Thursday morning kicked off with a plenary session. The two speakers were Maeve McMahon and Charis Papacharalambous. Maeve, a regular at European Group conferences, spoke passionately about the case of a colleague of hers from Carleton University Sociology Professor Hassan Diab who is facing extradition from Canada to France. The paper highlighted how few rights individuals have in resisting extradition and the Kaftaesque qualities of the legal process. Maeve called for both solidarity with Hassan and for critical criminologists to focus more on the complex processes of extradition.
Charis's paper provoked more discussion. He argued that violence against women needs to have any vestige of legitimacy or tolerance stripped from it. In particular he argued that the required responses that were required were essential punitive ones. 'In their most heinous forms' he argued violence against women needs to be 'systematically crushed through legal- politically resolute punitive mechanisms. In particular he rejected the appropriateness of restorative responses to violence against women. A number of delegates challenged the position and the ensuing discussion focused on both the narrowness of the feminist theory in which the paper was grounded and on the value of restorative justice. Firm chairing by Dave Whyte effectively stoped me from throwing in my two pence worth but the observation I would have made was that all the evidence suggests that punitive approaches are the most vulnerable to distortion of power. As such punitive responses to any crime of power is likely to be ineffective.
No comments:
Post a Comment