̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge - justice

Mind Over Chatter: What would a more just future look like?

ns480 — Thu, 27 May 2021 12:57:12 +0000

Season 2, episode 4

Our society is more unequal than ever, as the top 1% control over 44% of the world’s wealth while 689 million people are living on less than $1.90 per day, according to the World Bank.

In this episode of Mind Over Chatter, we asked our guests what the future of fairness, justice, and equality should look like, and how their research can help to bring about a fairer society.

We cover topics ranging from distributive justice, the virtues and vices of empathy, and the role AI will play in shaping equality in the years to come.

Subscribe to Mind Over Chatter

Dr Alexa Hagerty, whose research looks at the global societal impacts of emerging technologies and Dr Natalie Jones, who focuses on global injustice and the rights of (indigenous) peoples, shared how injustice can be thought of as an existential risk to humanity.

Anthropologist, Professor Esra Ozyurek, who seeks to understand the tension between politics and religion in Turkey and in Europe, introduced us to the importance of understanding that different people have different needs, making equality insufficient to bring about justice.

Key points

[02.07]- what do we mean by fair when it comes to societies?

[06:45]- the difference between fairness, justice, and equality

13:13]- cognitive empathy and emotional empathy distinction

[13:50]- Time for recap 1: summary so far

[20:21]- how to link global injustice and different voices to existential risk

[20:44]- participatory futures intro

[21:21]-global justice causing existential risk

Mind Over Chatter: ̽��ֱ��Cambridge ̽��ֱ�� Podcast

Muslims leaving prison talk about the layers of their lives

amb206 — Wed, 15 Aug 2018 07:55:01 +0000

Dr Ryan Williams has become accustomed to uncomfortable moments. His research into the lived experiences of people in the criminal justice system (CJS) has taken him into high-security prisons to interview people convicted of serious crimes, and to East London to speak to recently released prisoners. All his interviewees were Muslim.

He describes this area of study as highly problematic: “I was working with people who often feel doubly marginalised – as individuals with a criminal record and seeking to rebuild their lives, and as Muslims living in British society and having to fight against stereotypes. You run the risk of bringing genuine harm to people by failing to reflect their complex life realities.”

Williams is based at Cambridge’s Centre of Islamic Studies and at the ̽��ֱ�� of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. An interest in Islam and society took him into a domain usually studied by criminologists. His interviews explored the journeys, values and struggles of people caught up in the CJS. They took place in prisons (including segregation units), probation offices, cafés, mosques and ‘chicken shops’.

In 2017, an independent review by the Rt Hon David Lammy put race equality in the spotlight by highlighting a rise in the proportion of BAME (black, Asian and minority ethnic) young offenders in custody: from 25% in 2006 to 41% in 2016. Lammy stated that his “review clearly shows BAME individuals still face bias – including overt discrimination – in parts of the justice system”.

̽��ֱ��same review drew attention to the over-representation of Muslims in the CJS. Between 2002 and 2016, the proportion of Muslims in the prison population doubled.

“ ̽��ֱ��higher up the CJS you go, the greater the proportion of people identifying as Muslim,” says Williams. “More than 40% of the prisoners in the high-security prison that I was working in were Muslim.”

While the over-representation of Muslims in the CJS forms the backdrop to Williams’ research, his work looks not at the causes of crime but at the experiences of offenders as they serve their sentences and reflect on their lives. “By asking questions around belonging and how people can lead a good life, we begin to see what might help them in the future,” he says.

Rapport with participants was key. He says: “In effect, they interviewed me to ensure that I wouldn’t reinforce a ‘one-dimensional’ view of them as Muslims.”

As one interviewee remarked: “There’s more to life than the little bits that you read in the paper.” ̽��ֱ��interviewee had observed other people taking an interest in Muslims in prison: “They’re all asking the same questions” about discrimination and radicalisation, and “[I’m] just standing there thinking, like, ‘is that all you want to know?”’

Through his interviews, Williams came to learn how difficult it is for people to put their finger on inequality and discrimination. It was often indirect, found in everyday examples like (says one interviewee) being refused a toilet roll by a member of staff but seeing a white prisoner acquire one with ease. For white Muslim converts, there was a sense that being a Muslim was incompatible with being British – they were seen as ‘traitors’ to their country, reinforcing the view that Islam is a ‘foreign’ religion.

For one interviewee, the rise of Islamophobia was both tragic and laughable. He observed: “It’s really sad. People are scared of Muslims now and it makes me laugh because I think to myself, ‘Hang on a minute, what are you scared of?’” He also pointed out: “Everybody knows a Muslim. You probably work with one. You might live next door to one. Your neighbour’s cool. Your work colleague’s cool.”

