinson and his colleague studied this and published this important book in 1986, followed up by David Scott and others now. The increase seems to me to be tapering off or at least stabilising a bit. E.B: So, do you think there is any renewed sense of optimism?T.M: It is a renewed sense of optimism. The first period was optimistic, as I said. It was really a period of radicality. And then came the long ‘80s and ‘90s with dire predictions and so on. And now there is a new, renewed kind of optimism. But it is also a renewed wonder about what is actually happening. Because what is actually happening is in fact happening in Norway but other countries also: Norway, Britain, the United States and very different countries. The fact is, you see, that the number of crimes – reported crimes to the police – has been going down for a long time now. In Norway it is going up again a little bit now due to some robberies... but basically it is going down. And so it is in the United States and so it is in Britain with some exceptions... The general development is down whereas the prison population has been going up. So there is no real correlation between the increase in prisons and the crime rate. E.B: Indeed.T.M: The crime rate decreases and the prison rate increases. And this I think is something we have to find out more about because it is important scientifically but also politically. The rule of law is in a sense out of order. If the crime rate and the prison rate followed each other, it 1 The 1985 European Group conference was indeed held in Hamburg. The theme was ‘The Expansion of European Prison Systems’.2 Tomlinson, M. & Rolston, W. J. (1986) The Expansion of European Prison Systems. European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control.3 David Scott was Group Coordinator from 2009-2012.4 See Scott, D. (2013) Why Prison? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, p. 3.


would be in a sense sensible. Whereas when they bifurcate like this it isn’t really sensible and is going against some of the basic principles of the rule of law... So it does in other aspects as well, for example, surveillance where right now we are seeing how the Americans invade continents, including Europe, with modern surveillance activities, with the NSA managing to survey Angela Merkel and all other politically established people in Europe – more or less, anyway. But of course an aside there is that Europe is not as it [is presented] by the press. Europe sounds like a haven, like a wonderful place with no surveillance... But there is a lot of surveillance going on in Europe as well. I have written a book recently – it came out this summer, at the European Group conference in Oslo – called a Towards a Surveillant Society.5

…There is such a large number of surveillance systems... The Data Retention Directive6 [allows] your phone to be tapped, all our movements, your movements, when you ask questions and do this and that... this is all recorded. And my movements are all recorded and everybody’s movements in Britain are recorded. And everybody is recorded except, they claim, content – what you’re saying is not recorded. So that’s also a bleak part of the picture. But, to conclude this part of our talk, there is a renewed optimism due to the prison situation going down and even the Americans are saying now, to a large extent, that this becomes too much. It is something which is dangerous to our society. The rule of law is not only under pressure in the United States but it has gone beyond that... It is under pressure in Norway and Britain.E.B: Is this leading to a renewed crisis of legitimacy would you say, that might open up new spaces for resistance? T.M: I think so. Basically I’m an optimist in these matters and I’ve been an optimist all the time. I’m an optimist now that this really creates a situation which makes people wonder what is going on in our society and we must do something about it. In fact, the Data Retention Directive which I think you have implemented in Britain7 and has been implemented in quite a few European countries (it is not implemented with us in Norway – it is currently before Parliament) is now being tried by the European Court and will come up next year. If the European Court says ‘no’, that is another victory on our side. I don’t know if it will but it will be a victory if it does happen... Surveillance is a part of the whole picture of uncertainty about [the future and creates questions of legitimacy which may feed a radical approach].E.B: Absolutely. Could I just ask you what advice you would give to members of the European group and activists more generally who are seeking to challenge the new punitive consensus on prisons, the spread of surveillance or any of those trends that you’ve highlighted?T.M: Well, it’s difficult to give advice because the situations in various countries are different. It’s not simple, really. The number of prisoners is going down and this has to be taken seriously. In means perhaps a return to some of the aspects of the past where the legitimacy of prisons is no longer so clear. That must be followed up by us. The surveillance situation is increasing to such a point that it might also be turned around. I saw in the paper the other day that Merkel and a number of German functionaries were going to the States to talk with Obama about this because it was too much in a way. And this also trickles down to the European Group. We are working in various universities and colleges around our countries and we should always be aware of that and take as our point of departure the nature 5 Mathiesen, T. (2013) Towards a Surveillant Society: The rise of surveillance systems in Europe. Hook: Waterside Press. 6 The Data Retention Directive ‘store information for a given length of time (six months to two years) about everyone’s use of telecommunications equipment – mobile telephones, fixed telephones, Internet and so on. Everything – names, start, termination, place, date, and so on – is stored, except the content of communication’, ibid., p. 97.7 The Directive was implemented by statutory instrument in Britain in 2009.


of our calling, which is to talk to students, talk to young people about what is happening and about the turning points that we are seeing now and the importance of doing something about these turning points... That is one piece of advice – that we follow our calling. This would be in the spirit of Max Weber, following a positive spirit really. He wrote a famous essay on politics as a calling and he ended that with the words, ‘You have to look for the impossible in order to reach the possible’. He was right, I think, in that and we should be aware of this in our various callings around the countries where we are working. That’s the first point. The second point is to ensure that new generations are coming up to follow in the footsteps of the European Group and indeed it was very nice to see this summer that there were very many young people at the convention in Oslo held by the Group. There were some older people, like myself and others but the young people were, I don’t know if they were in the majority, but they were very important. This is very important that we nurture the coming generation and the generation after that. The coming generation is beginning to get old, you know, and so this is a continuous struggle. We should use the time of the turning points of prisons maybe going down and the criticism against surveillance coming up now due to NSA and other things. We should point this out, say to young people, ‘You have a chance now to do something and to do something important’. A bit like we did many years ago... And there is a third thing which we’ve learnt over the years and that is not to forget the grassroots. In terms of prisons, you can do research and research well on prisons. We tend to write books on prisons which are important – David Scott as I said has just edited a very good book on prisons. But we seem to forget the inmates a bit. We should be aware not to do that. Bring in the grassroots again... They will encourage us with optimism, humour and a fighting spirit. I think we have something to learn from the United States in that respect. The activists in prisons are important. So we mustn’t forget the activists really and bring the grassroots in again.T.M: Thank you very much to talking to me. It’s been great to have your insights.


III. Jock Young

It is with great regret that we announce the death of yet another intellectual giant. Jock Young sadly passed away on Saturday 16th November. He was well-known for having developed the much-used concept of 'moral panic' along with Stanley Cohen back in the 1960s and for his important contribution to critical criminology. His best-known books were The Criminological Imagination (2011), The Exclusive Society (1999), The Vertigo of Late Modernity (2007) and The New Criminology (with Taylor and Walton, 1973). He was also loved for his warmth, good humour and generosity of spirit. Jock attended a number of European Group conferences and was due to give a lecture at our 40th anniversary conference in Oslo from which he unfortunately had to withdraw due to ill health. He has been an important influence on many members of the European Group and will continue to be so for many years to come. He will be sadly missed.

