Challenging Anti-carceral Feminism with Clare McGlynn

This is the fourth seminar in our SCCJR Justice Futures Series.  

Challenging anti-carceral feminism: justice perspectives of survivors of tech-facilitated violence against women and girls.

Clare McGlynn, University of Durham.

While anti-carceral feminism – which challenges the use of the criminal law and criminal justice system to tackle violence against women – is increasingly dominant, this presentation builds on an emerging body of work contesting its central premises. I suggest that some anti-carceral feminism risks reifying existing criminal law categories and reproducing sexual violence myths and stereotypes. I particularly discuss the experiences and perspectives of survivors of digital and online sexual violence.

The aim is to encourage a nuanced, complex approach to the criminal law and criminalisation which recognises both a role for criminal justice and alternatives; which listens to the voices of all survivors, including those whose understanding of justice includes criminal justice; and which is fully alive to the risks and challenges that all justice approaches entail whether state or community based.

The SCCJR Justice Futures Seminar is brand new series for 2026.

This monthly series will engage with a range of concerns and questions relating to new and evolving social harms, how social systems and institutions can contribute to, or alleviate, harms and injustices and how justice futures might be re-enacted or reimagined.