Since 9/11, and more so in the wake of recent attacks in London, the term Muslim has become linked with negative associations.

“‘Muslim’ is a badge applied to offenders in a way that masks other aspects of their identity – for example their roles as sons, brothers and fathers. For much of the popular media, it’s a blunt term that hints heavily at terrorism,” says Williams.

Through guided conversations, Williams encouraged his interviewees to talk about the things that meant most to them, sharing their feelings about family, community and society. He explains: “Broadly speaking, my work is about people’s lives as a moral journey – one marked by mistakes and struggle – and how this connects to belonging and citizenship in an everyday sense.”

̽��ֱ��project was sparked by a conversation that Williams had four years ago with a Muslim offender of Pakistani heritage who’d been brought up in the UK. “He said that he felt so discriminated against that he felt he couldn’t live here any longer. To me, that was shocking,” says Williams.

“It made me wonder how the CJS might serve to help people feel like citizens and rebuild their lives. What if we brought the end goal of citizenship into view, rather than focusing exclusively on risk to the public? How would this change how people see themselves and how others see them?”

Williams’ interviews revealed that, for many, learning to be a good Muslim was also tied with being a better citizen, and each had their own way of going about this. “For one person, day-to-day practices of prayer kept them away from crime. For another, for whom crime was less of a struggle, practising zakat (charity) by providing aid to the Grenfell Tower survivors enabled him to fulfil a need to contribute to society,” he says.

He interviewed 44 Muslim men, sometimes interviewing them more than once, and triangulated his data with conversations with prison and probation staff.

“My approach was experiential-based – qualitative rather than quantitative. I didn’t have a set of boxes to fill in with numbers. I used one standard survey tool from research on desistance from crime, but I found it removed richness and detail from people’s complex stories. Participants welcomed the chance to reflect more deeply on their lives.”

An individual’s faith journey, argues Williams, cannot be separated from the complex reality they find themselves in. Faith is always interpreted and filtered through our experiences and can help to construe a positive view of what it means to live a life worth living. As one participant observed: “I want to actually do some things now, like goodness, like volunteering, helping people out, helping the vulnerable… God loves that.”

Williams says that as a fellow human being he empathises with this improvised desire to find meaning in life by doing good in the world. He says: “ ̽��ֱ��most profound thing to emerge from my conversations is that leading a good life is hard – and harder for some than for others.”

In April 2018, Williams organised a workshop ‘Supporting Muslim Service Users in Community and Probation Contexts’ for frontline staff and volunteers. Probation officer Mohammed Mansour Nassirudeen, who attended the workshop, said: “We need Ryan and researchers like him to give us the bigger picture. I believe this would help bring about desired outcomes for service users from BAME backgrounds, which is long overdue.”

Adds Williams: “My contribution is simply to get people to think about the issues in a different way, to facilitate discussion drawing on people’s own strengths and expertise, and then see where it takes us.”

In July 2018, Williams won a Vice-Chancellor’s Impact Award for his work.

Ryan's research has been incorporated into: guidelines on countering prison radicalisation, adopted by the European Commission in 2017; the evidence base for the Lammy Review on equality and implementing its recommendations; a course on the Good Life Good Society, adopted in 2016 in a high security prison. Read Ryan's This Cambridge Life interview here.

̽��ֱ��workshop ‘Supporting Muslim Service Users in Community and Probation Contexts’ was funded by the Arts and Humanities Impact Fund, and supported by the School of Arts and Humanities and the School of the Humanities and Social Sciences.

The Lammy Review in 2017 drew attention to inequalities among black, Asian and minority ethnic people in the criminal justice system. It also flagged the over-representation of Muslims in prisons. Research by Dr Ryan Williams explores the sensitivities around this topic.

̽��ֱ��higher up the criminal justice system you go, the greater the proportion of people identifying as Muslim

Ryan Williams

Andy Aitchison

̽��ֱ��text in this work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. Images, including our videos, are Copyright © ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge and licensors/contributors as identified. All rights reserved. We make our image and video content available in a number of ways – as here, on our main website under its Terms and conditions, and on a range of channels including social media that permit your use and sharing of our content under their respective Terms.

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Opinion: Disbelief and division at the ICC: inside the Laurent Gbagbo trial

Anonymous — Tue, 16 Feb 2016 15:43:37 +0000

Lesson learned: always check the microphones. Just after the start of the Hague trial of former Côte d'Ivoire president Laurent Gbagbo, prosecutor Eric MacDonald accidentally revealed the names of four anonymous prosecution witnesses within reach of a live microphone. ̽��ֱ��names were heard in the courtroom and the public gallery, and the recordings have been shared on social media.

