Title: 'Help Me Please': Terror, Trauma and Self-Inflicted Deaths in Prison

The words ‘Help me please’ were written by Tony Paine in a poignant letter to his mother before he killed himself in Liverpool prison in February 2018. Tony’s death was one of 325 prison deaths that occurred in England and Wales in 2018, 92 of which were self-inflicted (inquest.org.uk). This paper critically examines deaths in prison from an abolitionist perspective. In doing so, it raises a number of critical questions concerning the nature of prison life and death, and the state's role in these deaths. First, it will challenge the state’s definition of reality, its 'truth', with its emphasis on the pathological nature of the individuals who kill themselves. Second, it will focus on the dehumanizing nature of the prison environment, and the brutal exercise of penal power, which provide the psychologically corrosive context in which individuals choose to kill themselves. Third, it will argue that it is not only the physical violence of the state that kills. The systemic indifference of state agents can also induce deaths in prison. Fourth, it will critique the state’s definition of dangerousness by asking for whom is the prison dangerous? Finally, it will focus on what should be done to hold to account those responsible for prison deaths and how developing structures of democratic accountability can ultimately contribute to abolishing prisons in their present form.

Joe Sim is Professor of Criminology at Liverpool John Moores University and the Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Crime, Criminalisation and Social Exclusion. He is the author of a number of books on the prison system including British Prisons (with Mike Fitzgerald) Medical Power in Prisons and Punishment and Prisons. He is also a trustee of the charity INQUEST which is the only charity providing expertise on state related deaths, and their investigation, to bereaved people, lawyers, advice and support agencies, the media and parliamentarians.

Title: Interrogating EU and UK Borders and Controls on Persons

‘Borders and their controls are rarely off the front pages of EU and UK media - whether it be small boats crossing the English Channel, migrant camps in Calais or North Africa, and most controversially arrivals of people on small boats from Libya to EU shores. In this lecture I will examine why border controls are so complex and challenging for states and regional bodies like the EU. Specifically, what does the investment of state sovereignty in border controls on persons achieve both in law and politics?’

Professor Guild provides regular advice to the European Parliament, the European Commission, the Council of Europe and other European and international organizations (such as the UNHCR) on free movement of persons, migration and asylum. Professor Guild is co-chair of the European Sub Committee, Immigration Law Practitioners Association, the UK legal profession’s voice on immigration and asylum matters.

Please email law.events@warwick.ac.uk to register for this event.

This week, we will be combining the CCLS reading group with a documentary film screening of 'Terror's Advocate', organised by some of our fantastic Critical Lawyers at Warwick (CLAW) students. The film continues our theme of 'trial of rupture'.https://www.curzonartificialeye.com/terrors-advocate/

In the discussion afterwards, we intend to discuss the attached interview with Jean-Paul Sartre in the NLR, putting it into conversation with the strategy of rupture described by Jacques Verges in the film.

The film screening and discussion will take place in the Law Hub from 6pm on Wednesday 19 Feb (right after the public lecture!). There will be no 4pm reading group. Everyone welcome!

Best wishes,

Christine (on behalf of CCLS and CLAW)