This seminar has been POSTPONED until a future date.

Details about the new date and time will be disseminated through this page and our mailing list in due course.

A research seminar co-hosted with the Centre for the Study of Women and Gender, Warwick.

Harriet Wistrich, Director Centre for Women’s Justice

“Women who Kill: How the state criminalises women we might otherwise be burying”

Abstract:

This talk will explore the findings CWJ’s four year study and recent report on how the criminal justice system treats the small number of women who kill their abusive partners each year and why after over thirty years of campaigning around this issue and changes in the law under the Coroners and Justice Act 2009, such women are still being convicted of murder. How does this study also inform us about the wider problem of the criminalisation of domestic abuse survivors who offend? What is CWJ doing to address this problem and what are our wider recommendations for reform.

Elaine Player, Professor of Criminology & Criminal Justice, King’s College London

“Questions of Legitimacy in therapeutic programmes for women prisoners serving long sentences”

Abstract:

I plan to discuss a 'work in progress' that is exploring the legitimacy of therapeutic programmes for women prisoners serving long sentences. It draws upon empirical work conducted in the therapeutic community in HMP Send, but its focus is on feminist criticisms and reservations about psychologically intrusive treatment of women in prison and how these might be addressed. In this talk I discuss changes to the ideological context in which prison therapy occurs, organised under three headings: Social Contract Theory; the Duty of Care owed to prisoners; and the concept of Equal Justice.