Conference Annouced: ‘Crime’, Justice, and Control: The challenge of recession.

CONFERENCE ANNOUNCEMENT
37th Annual Conference of the European Group for the Study of Deviance and Social Control
Wednesday 26th Saturday 29th August 2009
University of Central Lancashire, Preston, United Kingdom

‘Crime’, Justice, and Control: The challenge of recession

Times of recession tend to be periods of exclusion and repression which have profound implications for the lived realities of the powerless. Alongside other social divisions, such age, ‘race’, disability and gender, times of increased economic hardship are likely to have significant repercussions for the governance of the poor, the unwanted and people with vulnerabilities. The aim of this conference is to place the latest capitalist economic recession into context, and specifically to consider its impact upon our understandings of ‘crime’, justice and control across Europe. It has been widely documented in the past that economic downturns have had a major influence upon societal meanings and government responses to varying social problems. Government controls of migrant workers and asylum seekers have hardened, social divisions have become more entrenched and polarised, and penal polices have moved from rehabilitation towards incapacitation in periods of high unemployment. As we face the current economic meltdown, what will be the impact of recession on gendered relations and gendered violence? Will legal strategies tackling violence against women continue to remain high on government agendas? How might recession impact upon the marginalization and criminalisation of children and young people? What are the consequences for state, institutional and interpersonal racism? How might the global recession impact upon transitional societies and the treatment of already marginalised groups, such as the Roma? Will we witness new forms of state intervention in the economy displacing the centrality of ‘crime’, or will there emerge an even greater intensity in the criminalisation of poverty? Should economic and social harms be defined as ‘crimes’ and how should state responses to such harms be shaped?

We would welcome papers on a range of issues connected to the theme of ‘Crime’, Justice and Control: The Challenge of Recession, grouped under the following six streams, broadly defined:

• Recession, punishment and the control society
• Crime, harm and political economy
• Justice in transition and alternative justice paradigms
• Global freedom, local repression and diversity
• Social divisions and the application of the criminal law
• Marginalisation, exclusion and social control

We would, of course, also welcome papers outside this theme, to reflect the wider interests of the European Group for the Study of Deviancy and Social Control.

For further details please contact Barbara Hudson, Rachel McErlain, Martin O’Brien or David Scott at the Centre for Criminology and Criminal Justice. Details of the conference venue and related information can be viewed at www.uclan.ac.uk/egsdsc
Email: centreccj@uclan.ac.uk