̽��ֱ��clearly disconcerted presiding judge, Cuno Tarfusser, wondered whether this incident “of utmost and inexcusable gravity” was due to “recklessness, superficiality or stupidity.” He did not wish to “speculate about something else”, alluding to hypothetical foul play. ̽��ֱ��judge formally apologised to the witnesses and ordered an internal investigation.

̽��ֱ��incident highlights the difficult balancing act between holding transparent trials and prioritising witness and victim protection. And having observed the prosecutor’s opening statements from the public gallery, I saw the reactions of the two defendants' close supporters – reactions that revealed the deep fault lines in this case.

Gbagbo served as president of Côte d’Ivoire between 2000 and 2010. In 2010, he disputed the results of presidential elections that he officially lost, sparking a five-month political crisis that left more than 3,000 people dead. He is on trial with Charles Blé Goudé, the longtime leader of a youth movement known as Jeunes Patriotes (Young Patriots). Gbagbo appointed him minister for youth in 2010 during the crisis.

Gbagbo and Blé Goudé were transferred to the International Criminal Court in 2011 and 2014 respectively, and were charged as indirect co-perpetrators of crimes against humanity allegedly committed as part of a plan to keep Gbagbo in power “at any cost”. ̽��ֱ��two have both written tell-all books in which they refute such allegations.

I was at the ICC on the first day of the Gbagbo-Blé Goudé trial and waited with about 300 of their supporters outside the court’s shiny new permanent building in ̽��ֱ��Hague. One woman told me, only half-jokingly: “They built a new building just to try our president!” Protesting the portrait that was painted of Gbagbo as a dictator during the 2010-2011 crisis, another fan chanted sarcastically: “Give us back our dictator!”

Inside the court, diplomats, NGOs, journalists and members of Gbagbo and Blé Goudé’s close entourage filled the public gallery. Following the trial through headphones with simultaneous French and English translation, audience members have a clear view of the judges, prosecution and legal representative for victims teams on the left, both defence teams on the right, and both defendants sitting behind their respective representatives. For identity protection concerns, audience members cannot, however, see witnesses and victims testifying.

From inside the courtroom, one can look up and see members in the public gallery. After the second day’s hearings, Gbagbo stood up and saluted his supporters – who waved back ecstatically and left the gallery singing the Ivoirian anthem.

Disbelief, guffaws, and amulets

Since all the ICC’s criminal charges concern acts that took place in Abidjan, much of the evidence will be photo and video footage of the urban warfare that took place there. But rumours and conspiracy theories are rife in Côte d’Ivoire – and there are suspicions that evidence of this sort can be fabricated and altered.

Rumours have spread that video footage showing women lying on the ground, wounded from gunfire after an attack on a pro-Ouattara march in the Abobo neighbourhood of Abidjan, had been fabricated. When the prosecutor showed the graphic video in court, many of the pro-Gbagbo supporters reacted strongly, contesting its authenticity. For others, the dissonance between the gravity of the women’s injuries and the doubts of some supporters was jarring.

Still feeling it. Reuters

Another sticking point has been the relations between Ivoirian ethnic groups. As part of his case, the prosecutor wants to establish that Gbagbo and his “inner circle” encouraged crimes against perceived Ouattara supporters, who (very broadly) often share some combination of various characteristics: origins in northern Côte d’Ivoire and/or other West African countries, Muslim faith, and/or Dioula ethnicity.

̽��ֱ��prosecution accused Blé Goudé of having ordered pro-Gbagbo youth to monitor “foreigners” and search for those who wore amulets known as “gris-gris”. At this, the Gbagbo supporters in the public gallery guffawed. To them, Ivoirians are not as ethnically divided as the prosecution contends – “gris-gris” are supposedly not worn exclusively by northerners and therefore couldn’t be a target sign for persecution.

̽��ֱ��impression that foreign lawyers are trying Ivoirians without understanding the country’s nuances is a rallying point for those who contest the ICC’s legitimacy. But, ultimately, it is up to the judges to weigh this scepticism against well-documented evidence of persecution of pro-Ouattara supporters.

But who gets to determine whether or not a trial is political?

Problematic partiality

In her opening statement, the ICC prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, proclaimed the trial apolitical, emphasising that it is not trying to determine either who won the elections or who should have won them. I immediately heard a chorus of incredulous groans from Gbagbo’s supporters. As they see it, this trial is the finale of a campaign that set out to oust Gbagbo as president with the help of France, a campaign waged first with hijacked elections and now with an instrumentalised ICC.

