Adele Norris & Britany Gatewood: Silencing Prisoner Protests: Criminology, Black Women and State-sanctioned Violence
Protests and resistance from those locked away in jails, prisons and detention centers occur but receive limited, if any, mainstream attention. In the United States and Canada, 61 instances of prisoner unrest occurred in 2018 alone. In August of the same year, incarcerated men and women in the United States planned nineteen days of peaceful protest to improve prison conditions. Complex links of institutionalized power, white supremacy and Black resistance is receiving renewed attention; however, state-condoned violence against women in correctional institutions (e.g., physical, sexual and emotional abuse, and medical neglect by prison staff) is understudied. This qualitative case study examines 10 top-tier Criminology journals from 2008-2018 for the presence of prisoner unrest/protest. Findings reveal a paucity of attention devoted to prisoner unrest or state-sanctioned violence. This paper argues that the invisibility of prisoner unrest conceals the breadth and depth of state-inflicted violence against prisoners, especially marginalized peoples. This paper concludes with a discussion of the historical legacy and contemporary invisibility of Black women’s resistance against state-inflicted violence. This paper argues that in order to make sense of and tackle state-condoned violence we must turn to incarcerated individuals, activists, and Black and Indigenous thinkers and grassroots actors.
Kalym Lipsey: A Hypothetical Spectrum of Voices in the New Zealand Criminal Justice System: Are we Really that Different?
A hypothetical spectrum can be used to understand the complex array of tones calling for a change in the New Zealand Criminal Justice System. At one end, the ‘punitive’, sit those organisations calling for harsher sentences and increased punitiveness. At the other, the ‘abolitionist’, where groups are seeking to reduce the scope of prisons. Somewhere in the middle, the reformist groups. Questions emerge as to what degree personal perceptions and attitudes influence and motivate those positioned at various points on this spectrum. This paper explores the primary wants, needs, expectations and values of New Zealanders positioned at the ‘punitive’, ‘reformist’ and ‘abolitionist’ points on this spectrum. This exploration uses Valuegraphics - the world’s largest dataset of what matters to people; consisting of almost 500,000 completed surveys in 152 languages. The key questions that this paper addresses are; What are the shared values and characteristics of these groups? Are the contrasts between these groups striking or are commonalties surprising? Perhaps most importantly, do shared values provide a window of opportunity for a conversation about common goals regardless of vastly contrasting views of how the New Zealand Criminal Justice system should operate?
Usman Mikail Usman and Gold Kafilah Lola: The Impediments to Anti-Trafficking Policy Implementation in Nigeria
Trafficking in humans is a global phenomenon. It is the second fastest growing illegal trading activity that generates billions of dollars yearly. A significant number of females from Nigeria are trafficked day in day out. This makes the most populous African nation a severe source of victims to transnational criminal trafficking networks. The government tries to combat human trafficking by establishing a specialised anti-human trafficking agency. The agency is accountable for the implementation of the anti-trafficking policy. However, putting policy into practice presents thoughtful impediments that create implementation gaps. To date, there is virtually no study that looks into the activities of the Nigerian anti-trafficking agency. The investigation is a qualitative enquiry that uses an in-depth systematic review on human trafficking, which paid attention to putting anti-trafficking policy into action. This is amongst few studies that attempt to comprehend the state of human trafficking service delivery to the victims in Nigeria. It finds limited resources, insufficient training, inadequate shelter, absence of awareness and corruption as the main impediments hampering efficient policy implementation.
Each presentation will be allocated 20 minutes. Additional time for questions and discussion will be available in each stream.