Recollections from Phil Scraton:I've recounted the occasion before ... I gave my first academic paper at a conference in 1976 to the original, politically-engaged National Deviancy Conference (NDC). Mike Fitzgerald, who I had never previously met, chaired the session and several of the parallel papers were cancelled. The session was packed and I was really nervous ... It went well despite an English guy from London quoting Weber in German. Afterwards another guy came over, incredibly gracious and supportive. Waistcoat, collarless shirt, long hair, cool ... he said if I ever needed to discuss my work I should make contact. He scribbled his name on the back of my notes. It was my first meeting with Jock ... I had referenced his work in the talk. Over thirty years on I was at the LSE talking on my Hillsborough research and there was Jock, front row, in tears as


I talked through the families' fight for justice. Ever supportive, he had gone out of his way to make the session.

Soon after the NDC meeting I worked at the Open University with Mike and we'd often head down to Dalston to Jock's and he worked with us on the OU's first ever Criminology course. I still have a tape of Jock's lecture at the 1980 London Conference. We had many memorable moments and not all of them positive ... the fall out over what became a very parochial and often accusatory row regarding 'left idealism' and the cul-de-sac of 'realism' was a sad and difficult period occasionally played out in public (at a Stoke one-day conference in support of striking miners and their families where they hadn't a clue what the argument was about as they sought our support and at the 1984 EG Cardiff conference where 'left realism' was presented as the only show in town). Joe Sim, Paul Gordon and I tried to put some perspective on all this in the Introduction to Law, Order and the Authoritarian State.

As the years progressed, regardless of these earlier differences, Jock and I stayed in touch, meeting occasionally and always enjoying the moment. His work remained consistently innovative and always important, his friendship and comradeship never wavered, and he was always supportive to anyone I encouraged to make contact with him. Thinking back to those first meetings and, subsequently, to the canon of work he produced, I am absolutely certain that he contributed more than he would have known to me and to the generations of my students.

Even at the height of our disagreements I still enjoyed his mischief, his humour and his personal commitment to those who sought his advice. At the LSE talk, a while before the current Hillsborough revelations, he told me how much he valued the work, and he wrote in a similar vein after the Report was published. That was typical. For me and many others Jock's generosity of spirit, as well as his impressive intellect, defined him and he will be greatly missed.

A tribute can be accessed here: http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/7146.php (John Jay University, New York).See Jock Young speaking on moral panics here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guE_RSMtA7IMany articles by Jock Young can be read here: http://www.malcolmread.co.uk/JockYoung/


http://www.malcolmread.co.uk/JockYoung/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guE_RSMtA7I

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=guE_RSMtA7I

http://www.jjay.cuny.edu/7146.php

IV. Comment and Analysis

Urban policing control and segregationRené Fernando Gutiérrez Rocha

Picture 1. AP Photo. Taken from http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/debate-edificio-space/361588-3

Recently, an apartment building collapsed in an exclusive residential area in Medellin city (Colombia), causing 11 fatalities and huge economic losses. According to Deputy Minister of Housing, the collapse was due to structural failures attributable to both the design and the execution of the building work. However, this case was not unique. It is only the latest of many other similar tragedies in Colombia and Latin America where the responsibility of the manufacturers and the public authorities has been questioned. Across the whole subcontinent, many catastrophes have occurred due to failures to respect technical requirements. The collapse of buildings and entire neighborhoods built in high risk areas have been caused by the poor architectural and structural designs and the poor quality of the materials used.

A wider critical reflection about this situation, based on the sociology of punishment, may lead to the conclusion that the problem goes well beyond the simple individual responsibility of some businessperson within the construction sector. This is a complex issue, which has deep roots in the historical misfortunes and evils of urban police control in Latin America.

It can be asserted that the harmful effects of the Spanish Conquest and the colonial regime have not been overcome, despite 200 years of ‘independent’ republican life in most Latin American countries. This is especially true with regard to urban control ordinance, based on violent disciplining and the racial segregation of indigenous populations.

Land use planning implemented in Colombia followed the Roman lattice model. This was initially implemented by the Spaniards on their own soil and later exported to most Latin American countries, where it became one of the preferred social control mechanisms.

The Grid layout with large central squares surrounded by the political, religious and economic power buildings, served as a useful and almost necessary tool for Catholic indoctrination and the ‘normalization’ of indigenous populations. This tool also served as a vehicle for economic exploitation of Latin American society. From the beginning, it was


René Fernando Gutiérrez Rocha discusses urban policing control and segregation in Colombia

http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/debate-edificio-space/361588-3

http://www.semana.com/nacion/articulo/debate-edificio-space/361588-3

underpinned by punitive apparatuses derived from the cameral doctrine known as police science: the first one was the bureaucratic apparatus, which served the interests of the Spanish Crown; the second was a legal framework that regulated the many aspects of urban life, such as health and begging practices.

During colonial times in the early nineteenth century, when ’independent’ republics were supposed to exist, the only thing that shifted was the center of power, from Spain to the United States. The cities, initially designed for colonial exploitation, were simply adapted to serve the interests of the new local capitalist ruling class. According to Fraile (2003), the objective was to eradicate any type of pre-capitalist subsistence mechanism, such as animal husbandry or urban orchards in order to privilege wage labor and the market as the only sources of survival.

The new structure of bourgeois power was accompanied by the implementation of modern mechanisms of social control, imported mainly from Europe. Both Colombian uniformed police forces of the late nineteenth century, and the land use control systems of the first half of the twentieth century in Bogota, were based on the scientific and technical segmentation of urban spaces (Gutierrez, 2013). These technologies were implemented with the advice of French experts such as the Commissioner Marcelino Gilibert and the urban designer Le Corbusier, who simply transferred their knowledge and experience to Latin American cities. Even the legal system was copied from the Penal Code of Italian positivist models.

The city was, then, reorganized according to the interests of foreign and local capital interests, adopting as its main legal weapons the urban law (a technocratic tool for serving of economic elites) and the policing system, recognizable as an appendice of the criminal law, based on disciplinary practices enforced through correctional coexistence rules and urban control sanctions.

Nowadays, when there is a predominance of a neoliberal economic system accompanied by a hyper-punitiveness (Herbert & Brown, 2006), urban policing and control has not escaped this trend. The measures are becoming more severe and new behaviors are the object of correction and punishment.

