Howard League to hold international justice conference

What: Redesigning Justice: Promoting civil rights, trust and fairness
When: 21-22 March 2018
Where: Keble College, University of Oxford
Journalists are welcome to attend.

The most senior prosecutor in England and Wales, a leading prison governor, an award-winning author and journalist, and a member of President Obama’s policing taskforce are among the speakers lined up to appear at an international justice conference hosted by the Howard League for Penal Reform next week.

Redesigning Justice: Promoting civil rights, trust and fairness – a two-day event at Keble College, Oxford – will bring together more than 250 academics, policy-makers and practitioners from across the globe.

The conference will shine a light on seemingly intransigent aspects of justice systems, including what equality and legitimacy mean 50 years after the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and why prison is still so central to justice responses to crime.

It will seek to develop thinking on the changing dynamics of crime, with the increasing prominence of cybercrime and fraud but also the impact of the changing nature of public discourse, with the rise of social media, on justice debates.

The conference will begin with a plenary session, titled Perspectives on justice, featuring presentations by Alison Saunders, Director of Public Prosecutions; Oliver Lodge, Director of Justice Value For Money at the National Audit Office; Professor Ian Loader, Professor of Criminology and Professorial Fellow of All Souls College, University of Oxford; and Professor Nicola Lacey, Professor of Law, Gender and Social Policy at the London School of Economics.

The second plenary session, titled Social justice and reintegration, will feature presentations by Professor Danny Dorling, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography and Fellow of St Peter’s College, University of Oxford; Professor Barry Goldson, Charles Booth Chair of Social Science at the University of Liverpool; Professor Sophie Body-Gendrot, Emeritus Professor at the University of Paris-Sorbonne, Researcher at CNRS-CESDIP and Co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of European Criminology; and Professor Fergus McNeill, Professor of Criminology and Social Work at the University of Glasgow.

The second day will begin with a session titled The penal system: domestic and international perspectives. It will feature presentations by Andrea Albutt, President of the Prison Governors’ Association; Mauro Palma, former President of the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture; and Professor Elena Larrauri, Professor of Criminal Law and Criminology at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona.

The conference will end with a session, titled Redesigning justice: identity and social control, featuring presentations by Professor Tracey L. Meares, Walton Hale Hamilton Professor of Law at Yale University and a member of President Obama’s Task Force on 21^st Century Policing; Gary Younge, broadcaster, editor-at-large for the Guardian, and author of Another Day in the Death of America: A Chronicle of Ten Short Lives; and Project Future, a mental health and well-being project that works alongside young men affected by offending and violence in north London.

Other activities on the agenda more than 40 smaller parallel sessions; a screening of the film Injustice and a performance by Vox Liminis, an organisation based in Scotland that makes music and art to ask questions about criminal justice.

Journalists wishing to attend the conference should email [email protected]

Notes to editors

1. The Howard League for Penal Reform is the oldest penal reform charity in the world. It is a national charity working for less crime, safer communities and fewer people in prison.

2. For more information about the conference, including details of other panel sessions, please visit: https://howardleague.org/events/redesigning-justice-promoting-civil-rights-trust-and-fairness/ 

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