provided by: UFFC
published: 28 June 2018
Call for Papers…
A conference to mark the 20th anniversary of the United Families & Friends Campaign will take place on 26 October 2018 in London. The conference aims to bring to focus research on the issue of deaths in custody in the UK.
The anniversary event will map trajectories of struggles for justice over two decades, highlighting new research and policy directions, as well as offering contextualised and historical understandings of state violence.
See a pictorial history of the UFFC rallies! Click here or the icon on the left. The United Families & Friends Campaign is a coalition of families and friends of those that have died in the custody of police and prison officers as well as those who are killed in secure psychiatric hospitals.
We invite proposals on practice and research that is historically grounded, and/or which offers new theoretical or practical insights on deaths in custody. We especially welcome work that dissects the reasons for the continued failure of the state to successfully prosecute its agents.
We encourage the submission of papers from various disciplines, including, media, communication, history, journalism, law, geography, political science, psychology, and sociology, as well as proposals from activists and professionals working in related areas in the community. Abstracts from academic, professional and activist bodies could address such themes as:
- Race, gender, class in deaths in custody and resistance
- Role of bereaved families
- Role of the Independent Office for Police Conduct
- Role of the Crown Prosecution Service
- Role of the media
- Role of grassroots organisations
- Role of publicly funded organisations
- Role of the medical profession
- Use of restraint techniques
- Militarisation of the police
- Prison system deaths
- Secure medical units deaths
- Concepts of justice in resistance
- Family campaigns and their impact
- Regional differences in patterns of deaths and community responses to deaths
- Comparative struggles for justice internationally
Keynote speakers at the conference will be:
Akala: BAFTA and MOBO Award Winning hip-hop artist, writer and social entrepreneur.
Janet Alder: Sister of Christopher Alder who died in Hull Police Station in 1998 and who has campaigned for justice since then.
Sherene Razack: Distinguished Professor and the Penney Kanner Endowed Chair in Women’s Studies.
uffcampaign.org 