Because of this historical development, we now have cities where social and spatial segregation still dominate and where the soil and its management are a great source of enrichment for large conglomerates of financial, construction and real estate agents, who are strategically allied by political power forces. In this logic the role of the police authorities is not to protect the rights and interests of all people on equal terms, as stated in the Constitution, but to apply a punitive system that deploys its entire force against the needy and helpless. Building control is merely superficial and the police are blinded to the abuses committed by the powerful, in this case, those involved in construction.

Herbert and Brown (2006) argue that inequities take spatial expression in the dynamics of exclusion, most notably in urban areas. Spaces are increasingly subject to a variety of regulatory mechanisms that work to separate the desired from the undesired: social divisions are mirrored in spatial ones. In the words of these authors, ‘segregationist practices are accompanied by punitive measures’ derived from theories such as broken windows and situational crime prevention.

It is no wonder that in a system like this, in which state intervention is so delegitimized by its unequal and exclusive practices, many illegalities appear at all levels, and a big gap exists between the objectives stated in the rules and actual material practices. Therefore, it is not unusual that most of the poor people inhabit marginal areas far from urban centers that are vulnerable to natural events and which have serious deficiencies in terms of roads, public spaces and building quality. This contrasts with other relatively very small sectors that benefit from all the advantages offered by modern urban design.


Neither is it unusual that many lovers of economic profit at any cost take advantage of the state illegitimacy (in many cases generated by themselves) to build without the appropriate technical specifications stated in architectural and structural requirements, whether in poor urban areas or in wealthy ones. This is precisely the case of the reasons behind the collapse of the Space Building in the city of Medellin, whose builder enjoyed legal immunity granted by the Municipal Planning Bureau, which had failed to exercise sufficient control over the project.

It can be concluded that the city's urban organization has been one of the most effective tools for the control of individuals, facilitating monitoring, disciplinary practices and behavioral homogenization with an aseptic appearance. All this is camouflaged by discourse emphasizing the pursuit of the general interest and happiness.

While the urban organization of the past has created a criminal justice system which is a control mechanism par excellence in the capitalist world, today new surveillance tools accompany the process: cameras in public spaces, satellite surveillance, banking and e-commerce, mobile and other smart devices such as Geographic Positioning Satellite systems. All of this adds to the effort to control the movement of the individuals, and all of these have a common characteristic: they work in the service of the economically powerful.

While in other contexts (mainly in North America, Europe and western Asia and Oceania) the territorial limits of the cities have been transcended through various communication mechanisms (such as electronic and satellite devices), resulting in the establishment of interconnection between the many urban settlements and therefore in the general welfare of the population, in Colombia and Latin-America, cities still remain a relative and conveniently isolated source of enrichment for the powerful, to the detriment of poor, segregated and discriminated people.

There are some exceptions to this logic, such as in the new Land Use Plan of Bogotá issued in August this year by the current leftist government. This plan seeks to democratize the use of urban land and to move towards a regional integration seeking to include neighboring municipalities. However, so far it has only played a role as a regulatory technical system, which does not break with the logic of urban control and punitive policing which has historically segregated and marginalized the poor.

In conclusion, governments must progress toward formulation and implementation of true public policies coherent with the equitable use of urban land, in order to break with historical trends which are not focused on eradicating poverty but rather on legitimizing segregation in urban spaces.

ReferencesHERBERT, S. & BROWN, E. (2006). Conceptions of Space and Crime in the punitive neoliberal city. Antipode, volume 38, issue 4.FRAILE, P. (2003). The organization of space and control individuals. In R. Bergalli (2003). Penal system and social problems. Valencia: Tirant lo blanch.FOUCAULT, M. (2008). Discipline and Punish. Mexico: Siglo XXI.GUTIERREZ, R. (2012). Elements for a contra-reading of urban control in Bogotá. Grade Working for the degree of Master of Laws. National University of Colombia.ROJAS-MIX, M. (1978). The main square. Urban planning, a colonial tool. Spain: Muchnik Editores.Author biographyRené Fernando Gutiérrez Rocha is a lawyer, community social psychologist and police law specialist with a Master in Law (Sociology and Criminal Policy) from the National University of Colombia. Bogotá. He is is a Justice Counselor and Graduate Professor at the School of Police. E-mail: [email protected]


In India, foreigners caught without legal documents may be arrested under the Foreigners Act 1946, and if convicted, sentenced to terms of imprisonment up to five years and fined. Those arrested under this Act are held in the same prison as other ‘criminals’. Bangladeshis comprise the largest number of foreigners arrested under the Foreigners Act.

Between December 2010 and December 2011, I conducted ethnographic research with a group of Bangladeshi women in two prisons in Kolkata, India. The women I spoke with were either arrested from railway or bus stations upon their arrival in India, in their attempt to go back to Bangladesh, or from a brothel. Like other migrants, they had come to India for varied reasons, most of which revolved around their aspirations for a better life. Some women hoped to make a living or to escape violent marriages. Others crossed the border to reunite with relatives on the other side. Sometimes their migration had been ‘voluntary’ while at other times it was not. In this piece I explore imprisoned Bangladeshi women’s understandings of borders.

Many of the forty Bangladeshi women I interacted with seemed unaware of the nature of borders and the illegality involved in crossing from one side to the other. Hasina, 21 years old, found it difficult to understand what exactly a border was and what a state entailed: “I thought probably India is within Bangladesh….” she told me, before observing, “when I came here [prison] I realised that no they are separate.” That borders separate two countries was not a given ‘fact’ for her.

Bipasha, 18 years old, expressed similar confusion over what constitutes a desh (a term that may be used to refer to a country, a land, a state, motherland, or native land): “I did not know….I knew that it’s all one desh [giggles softly]….that is how I came here…I did not know that this was a separate desh.” For many like Bipasha, their inability to describe what a country or border meant was a source of embarrassment. They had learned a number of border-related terms after coming to the prison. While the legal proceedings they had endured made them more perceptive of the definitions of state, borders, passport, and visas, these ‘official’ definitions didn’t completely replace their experiential knowledge. It wasn’t just that they had an alternative understanding of the relationship between India and Bangladesh, but their experiential and mental mapping of the world was different from and often opposed to the interests of the ‘sovereign’ state. All attempts at ‘correction’ through the criminal justice system failed to remake their imaginings of the world more consistent with dominant framings.