One of the most trenchant criticisms of the trial so far is that, by trying only the Gbagbo side without trying members of the Ouattara side (some of whom are suspected of serious crimes), the court is revealing its political nature. This line of criticism is what professor of law Darryl Robinson calls the “apologia” critique: the idea that by not trying members loyal to the incumbent Ouattara, the ICC is deferring to politics, thereby lacking the “principled independence” and “critical bite” that a court should have.

But the prosecutor’s strategy needs to be viewed in light of the ICC’s very particular nature. ̽��ֱ��Office of the Prosecutor requires co-operation from governments in order to bring a case to trial, and states' refusal to co-operate has led to cases being suspended before. At the crux of this trial’s inherent politicality is the tension between pursuing effective yet impartial prosecutions, bearing in mind all the conflict’s victims.

It is likely the trial will last several years. If so, the verdict will be handed down just in time for the run-up to Côte d'Ivoire’s next presidential elections in 2020 – when Gbagbo’s supporters can channel their reaction to the verdict into the political process.

Sophie Rosenberg, PhD Candidate in International Studies, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

This article was originally published on ̽��ֱ��Conversation. Read the original article.

̽��ֱ��opinions expressed in this article are those of the individual author(s) and do not represent the views of the ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge.

Sophie Rosenberg (Department of Politics and International Studies) discusses the International Criminal Court's trial of Laurent Gbagbo, former president of Côte d'Ivoire.

United Nations Photo

Aerial View of Abidjan, Côte d'Ivoire

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Criminal rehabilitation: a spotlight on Europe

bjb42 — Mon, 12 Sep 2011 14:57:06 +0000

̽��ֱ��Mercat Cross is an innocuous but beautiful octagonal building on Edinburgh’s Royal Mile. Although it originally functioned as a place where merchants would gather and sell their wares (its name being derived from “Market Cross”), it was re-fashioned in the Late Middle Ages for a unique and spectacular form of punishment.

Criminals caught stealing from the nearby market were nailed, by the ear, to one of the doors of the Cross and were pelted with rotten fruit until the morning, whereupon the Sheriff would remove the nail and they would go free, hopefully never to offend again. Thus, two forms of punishment were hypothesised to reduce the likelihood of recidivism in the 14th Century: shame and pain.

Fast forward to the present day, and we find that thankfully, criminology has advanced considerably in the intervening seven hundred years. ̽��ֱ��tools of science are being brought to bear on how to reduce recidivism in the most effective and humane manner possible. In fact, it has emerged that the two can be pursued in close harmony: when punishments are harsh and degrading, as in the Mercat Cross example, or when prisoners are warehoused into cells without dignity and humanity, as is the case in many developed and developing countries, the likelihood of reoffending is remarkably increased.

Contrarily, effective rehabilitation of criminals requires an appreciation of just how different people are. Anyone who has taught a group of students, no matter the material or the students in the class, has had to grapple with varying learning styles and capabilities; teaching a criminal how to desist from crime upon release from prison shares many of the same principles.

Sophisticated and responsive treatments, usually incorporating psychological techniques, work better than ‘one-size-fits-all’ measures like prison. Treatments such as restorative justice that emphasise the reintegration of criminals into the community through affective, conversationally-based conflict resolution, are also promisingly effective and are much cheaper than the roughly £40,000 it takes to lock someone up for a year.

One of the projects we work on at the Institute of Criminology seeks to explain what programmes can be developed and implemented to reduce reoffending throughout Europe. On one hand, this requires a detailed understanding of what measures different countries have put in place to deal with the prison populations under their supervision, and on the other, it requires gathering together all the studies that have taken place to gauge the effectiveness of those programmes in order to discern what works best, and for whom. We’ve managed to locate a substantial gap between what is being done throughout Europe to reduce reoffending, and what those countries could be doing to reduce crime, and save money.

When the UK Justice Minister Ken Clarke announced last week that he was resuming the Coalition’s commitment to a rehabilitative approach for dealing with offenders, he paid heed to the fact that the current penal system is unsustainable. Many – almost 75%, in fact – of the August rioters had already been to prison at some point in their lives. Coupled with the doubling of the incarceration rate during the New Labour years, the UK has suddenly found itself with too many prisoners, not enough money, and a revolving door of reoffenders. ̽��ֱ��picture is altogether similar in too many countries throughout Europe.

Fortunately, breaking the cycle that results in career criminality and distended penal systems is not as difficult as was once believed. But it takes investment in programmes that are often made to seem ‘soft on crime’ – the death knell for many a politician. Moving forward, countries throughout Europe are displaying an impressive commitment to rehabilitating offenders.

