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International Conference on Penal Abolition

Full agenda announced

The full agenda for ICOPA is now online, and pending any further changes, the line-up is looking like we're going to have a fascinating conference. With speakers coming to present papers from Brazil, Trinidad, Canada, Australia, USA, Belgium plus many more including the UK, we are really looking at a truly international conference.

To see the full agenda, including the topics up for discussion, please click here.

We will be adding synopses and biographies of speakers within the next few weeks, so please keep checking back for more information.

 

Creating a scandal - prison abolition and the policy agenda
23, 24 & 25 July 2008, Kings College, London

The Howard League for Penal Reform is organising and hosting the above international conference to develop the case for the abolition of prison and to rethink penal policy. The conference will discuss and hear about the impact of the penal system on our communities and provide suggestions for new and alternative approaches. It will look at custody and community interventions as alternatives to imprisonment; prisons and the politics of poverty; the role of the media and public opinion; and the role of privatisation and capitalism in penal policy today.

ICOPA XII will host international speakers dealing with the ancillary, fiscal and human costs of crime and punishment in the 21st century and will look at other possibilities and approaches outside of a failing crime control agenda. The conference will be aimed at an international audience of practitioners, policy makers, penal reformers, NGOs, academics and concerned individuals. We want the conference to be forward looking, challenging and positive and offer suggestions for the future.

Key themes and plenary sessions for the conference include:

• Creating a scandal - prison abolition and the policy agenda
• Prison and the politics of poverty
• The role of privatisation and capitalism in penal policy
• Penal abolition, the media and the public

Confirmed speakers so far include:

• Professor Thomas Mathiesen, University of Oslo
• Professor Joe Sim, Liverpool John Moores University
• Frances Crook, Director, The Howard League for Penal Reform
• Stephen Nathan, Editor, Prison Privatisation Report International
• Moazzamm Begg, Former Guantanamo detainee and spokesman for Cageprisoners
• Raphael Rowe, Journalist, BBC
• Professor David Wilson, Birmingham City University and vice-chair, The Howard League for Penal Reform
• Professor Barry Goldson, The University of Liverpool
• Professor Phil Scraton PhD, Queen's University, Belfast
• Clive Stafford Smith, Director, Reprieve
• Caroline Newman, solicitor and trainer
• Imran Khan, leading human rights lawyer
• Julia Sudbury, Mills College, co-founder, Critical Resistance, board member Justice Now

This conference is approved under, and for the purpose of the Law Society for 14.5 hours CPD.