The women’s views of borders were shaped by several factors: the stories they had heard in Bangladesh, the frequency of travel they had witnessed between the two places, the identification of certain objects, and what they heard through the media. Although they recognised some differences between India and Bangladesh, the distinction was not marked or divided by a border. Instead, in their discussions of both places, the women emphasised cultural or religious differences and economic status. Such variations did not separate the countries, leaving the borders merged into one another, overlapping rather than mutually exclusive.

Bangladeshi women prisoners’ understandings diverged from the dominant (legal) view of states as distinct entities, a normative perspective in which borders demarcate nation states. Rather than carving up the world according to geo-political boundaries, the women emphasised a different set of issues and drew on alternative vocabularies to talk about difference between the two ‘spaces’ of India and Bangladesh. Their abstract explanations


Rimple Mehta discusses the border experiences of Bangladeshi migrant women detained in India*

combined with their ambiguous and fuzzy descriptions of borders were the basis on which they interpreted their mobility as well as the foundation of their passage through the legal system.

The women’s narratives remind scholars of border control to look beyond the given definitions of borders, countries, and states, while providing alternative ways to understand them. They indicate the limitations of such concepts and definitions to accommodate the lived experience of borders and boundaries. They also highlight the challenge of making the sovereign project of borders ‘leak proof’. The narratives of the Bangladeshi women prisoners from the margins blur the boundaries of fixed categories and simultaneously invite us to expand our horizons beyond the taken-for-granted ideas about borders, countries, and states.

*This article was originally published on the Border Criminologies blog. See http://bordercriminologies.law.ox.ac.uk/tag/rimple-mehta/

Author biography

Rimple Mehta is Faculty Member of the School of Women’s Studies at Jadavpur University.


http://bordercriminologies.law.ox.ac.uk/tag/rimple-mehta/

The study of ‘confinement’ is fraught with complexity and contestation. What is, or should be, defined as confinement may relate to the discipline of the researcher, the activist, or the person confined. Is our understanding of it limited to physical incarceration, or should we consider its temporal and psychological dimensions? As the detention of asylum seekers and refugees has grown, it seems an appropriate time to bring these questions to the foreground. In considering them, I will draw on research I have recently conducted in Denmark.8

My research, a small project developing my PhD findings and activist work, aimed to explore psychosocial responses to conflict related sexual violence and torture. Undertaken in Spring 2013, I worked at the Danish Institute Against Torture exploring forms of responses and support available, as well as identifying wider organisations and networks working in similar fields. During a three week visit to Copenhagen, I undertook 18 in-depth interviews and visited three institutions (which I agreed to anonymize). One of these, an asylum ‘accommodation’ centre, houses asylum applicants on arrival and rejected applicants awaiting deportation after final appeal. It was here that my research widened to consider not only psychosocial support, but the concept of freedom for asylum seekers in the Danish system.

From the surface, there appear to be stark differences between detention centres in the UK and those in Denmark. Although both hold individuals and families awaiting deportation, the spatial disparities between them are marked. Indeed, the most obvious difference was in relation to freedom of access and exit for most asylum applicants in comparison to those housed in detention centres in the UK. Unlike their counterparts in the UK, almost all inhabitants of the centre were permitted to enter and leave at will. There was ample open space, and a nursery with staff who, in the brief encounters I had with them seemed passionate about their role in supporting refugee children. With the exception of those held in the camps’ prison, this appeared very different to the securitised immigration removal centres (IRCs) in England and Wales.

But what can we make of these differences? The building itself is not unpleasant, and for most people, ‘exit’ is only a button click away. Physical confinement is less intrusive and controlling than IRCs in the UK, with very little barbed wire and lower, unfortified fencing. Nonetheless, the more I interviewed and spoke with psychologists and refugee support workers across a number of organisations, the more apparent it became that the freedom of refused refugees or new arrivals was little more than an illusion. Children may have space to play, but it is under the shadows of a policed and barbed prison. Residents can come and go, but must still pass through the guarded gates of an old military barracks. And where might they actually go to? Like many penal and semi-penal institutions, detention centres are often beyond the vicinity of towns and cities. Without funds to travel, the reality of freedom is very limited.

8 Published findings for this project are forthcoming. For information on Vicky’s findings of previous similar studies, please see: ‘Women Seeking Sanctuary: Challenging State Responses to Violence against Women in the Asylum System’. Criminal Justice Matters, September 2011; ‘Policy or Practice? Exploring Support for Conflict Rape Survivors Seeking Asylum in Merseyside‘. Asylum Aid: Women’s Asylum News, June 2011; ‘Who’s human? Developing sociological understandings of the rights of women raped in conflict‘. International Journal of Human Rights, November 2010.


Vicky CanningIllusions of Freedom: The Paradox of Border Confinements*

There is little comparison between the level of control in the Danish asylum centre I visited, and the physically securitised existence of those detained in the UK. But three similarities pervade. Firstly, there is a spatial divide between centres and cities that renders those living there on the periphery of consciousness – ‘out of sight, out of mind’ – whilst simultaneously restricting people’s capacity for regional mobility. Secondly, the often indeterminate duration of life in detention centres confines an individual’s temporal identity. Lastly, and crucially, it is evident that autonomy and agency are all but erased for immigrants and refugees living in an era of ever-increasing incarceration and confinement, at a time of ever-expanding and constricting border controls.

These thoughts lead me back to my first question: is our understanding of confinement to be limited to physical incarceration, or should we consider temporal and psychological dimensions? Whilst more comparative research between the UK and Denmark would be welcome, it seems that there is an inherent harm in forcing individuals to live without autonomy over where they may be tomorrow, with few real options for what to do today. This leads me to conclude that increases in detention of asylum seekers and rejected refugees should recognise temporal, spatial, and psychological confinement in critically challenging neoliberal assumptions of what it means to have freedom.

*This article was originally published on the Border Criminologies blog. See http://bordercriminologies.law.ox.ac.uk/illusions-of-freedom/

Author biography

Vicky Canning is Senior Lecturer in Criminology, Liverpool John Moores University. Vicky’s recent research focuses on sexual violence support for survivors of conflict related violence awaiting asylum in the UK, structural violence in the asylum process, and responses to conflict related torture in Denmark (with thanks to DIGNITY, the Danish Institute Against Torture).


http://bordercriminologies.law.ox.ac.uk/illusions-of-freedom/

V. European Group News

European Group AnthologyThere are still copies available of the European Group anthology, Critique and Dissent! At least 40% of the proceeds will go directly to the European Group Assisted Places fund.Please address UK orders in £sterling to John Moore ([email protected]). Please send a cheque for £22 (incl. P&P) directly payable to John Moore at 17 Atlantic Road, Weston-super-Mare, BS23 2DG. For orders within the Eurozone, please contact Emma Bell ([email protected]) 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


http://www.redquillbooks.com/Critique_and_Dissent.html



Resolution

Resolution from the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control in support of Ifa Muaza

The European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control, the largest worldwide network of scholars and activists working for social justice, state accountability and decarceration, expresses its profound condemnation of the continued detention of Ifa Muaza, a failed asylum seeker, in Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre. Last week the High Court ruled that he should remain in custody despite his 85-day long hunger strike. We call on Theresa May to show clemency and to release Mr Muaza immediately.