Clarke’s recent proposals are but one instance in a series of political manoeuvres across the continent that evince a desire to move away from the criminogenic strategy of incarcerating prisoners with the mis-placed hope of reducing crime. Smarter tactics are available, and path-breaking work is being conducted at the Institute of Criminology to recommend concrete steps governments across the continent can take to re-shape their criminal justice systems so that they are safer, more humane, cheaper, and ultimately result in much less crime.

Johann Koehler is a Research Assistant at the Institute of Criminology. He is currently working on a European Commission-funded project that seeks to develop and strengthen evidence-based practice in criminal justice systems throughout Europe.

With recent reports stating that almost three quarters of those charged with offences during the London riots had prior convictions, attention has turned to Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke’s description of Britain’s “broken penal system”. Johann Koehler, from the Institute of Criminology, discusses some of the latest projects to reduce reoffending, and how politicians may have to risk the ‘soft on crime’ label to move forward.

Sophisticated and responsive treatments, usually incorporating psychological techniques, work better than ‘one-size-fits-all’ measures like prison.

Johann Koehler

̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge

Johann Koehler

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Children’s evidence cross-examined

bjb42 — Wed, 16 Mar 2011 12:29:09 +0000

̽��ֱ��complex question of how children should give evidence to court – particularly when it could be critical to convicting someone of child abuse – will be the subject of a ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge conference next month.

̽��ֱ��one-day conference, hosted by the ̽��ֱ��'s Law Faculty, will bring together experts from various legal systems around the world, including some where mechanisms are already in place to prevent young children from having to go through the distressing experience of giving their evidence to full court during a trial.

At the moment, English law demands that even tiny children come to court for a live cross-examination if there is to be any chance of convicting a person who has abused them.

Perhaps the highest profile case in recent times was that of Stephen Barker - one of three individuals convicted of causing or allowing the death of a child in the case of Baby P. In 2009, Barker was jailed for life in a separate case, for raping a two-year-old girl. His conviction hinged, however, on the appearance of the child at the trial, aged just four, to describe how she had been abused. ̽��ֱ��girl in question became the youngest witness to give evidence in a criminal trial in this country.

Critics argue that demanding a child's evidence in this way has a number of disadvantages. ̽��ֱ��child is forced to relive a terrible, distressing incident in very stressful circumstances, and after lengthy delays that may have altered his or her memory. ̽��ֱ��defence may get little from the child and struggle to conduct a meaningful cross-examination. And, given the fact that the child may not remember what happened and struggle to communicate, even well-founded cases of this nature often have to be abandoned.

In 1989 an official committee - the Pigot Committee - proposed a mechanism designed to avoid these difficulties. Under its proposal, the whole of a young child's evidence, including the cross-examination, would take place out of court in advance. While this system, or something like it, has been implemented elsewhere, in England and Wales it was never accepted.

In fact, children's evidence being used in full court may soon become more, rather than less common. In March 2010, the Supreme Court ruled that an existing presumption that children should not be called to give evidence in family proceedings was no longer appropriate, because it could not be reconciled with the rights of everyone concerned according to articles in the European Convention on Human Rights.

̽��ֱ��Cambridge conference will bring together speakers from various parts of the world where the Pigot recommendation, or similar, is in operation. It will include experts on the legal systems of New Zealand, Western Australia, Austria and Norway, as well as that of England and Wales.

̽��ֱ��aim is to establish exactly how far a measure such as that recommended by the Committee 12 years ago really would resolve the problem of cross-examining young children, were it to be introduced in England and Wales.

̽��ֱ��conference has been organised by J R Spencer, a Professor in the Cambridge Law Faculty who has written extensively on the subject of children's evidence, and by Professor Michael Lamb from the ̽��ֱ��'s Department of Social and Developmental Psychology, who has worked extensively on issues related to the questioning of children in legal contexts.

It will be held from 10am to 5pm on 14 April in the Law Faculty, 10, West Road, Cambridge. ̽��ֱ��event is open by registration only, and requests for registration should be sent to Ms felicity Eves, School of Law, ̽��ֱ�� of Cambridge, Cambridge CB3 9DZ, or by Emailing: fre20@cam.ac.uk

Should young children be exposed to the traumatic experience of giving evidence in open court, or does the justice system need to change its approach?

At the moment, English law demands that even tiny children come to court for a live cross-examination if there is to be any chance of convicting a person who has abused them.

Dan4th from Flickr

Justice sends mixed messages

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