Robert Jones, Cardiff University

‘Wrexham Prison Blues’: Resisting the UK’s Largest Prison

In September 2013, the UK government announced that it would be building a 2100 capacity ‘super’ prison in Wrexham in north Wales, When built, the Wrexham ‘super’ prison will stand as the single largest prison in the UK and one of the largest across Western Europe. 

In this paper I will discuss the efforts that have been made to try and resist the UK government’s plans to build the ‘super’ prison in Wrexham. While reflecting upon many of the arguments that have been put forward as a way to oppose the development, the paper will also be used to reflect upon the significance of the Wrexham ‘super’ prison and what this might potentially mean for future justice policy in England and Wales.

Finally, the paper will argue that future constitutional changes in Wales may well hold the key to resisting penal expansionism in future.

Robert Jones (2014) ‘Wrexham Prison Blues’- Resisting The UK’s Largest Prison

Luca Follis, Lancaster University

Hunger and the Politics of the Impersonal

This paper examines the hunger strike as a stumbling block in law’s tacit withdrawal from incarceration and detention settings. Drawing on Roberto Esposito’s category of the dispositif and his ongoing critique of the biopolitics of personhood, I consider the recent cases at Guantanamo Bay, the hunger strikes in the California Prison system and older examples like the strikes of prisoners in Northern Ireland (of which Bobby Sands is perhaps the most emblematic). These acts push beyond the moral and legal terrain that surrounds them (e.g., whether and in what circumstances it is appropriate for administrators and medical personnel to violate prisoner rights); they represent tactical challenges to a form of power that despite its claims to impartiality and impersonality actively relies on maintaining a dense array of shifting biopolitical thresholds. I argue that the hunger strike through its open embrace of mortality and biological existence represents a powerful critique of this enduring logic and brings to the fore the gap between law’s claim to justice (as neutral arbiter) and its binary grounding.

Luca Follis (2014) Hunger Strike And The Politics Of The Impersonal

Thomas Mathiesen talking about The Politics of Abolition 40 years after its publication at the European Group  2014 Conference in Liverpool

Thomas Mathiesen (2014) The Politics Of Abolition Revisited

Jaime Todd-Gher, Amnesty International

Policing Bodies, Punishing Lives: Illegitimate Use of Criminal Laws and Policies to Punish Sexual and Reproductive Conduct and Identities

Sexual and reproductive conduct and identities are all too often the target of criminal laws and policies worldwide, which disproportionately impact women, gender nonconforming people and the resource poor. These individuals are policed, investigated and penalized for engaging in sex work or extramarital sex, obtaining or inducing abortions, for HIV exposure and transmission and same-sex intimacy, in violation of their human rights. While some advocates rely on international human rights norms and standards to demand that states punish and prevent certain conduct through criminal justice systems, less attention is paid to restraining states’ power to police sexuality and reproduction. In fact,there is little guidance within human rights law regarding the legitimacy of states’ use of criminal and other punitive laws or policies to control and punish their populations. While human rights instruments and bodies call upon states to enact legislation, policies and programmes to prevent violence, harm and rights violations, they do not explicitly address the outer limits of states' policing power. As such, there is little foundation for challenging states’ failure to criminalize particular conduct, in accordance with their international legal obligations, yet over-criminalize sexual and reproductive conduct and identities, to the detriment of women and other disempowered individuals. This lack of normative clarity stands as a barrier to devising effective advocacy to minimize the human rights impact of punishing sexuality and reproduction.

This conference paper will map international norms and standards regarding overcriminalization of particular individuals’ and groups’ sexual and reproductive conduct and identities, with an eye toward locating potential restraints on states’ police power in the realms of sexuality and reproduction. It will also explore whether a standard of legitimacy for states’ application of criminal and other punitive laws and policies, in accordance with human rights principles, may be forged.

Jaime Todd - Gher (2014) Illegitimate Use Of Criminal Laws To Punish Sexual And Reproductive Conduct

Tony Bunyan, State Watch

Spying on all of us: UK-GCHQ, USA-NSA, 'Five Eyes' and the EU

The revelations by Edward Snowden of data surveillance - internal and external - by the USA, UK and other EU states has raised important questions about data protection and privacy. These issues are being taken up by a wide range of NGOs and others. This talk/paper will argue that data protection and privacy abuses by the USA-NSA and UK-GCHQ concerns the "gatherers" (the surveillance agencies) of personal data. What urgently needs to be investigated, studied and exposed are the "users" of mass data surveillance (CIA and FBI in the USA, MI5, MI6, Special Branch and law enforcement agencies (LEAs) and the "targets" of the "users" (who and why are people or groups targeted). Account also has to be taken of the "suppliers" to the "users" (multinational companies) - the "suppliers" are part of the security-industrial complex in the EU who develop and provide the technology for surveillance and enforcement. It will argue that our attention should be centred on what is happening in the EU, rather than on the USA - some reforms may happen there but there is as yet no impetus or attention to the ensure openness and accountability of national internal and external agencies and LEAs in EU Member States. What is required is a holistic approach which will take many years of diligent research by academics, journalists and civil society groups. 