Furthermore, we condemn the detention of all asylum seekers in the UK and elsewhere. In the interests of human dignity, no asylum seeker should be treated as a criminal but rather as an individual in need of help and assistance.

Recent publications by Group members

Brown, M (2013). Penal Culture and Hyperincarceration: The Revival of the Prison. Ashgate.

Chantraine, Gilles et Salles, Grégory (2013) Why a Special Issue on “White Collar Crime”? Contribution to a renewal of collective sociological interest in France. See http://champpenal.revues.org/8712

Cheliotis, Leonidas K, ‘Behind the veil of philoxenia: The politics of immigration detention in Greece’, European Journal of Criminology November 2013 10: 725-745.

Gilmore, J., Moore, J.M. & Scott, D. (eds) (2013) Critique and Dissent: An anthology to mark 40 years of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control Quebec: Red Quill Books

Jefferson, Andrew, ‘The Situated Production of Legitimacy: Perspectives from the Global South’ in Tankebe, J. and Liebling, A. Legitimacy and Criminal Justice: An International Exploration, Oxford University Press.

Moore, J.M. and Scott, D. (2012) 'It's not just about the profits: privatisation, social enterprise and the ‘John Lewis’ prison’' in Criminal Justice Matters, March 2012

Scott, D. (2013) “Unequalled in pain” in Scott, D. (ed) (2013) Why Prison? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Scott, D. (2013) “Why Prison? Posing the question” in Scott, D. (ed) (2013) Why Prison? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Scott, D. (ed) (2013) Why Prison? Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Scott, D. (2013) “The politics of prisoner legal rights” in Howard Journal of Criminal Justice, [July 2013]

Scott, D. (2013) “A disobedient visionary with an enquiring mind: An essay on the contribution of Stanley Cohen” in Gilmore, J., Moore, J. & Scott, D. (eds) (2013) Critique and Dissent Quebec: Red Quill


http://champpenal.revues.org/8712

Scott, D. (2013) “Visualising an abolitionist real utopia: principles, policy and praxis” in Malloch, M. & Munro, B. (eds) (2013) Crime, Critique and Utopia: Themes for a Critical Criminology London: Palgrave

Scott, D. (2013) “Justifications of punishment and questions of penal legitimacy” in Hucklesby, A. & Wahidin, A. (eds) (2013) Criminal Justice (2nd edition) Oxford: Oxford University Press

Scott, D. (2012) “Guarding the ghosts of time: working personalities and the prison officer-prisoner relationship” in Prison Service Journal, Number 201 May 2012 pp 18-23

Scott, D. (2012) “Sympathy for the devil: human rights and the empathetic construction of sufferers” in Criminal Justice Matters, June 2012

Scraton, P. 'The Legacy of Hillsborough: liberating truth, challenging power' Race and Class vol. 55, no. 2, Oct-Dec 2013 pp1-27

AbstractIn April 1989, 96 men, women and children, supporters of Liverpool Football Club, died in a severe crush at an FA Cup-Semi-Final at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield. Hundreds were injured and thousands traumatised. Within hours the causes and circumstances of the disaster were contested. While a judicial inquiry found serious institutional failures in the policing and management of the capacity crowd, no criminal prosecutions resulted, and the inquests returned ‘accidental death’ verdicts. Immediately the authorities’ claimed that drunken, violent fans had caused the fatal crush. Denied legitimacy, survivors’ accounts revealed a different story criticising the parlous state of the stadium, inadequate stewarding, negligent policing, failures in the emergency response and flawed processes of inquiry and investigation. Reflecting on two decades of research and contemporaneous interviews with bereaved families and survivors this article contrasts the official discourse with those alternative accounts – the ‘view from below’. It demonstrates the influence of powerful institutional interests on the inquiries and investigations. It maps the breakthrough to full documentary disclosure following the appointment of the Hillsborough Independent Panel, its research and key findings published in September 2012. The campaigns by families and survivors were vindicated and the fans, including those who died, were exonerated. The process is discussed as an alternative method for liberating truth, securing acknowledgement and pursuing justice.

Taylor, P. Corteen, K. and Morley, S. (2013). ‘Service User Self-Inflicted Deaths and the Coroner’s Inquest’. Criminal Justice Matters. June. 92(1), pp. 32-33. London, UK: Centre for Crime and Justice Studies.

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.


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]

Future conferencesWe 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: [email protected].

VI. News from Europe and around the World

BelgiumConferencesA conference entitled ‘Policing Empires: Social Control, Political Transition, (Post)Colonial Legacies’ will be held from 12-13 December at the Royal Academy of Belgium Sciences and the Arts, Brussels. Registration is free of charge. To register, please send an e-mail with your name and institution to [email protected]

XIVe Colloque – 201418 au 20 mai 2014 Université de Liège (Belgique) Criminologies aux marges – Criminologie sans frontièresSee : http://www3.unil.ch/wpmu/aiclf/

Journée d’é tude/seminar Le prochain interlabo du GERN se tiendra à Bruxelles à l’Institut National de Criminalistique et de Criminologie le vendredi 13 décembre 2013.Pensez à vous inscrire directement auprès de l’organisateur : [email protected]

PlayInterview with Jean-Marc Mahy, a former Belgian prisoner, on his play against solitary confinement. See http://www.notshutup.org/index.php/services/interview-with-jean-marc-mahy/

CanadaCall for Papers/appel à communicationsPerspectives critiques : criminologie et justice sociale, qui se tiendra à Carleton University les 11 et 12 juin 2014, et dans le cadre de la 15e Conférence internationale sur l’abolition de la peine (ICOPA 15), qui se tiendra du 13 au 15 juin 2014 à l’Université d’Ottawa. Les deux universités sont situées sur le territoire Algonquin / Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Pour plus de renseignements, on peut consulter la page web suivante : http://www.actionicopa.org


http://www.actionicopa.org/

http://www.notshutup.org/index.php/services/interview-with-jean-marc-mahy/

http://www.notshutup.org/index.php/services/interview-with-jean-marc-mahy/


http://www3.unil.ch/wpmu/aiclf/




The International Conference on Penal Abolition (ICOPA) is a bi-annual gathering of activists, academics, journalists, practitioners, people currently or formerly imprisoned, survivors of state and personal harm, and others from across the world who are working towards the abolition of imprisonment, the penal system, carceral controls and the prison industrial complex. ICOPA 15 is being held on Algonquin Territory / in Ottawa at the University of Ottawa from June 13 – 15, 2014. See http://www.actionicopa.org/

