#icopa

[trishatorrey]

ICOPA 2019 Proved, Once Again, That....

ICOPA 2019 Proved, Once Again, That….

… there is nothing like a shared experience to improve our worlds: personal and professional.

Just WOW!

(more…)

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[trishatorrey]

Simon and Garfunkel - an Anthem to Advocacy

Simon and Garfunkel – an Anthem to Advocacy

OK, yes, I’m dating myself…  One of my favorite Simon and Garfunkel songs is Bridge Over Troubled Water. I’ve been humming it repeatedly over the last few weeks, and last week, we let the advocacy world know why.

When you’re down and out When you’re on the street When evening falls so hard I will comfort you (ooo) I’ll take your part, oh, when darkness comes And pain is all around Like a bridge over…

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[alexiswoes]

This season of OITNB makes me so emotional. I can't wait to intern with The International Conference of Penal Abolition and really start getting into pen abolition hands on.

[icopa14tt-blog]

Welcome!

Welcome to this blog!

The 14th International Conference on Penal Abolition (ICOPA) comes to Trinidad & Tobago 12th- 15th June and you are invited!

ICOPA is an international gathering which takes place every two years in different countries around the world. This is the first time ICOPA comes to the Caribbean and so we are particularly excited!

This is not your usual academic conference. Yes, ICOPA attracts leading scholars but it also attracts local activists, students, journalists, prisoners and ex-prisoners, community groups, lawyers, social justice advocates, policy makers and many more besides. The result is a marvellous medley of lively exchange and stimulating discussion, which may well get heated at times.

ICOPA is committed to abolishing all forms of incarceration as well as the dismantling of all the various systems and processes that have grown up around the concept of imprisonment.

What?! Abolishing prisons? Surely not! These people must be crazy!

Please don’t give up on this blog! Keep reading. We believe that we all want to live in safer, more just societies. How do we achieve this? An instinctive answer might be ‘more arrests, bigger prisons and tougher punishment’. Indeed, the underlying cultural assumption is that punishment is good… it works… it keeps us safe… surely?

As abolitionists we question this thinking. We are serious about creating safer societies and we are committed to moving towards a justice system which is not underpinned by concepts punishment.

This ICOPA conference coincides with Trinidad & Tobago’s 50th anniversary of independence. This is a great time to rethink its society and institutions; an ideal opportunity to review the entire criminal justice system.

So, on this milestone of independence, can you imagine a world without prisons?

We hope this blog will be a useful source of information and material in the run up to the conference.

- Liz