Tony Bunyan (2014) Spying On All Of Us- UKGCHQ, USA - NSA, 'Five Eyes' And The EU

Eva Magdalena Stambøl, independent researcher, Norway/Colombia.

EU Security Governance Along the Cocaine Routes: ‘Othering’ in External Threat Conceptualization of Cocaine Trafficking and ‘Transnational Organized Crime’

The paper looks at European Union projects and policies on drugs and organized crime in Latin America, as well as along the cocaine trafficking routes from Latin America and the Caribbean to West Africa, as an entry point to explore the development of EU (external) drug policy and broader EU foreign and security policies. 

The key principle that underpins EU drug policy – i.e., an ‘integrated and balanced approach’ is examined in relation to EU foreign and security policies. In doing so, the axiomatic relationship between security and development is addressed. Based on a mapping of EU projects and a study of EU strategy documents, I argue that rather than ‘integration and balance’, EU foreign policy on drugs in Latin America and the Caribbean is undergoing a bifurcation between, on the one hand a development-focused ‘soft end’ with projects of demand reduction and (alternative) development, and – on the other – a security-focused ‘hard end’ with projects targeting cocaine trafficking and organized crime – as well an increasing emphasis on the latter. The process is consistent with developments in EU Member States, where demand reduction is increasingly integrated into broader public health policy and supply reduction is integrated into security strategies targeting organized crime. These processes question whether a particular EU drug policy has a place in the future.

Finally, EU’s efforts against cocaine trafficking outside its borders are looked at in the context of the development of the EU as a security zone – with the concepts of internal and external security. EU foreign security policy is seen in terms of ‘extra-territorializing’ the management of security threats to third countries. West Africa is identified as a larger security concern to the EU than cocaine trafficking per se, as it seems to be perceived as a space where cocaine trafficking interconnects with a plethora of different ‘threats’ at Europe’s southern doorstep, such as armed conflict, de-stabilization of fragile states, terrorism and ‘facilitated illegal immigration’. Questions are raised with regard to processes of ‘othering’ in the construction of external security threats to EU internal security, and to how EU’s programme on dismantling ‘transnational organized crime’ along the cocaine routes might have unintended consequences.The key principle that underpins EU drug policy – i.e., an ‘integrated and balanced approach’ is examined in relation to EU foreign and security policies. In doing so, the axiomatic relationship between security and development is addressed. Based on a mapping of EU projects and a study of EU strategy documents, I argue that rather than ‘integration and balance’, EU foreign policy on drugs in Latin America and the Caribbean is undergoing a bifurcation between, on the one hand a development-focused ‘soft end’ with projects of demand reduction and (alternative) development, and – on the other – a security-focused ‘hard end’ with projects targeting cocaine trafficking and organized crime – as well an increasing emphasis on the latter. The process is consistent with developments in EU Member States, where demand reduction is increasingly integrated into broader public health policy and supply reduction is integrated into security strategies

Eva Magdalena Stambøl (2014) EU Security Governance Along The Cocaine Routes

This Soundcloud account is edited by John Moore (j.moore at uwe.ac.uk)on behalf of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control.

The European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control is an international network for academics, practitioners, and activists working towards social justice, state accountability and decarceration. It is an open forum promoting critical analysis and connecting theory, politics and activism. Since the Group was founded in Florence, Italy, in 1973, it has grown to comprise over 1000 members stretching across six different continents. 

It is a group which works as a collective network, surviving only with the support of its members who contribute in many different ways, linking members from different countries together and publicising the European Group as national representatives, maintaining social media networks, coming up with new ideas, making financial donations, or simply providing their support and comradeship. Members also get together throughout the year at small conferences and study days organised by the various  working groups. These groups, focusing on specific issues of interest to members, have long been a tradition in the European Group. 

Every year, the Group holds a conference in a European country, and seeks to link its conference theme to local political and social issues. Each conference brings together a broad range of people from across the world - students, local advocacy and activist groups, academics, researchers, and practitioners. Delegates adhere to many different philosophies and come from countries across the globe. European Group conferences are therefore always eclectic and diverse but they are unique from mainstream conferences for other reasons too. This is can best be explored through consideration of how the values of the European Group shape interactions between members. We are non-hierarchical - it makes no difference whether someone is an activist, student or a highly distinguished Professor, we are all students of deviancy and social control. We are all on a level playing field, and indeed this non-hierarchical ethos is central to the democratic and participatory workings of the European Group itself. Our conferences and forums are deliberately informal, emphasising mutual support, cooperation, solidarity and friendship, some of which we hope will continue for many years into the future. Given the philosophical heritage of the European Group, we have respect for differences and tolerance of diversity, although we anticipate that the non-hierarchical ethos of anti-sexism and anti-racism, for example, will be adhered too in all forms of interaction. For more information on our forthcoming conference, please visit the conference page on this site.

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