Call for Papers: Transnational Migration and Changing Citizenship Regimes. Workshop at the University of Ottawa, March 21, 2014

Citizenship regimes are shifting insignificant ways in response to the global movement of people, in ways thatserve to encourage some migrants and discourage others. This workshop will consider the ways in which citizenship regimes have shifted – in particular, whether they have become more or less compatible with democratic principles(understood as a commitment to inclusive equality) – in response to the transnational movement of people. We will consider a range of examples of changing citizenship regimes, including (but not limited to):

a) the changes in developed states who are competing for skilled migrants to such an extent that they shift their citizenship regimes to make it easier for skilled migrants (but not unskilled migrants who are, equally, needed to fill acutelabour shortages in developed states) to earn citizenship; b) the changes in developed states to make it more difficult for even genuine refugees to both claim asylum and, where their claims are recognized as legitimate, to gain permanent resettlement outside of their country of origin; c) the imposition of citizenship tests and other pre-naturalization demands, oftendirected at particular immigrant groups, intended to make the acquisition of citizenship more challenging.

Abstracts (250 words) should be sent by Nov 30, 2013 to the following addresses: Patti T Lenard ([email protected]);Christine Straehle ([email protected])

ColombiaConferenceUpcoming conference on Criminal Justice Politics and Liberty in Colombia. See http://www.uexternado.edu.co/esp/noticias/congreso_politica_criminal.html

FranceCall 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)


http://www.uexternado.edu.co/esp/noticias/congreso_politica_criminal.html

https://staffmail.hud.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=W_Ew1UyS10KeCPb7egYyQ3RzqlzbwtAI2snBjIVzAKnyxVyoKV-e3vJ3mPLw-nhSMszjTarqvJI.&URL=mailto%[email protected]

https://staffmail.hud.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=W_Ew1UyS10KeCPb7egYyQ3RzqlzbwtAI2snBjIVzAKnyxVyoKV-e3vJ3mPLw-nhSMszjTarqvJI.&URL=mailto%[email protected]

http://www.actionicopa.org/

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)

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 targeted 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 online 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 ([email protected]) or Gilles Christoph ([email protected]) by 6th January 2014. Articles of between 10 and 15 pages (notes and references included) must be submitted by 1st May.

CHAMP PÉNAL/PENAL FIELD Appel à contributions/Call for papers champpenal.revues.org Actualité de l’abolitionnisme Dossier coordonné par Nicolas Carrier et Justin Piché L’intensification pénale qui caractérise la plupart des démocraties libérales occidentales a été critiquée par de nombreux analystes du champ pénal, souvent dans le cadre de discussions saisissant la pénalité contemporaine avec le vocable de ‘virage punitif’, posant dès lors un passé ‘non punitif’ de la pénalité, notamment caractérisé par un souci de ‘prendre soin’ des personnes criminalisées. Les injonctions à pratiquer une ‘criminologie publique’ et à produire une critique ‘publique’ de l’intensification pénale se multiplient, peut-être plus particulièrement dans les écrits anglophones. Alors que la masse des interventions contre l’intensification pénale produite par cette ‘criminologie publique’ se concentre sur le projet d’injecter du savoir criminologique dans les politiques pénales afin de les rendre plus efficaces, plus utiles, plus rationnelles et même, dira-t-on, plus humaines, d’autres interventions poursuivent le projet radical de l’abolitionnisme. Quelle est la place des discours, pratiques et praxis abolitionnistes dans la société contemporaine? Quelles logiques




http://www.crecib.fr/rfcb/?lang=en

et quels acteurs les supportent? Peut-on les dire influents? Ce dossier de Champ pénal/Penal Field veut proposer un état des lieux sur l’abolitionnisme.Un résumé de la proposition de contribution doit être soumis au plus tard le 1er mars 2014. La proposition de contribution doit être soumise au plus tard le 1er septembre 2014. Dans les deux cas, faire parvenir les textes aux deux adresses suivantes : [email protected] [email protected]

GermanyNewsNSA secretly intercepts data links: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/ueberwachung-durch-die-nsa-globaler-generalverdacht-1.1795855 German Bundestag discuss NSA and US secret service practices: http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/spionagepraktiken-der-us-geheimdienste-bundestag-beraet-in-sondersitzung-ueber-nsa-affaere-1.1805437 Conference‘Einbruch der Dunkelheit’ Conference on the rise of the surveillance state from 25.01.2014 - 26.01.2014 at Volksbühne am Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz, Berlin. For more information (available in German): http://www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de/cms/de/sparten/wort_und_wissen/einbruch_der_dunkelheit.html Interdisciplinary lecture series at LMU Munich in A/W 2013/1014 on Mondays starting at 18.00. For more information (available in German): http://www.soziologie.de/fileadmin/user_upload/DGS_Redaktion_BE_FM/Veranstaltungsdokumente/14-01_GendergraphienV.pdf

GreeceThe Greek Ombudsman, the "Post-Graduate Studies Programme: Political Science and Sociology" of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and the "Post-Graduate Studies Programme: Social Discrimination, Migration and Citizenship" of the University of Peloponnese are organizing a Day Conference in memory of Stanley Cohen under the title "Moral Panic, Society and Rights". The conference will take place on Saturday 7th December 2013 (starting at 10:30 a.m.) at the Amphitheater "Technopolis" (Metro Station "Keramikos") in Athens, Greece. See http://sociology.panteion.gr/index.php?p=news&section=2&id=775

Italy

The Migration Policy Centre at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute, Florence, is currently looking for a Research Assistant to bring forward its research agenda. The Research Assistant will participate in MPC research on migration in the Mediterranean region, the Middle East and North Africa and possibly other parts of the world. The initial contract period is up to 30/06/14, starting as soon as possible. The contract may then be annually renewed.The deadline for applications is 6 January 2014.

http://www.migrationpolicycentre.eu/advertisement-for-appointment-of-one-research-assistant-ref-rsc-41-2012/


https://staffmail.hud.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=W_Ew1UyS10KeCPb7egYyQ3RzqlzbwtAI2snBjIVzAKnyxVyoKV-e3vJ3mPLw-nhSMszjTarqvJI.&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.migrationpolicycentre.eu%2Fadvertisement-for-appointment-of-one-research-assistant-ref-rsc-41-2012%2F

https://staffmail.hud.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=W_Ew1UyS10KeCPb7egYyQ3RzqlzbwtAI2snBjIVzAKnyxVyoKV-e3vJ3mPLw-nhSMszjTarqvJI.&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.migrationpolicycentre.eu%2Fadvertisement-for-appointment-of-one-research-assistant-ref-rsc-41-2012%2F

http://sociology.panteion.gr/index.php?p=news&section=2&id=775

http://www.soziologie.de/fileadmin/user_upload/DGS_Redaktion_BE_FM/Veranstaltungsdokumente/14-01_GendergraphienV.pdf

http://www.soziologie.de/fileadmin/user_upload/DGS_Redaktion_BE_FM/Veranstaltungsdokumente/14-01_GendergraphienV.pdf

http://www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de/cms/de/sparten/wort_und_wissen/einbruch_der_dunkelheit.html

http://www.kulturstiftung-des-bundes.de/cms/de/sparten/wort_und_wissen/einbruch_der_dunkelheit.html

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/spionagepraktiken-der-us-geheimdienste-bundestag-beraet-in-sondersitzung-ueber-nsa-affaere-1.1805437

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/spionagepraktiken-der-us-geheimdienste-bundestag-beraet-in-sondersitzung-ueber-nsa-affaere-1.1805437

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/ueberwachung-durch-die-nsa-globaler-generalverdacht-1.1795855

http://www.sueddeutsche.de/digital/ueberwachung-durch-die-nsa-globaler-generalverdacht-1.1795855



Portugal

Call for Papers‘Keep it simple, Make it fast! Underground music scenes and DIY cultures’, 9 to 11 July 2014, Porto. The Call for Papers of this conference is open for presentations to all core areas of sociology and social sciences. The Conference Organizing Committee invite experienced and young scholars from various disciplines to participate in the conference. Underground music scenes have long been associated with strong DIY (do-it-yourself) cultural practices. Therefore, in a sociological reflection, though open to all other social sciences, we intend to discuss the importance of the musical and artistic underground practices in the contemporary society for its volatility but also undeniable importance in the urban youth cultures. The urban music cultures concerning the underground are still regarded as illegitimate objects of analysis in the more vast contemporary social theory framework. Yet they play a central role in the functioning of the musical (post)industry and in the emerging digital media landscape. It is also our intention to clarify and highlight musical scenes that pierce contemporary cities and give them rhythm, but also specific forms of identity and cultural and artistic heritage. This three-day conference, explores the contemporary landscape of urban underground music scenes and DIY cultures in a global context

United KingdomPast eventFor the fourth year running Eric Allison the Prison Correspondent for The Guardian came to give a guest lecture to third year students at the University of Chester, UK, on the myths and realities of imprisonment. He discussed his former life as a ‘career criminal’ and his experience of being a prison campaigner whilst inside and outside of prison. He also discussed the stories that he investigates in this role as a Prison Correspondent. In particular he discussed myths and realities of child imprisonment, women’s experiences of imprisonment, miscarriages of justice and alternatives to imprisonment. Interesting and important stories such as the use of Pet Therapy in women’s prisons, and engaging dads in men’s prisons were shared. Eric also talked about his most recent investigation which was to be published the following week in The Guardian regarding the ill treatment of terminally ill prisoners including dying prisoners being routinely chained to their beds. The brave and tragic case of Susan May was discussed in a powerful and heartfelt manner. This was particularly sad and pertinent as Susan had sadly died aged 68 less than a week before Eric gave his talk. Susan May spent 12 years in prison for the murder of her aunt, throughout she maintained her innocence. Although Susan was released from prison in 2005 she continued to campaign to clear her name. Eric worked with Susan during her campaign but she died before she could officially clear her name. The session ended following a lively question and answer session wherein students asked insightful questions. As ever, a group of students gathered around Eric after the talk wanting to personally thank him and ask further questions. It is envisaged that all being well Eric will return to the University next year.Dr Karen CorteenRelevant sources:Allison, E. (2013). Eric Allison. The Guardian. http://www.theguardian.com/profile/ericallisonCorteen, K. and Allison, E. (under review, 2014). “The buzz was every bit as good as the prize, if not more”: A former career criminal’s perspective on risk. In P. Taylor and P. Wagg (Eds.) Work and Society: Spaces, Places and Identities. Chester, UK: Chester University Press. http://www.chester.ac.uk/university-press


http://www.chester.ac.uk/university-press

http://www.theguardian.com/profile/ericallison

Jameson, N. and Allison, N. (1995). Strangeways 1990: A Serious Disturbance. London: Larkin Publications.

Critical Research seminar series

4th December: 5.30-7pm, Room G09Kirsteen Paton: State Sponsored Gentrification

15th January: 5.30-7pm, Room G09Val Walsh: Men and Masculinity in an Outsourced World

12th February: 5.30-7pm, Room G09Andrea Beckmann: Fifty Shades and Beyond: Researching Intimate 'Bodily

Practices'

12th March: 5.00-7pm, Room G01Liz Kelly: Title TBA

All seminars are free to attend and will be held in LJMU’s John Foster Building,

98 Mount Pleasant, Liverpool John Moores University, L3 5UZ

For further information, please contact one of the organisers:Vicky Canning: [email protected] Vickie Cooper: [email protected]

CLS Seminar Series 2013-14Thursday 5 December, 16.15-18.00 Moot Court Room, Old College, School of Law, University of Edinburgh Social Indicators as a New Form of Global Normativity Professor David Nelken University of Macerata, Italy & King’s College, London

From Moral Panics to States of Denial: A celebration of the life and work of Stan Cohen. 10th

December from 18:00-20:00. For more information, see:http://www.lse.ac.uk/humanRights/events/2013/stanCohen.aspx

Keele Workshop: call for papershttp://socandcrimatkeele.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/workshop-at-keele-call-for-abstracts.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+SociologyAndCriminologyAtKeeleUniversity+(Sociology+and+Criminology+at+Keele+University)

North West Gender Conference 2014: Constructions of gender in Research. Lancaster University, George Fox Building, 22 nd April 2014 This inter-disciplinary conference is run ‘by PGR’s, for PGR’s’ and will provide a unique opportunity for Postgraduate students to talk about the constructions of gender within their research. This event is for all Postgraduate students, not just those who are near completion. The aim is to provide a safe, comfortable and open environment for students at all stages of their PhD or Masters to discuss their ‘research in progress’ and to receive feedback and


http://socandcrimatkeele.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/workshop-at-keele-call-for-abstracts.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed:+SociologyAndCriminologyAtKeeleUniversity+(Sociology+and+Criminology+at+Keele+University)



http://www.lse.ac.uk/humanRights/events/2013/stanCohen.aspx

support from peers. Despite the theme of the event being gender-orientated, this conference is intended to offer the opportunity for any discipline and research student to discuss the impact of gender within their research, not only those whose work specifically focuses on gender. Abstracts of 250 words are now welcome and the final date for submission will be 28th February 2014. The conference attendance is free, and link for registration and website information will be available soon. To submit an abstract and for any queries, please contact [email protected].

One-day conferenceThe Centre for Criminological Research at the University of Sheffield is hosting a one day symposium on "Abuse" on the 24th January 2014. Further details can be found on the attached flyer, and full details of how to register are on the website at: http://www.shef.ac.uk/law/research/clusters/ccr/abuse

Is Britain Pulling Apart?Radical Statistics 2014 Conference and AGMMore details can be found here: http://www.radstats.org.uk/conference/man2014/

The Meaning of Migration: Call for PapersEvent Date: Thursday, April 17, 2014, Call for Papers deadline: Monday, December 2nd 2013. For more information, see: http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/jomec/newsandevents/13meaning_of_migration_call_for_papers.html

'Injustice' Film Screening and Q&A with Director Ken Fero10 December at 17:00; Lecture Theatre 3, Geoffrey Manton Building, Manchester Metropolitan University, Manchester, M15 6LL

‘Apples of the Golan’ Film ScreeningThursday 5th December 5.30-7.30pmRendall Building, Lecture Theatre 6, University of Liverpool

Based on research by the academic Gearóid O Cúinn, Apples of the Golan (directed by Keith Walsh and Jill Beardsworth, 2012) is a documentary film that tells the story of Majdal Shams, one of the few remaining Arab villages in the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. Before the Six Day War, Majdal Shams was one of 139 villages in the Golan Heights region. Only five remain. Over 130,000 Syrian Arabs were forced from their homes never to return. Amongst those who remain a stoic pragmatism prevails, Israel their home, Syria their homeland. Filmed over three years from 2009 to 2012, the film’s narrative is made up of a multitude of characters that together convey a sense of resilience about the complex nature of their existence. See: http://applesofthegolan.com/

United StatesComment/AnalysisRecent NVCS data show an increase in criminal victimization in the US for the second consecutive year. Is this a consequence of the the economic recession? A commentary by Alessandro De Giorgi published in the Social Justice Journal rethinks the relation between crisis, crime, and punishment. See: http://www.socialjusticejournal.org/?p=1770


http://www.socialjusticejournal.org/?p=1770

http://applesofthegolan.com/

https://www.facebook.com/events/calendar/2013/December/10

https://www.facebook.com/events/580814991989299/?ref=3&ref_newsfeed_story_type=regular

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/jomec/newsandevents/13meaning_of_migration_call_for_papers.html

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/jomec/newsandevents/13meaning_of_migration_call_for_papers.html

http://www.radstats.org.uk/conference/man2014/

http://www.shef.ac.uk/law/research/clusters/ccr/abuse


The Center for Victims of Torture (2013, November). "Tortured & Detained: Survivor Stories of U.S. Immigration Detention." Retrieved 10 November, 2013, from http://www.cvt.org/sites/cvt.org/files/Report_TorturedAndDetained_Nov2013.pdf.

MediaMoving photographs documenting the horrific outcome of USAs immigration policy are available here: http://www.featureshoot.com/2013/10/harrowing-photographs-of-migrants-making-the-perilous-journey-through-the-arizona-desert/ Video on sterilisation in US state prisons. See http://cironline.org/reports/video-sterilized-behind-bars-5501?utm_source=CIR&utm_medium=social_media&utm_campaign=twitter

Study ProgrammeMaster's programme in Justice Studies at San Jose State University, CA, with Tony Platt, Alessandro De Giorgi and others. Applications are strongly encouraged from European students. See http://justicestudies.sjsu.edu/degrees/m-s-justice-studies/

WorldFair Trials International has today published its report on the misuse of INTERPOL the world’s largest international police organisation. You can download the report here.

The report shows how INTERPOL – the world’s largest policing organisation and a vital crime-fighting tool – is frequently misused by countries across the world – in order to pursue refugees, journalists and peaceful political activists in relation to politically-motivated prosecutions. Despite INTERPOL’s commitment to human rights and neutrality, its review mechanisms are not rigorous enough to prevent this abuse, leaving innocent people across the world vulnerable to arrest and extradition.

The report contains the stories of cases across the world showing the devastating impact of INTERPOL abuse. Fair Trials International is calling on INTERPOL to introduce simple reforms which would weed out these abusive cases and give people who believe they are subject to politically-motivated alerts the chance to challenge these with fairness and due process.

Our INTERPOL campaign has been covered by the Economist, the Guardian, the Daily Telegraph and the EU Observer.


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).

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).

http://euobserver.com/justice/122254

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/srilanka/10476653/Interpol-accused-of-using-wanted-alerts-to-bersmirch-exiled-opponents.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/srilanka/10476653/Interpol-accused-of-using-wanted-alerts-to-bersmirch-exiled-opponents.html

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/27/interpol-accused-red-notice-requests

http://www.economist.com/news/international/21589901-cross-border-policing-can-be-political-rogue-states

http://www.fairtrials.org/press/pressure-builds-for-interpol-reform/

http://www.fairtrials.org/publications/policy-report-interpol-and-human-rights/

http://justicestudies.sjsu.edu/degrees/m-s-justice-studies/

http://cironline.org/reports/video-sterilized-behind-bars-5501?utm_source=CIR&utm_medium=social_media&utm_campaign=twitter

http://cironline.org/reports/video-sterilized-behind-bars-5501?utm_source=CIR&utm_medium=social_media&utm_campaign=twitter

http://www.featureshoot.com/2013/10/harrowing-photographs-of-migrants-making-the-perilous-journey-through-the-arizona-desert/

http://www.featureshoot.com/2013/10/harrowing-photographs-of-migrants-making-the-perilous-journey-through-the-arizona-desert/

https://staffmail.hud.ac.uk/owa/redir.aspx?C=W_Ew1UyS10KeCPb7egYyQ3RzqlzbwtAI2snBjIVzAKnyxVyoKV-e3vJ3mPLw-nhSMszjTarqvJI.&URL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cvt.org%2Fsites%2Fcvt.org%2Ffiles%2FReport_TorturedAndDetained_Nov2013.pdf.

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