Tuesday 27 April 2010

The Many Lives of Secret Police Files

Wednesday 28 April, 5pm - 6.30pm
DR CHRIS KAPLONSKI (University of Cambridge)
CRASSH, 17 Mill Lane
"The Many Lives of Secret Police Files: Repression, Rehabilitation and the Hermeneutics of Documents in Mongolia"

Dr Kaplonski examines the implications of the legal rehabilitation of victims of political repression from the socialist 1930s in contemporary, post‐socialist Mongolia.

In a span of about 18 months, approximately 5% of the population were convicted as counter‐revolutionaries or spies and executed, roughly half of whom were Buddhist monks. Since the collapse of socialism twenty years ago, the Mongolian state has initiated a process of rehabilitation for those repressed during the socialist period (1921‐1990). This process is contingent upon the existence of records of the original act of repression, and it is the implications of this contingency that will be explored.

In particular, the paper focuses upon the way documents are used to judge the fitness of a particular person for rehabilitation while simultaneously constructing the past they seek to document. There is a curious triple process taking place whereby the documents used to originally convict a person, and the descendants of the documents, are used to reinvestigate, reconstruct and overwrite the documentable past..

Informal discussion over wine and refreshments.

Is Britain a more violent place than it was 10 years ago?

The Today programme on Radio 4 hosted an interesting conversation on responses to violent crime today. Rod Morgan, former Youth Justice Board Chair and Professor at the University of Bristol, and Chris Grayling, Shadow Home Secretary participated in the conversation. The Guardian has also done a series of articles investigating the extent to which we can understand the measure of crime, including this one by Alan Travis. As the election approaches, it is interesting to see the extent to which these numbers are understood and interpreted.

Call for Papers: Psychology of Violence

Call for Papers
Psychology of Violence
Special Issue: Theories of Violence

Psychology of Violence, a new journal published by the American Psychological Association, is planning a special issue on theories of violence for 2011.

Topics will include but are not limited to:
♦ New theoretical models
♦ Extensions of existing models either to violence for the first time or to new forms of violence
♦ Evaluations and critiques of existing theoretical models for a particular type of violence
♦ Papers that compare and contrast theoretical models for more than one form of violence
♦ Comparisons of theoretical models which examine how social and cultural factors affect the way violence develops and manifests under different conditions.

Manuscripts that explore theories related to both risk of perpetration and vulnerability to victimization are welcome.

Deadline: First drafts should be submitted by August 15, 2010. Manuscripts should be submitted through the online submission portal at APA: http://www.jbo.com/jbo3/submissions/dsp_jbo.cfm?journal_code=vio

Manuscripts for regular, full-length articles are also being accepted. Psychology of Violence publishes articles on all types of violence and victimization, including but not limited to: sexual violence, youth violence, child maltreatment, bullying, children’s exposure to violence, intimate partner violence, suicide, homicide, workplace violence, international violence and prevention efforts. Manuscripts addressing under-served or disenfranchised groups are particularly welcome.

Inquiries regarding topic or scope for the special issue or for other manuscripts can be sent to Sherry Hamby, editor, at sherry.hamby@sewanee.edu.

Sherry Hamby, Ph.D.
Incoming editor, Psychology of Violence
Submit at http://www.jbo.com/jbo3/submissions/dsp_jbo.cfm?journal_code=vio

Tuesday 20 April 2010

John Hegley poem

John Hegley was on Arthur Smith's Balham Bash the other night and read out a poem which I thought I would share. You can hear it here (it starts about 8 minutes in).
"This is a piece about when I was working in Reading jail and getting some of the prisoners to write some poems. We went on radio Berkshire and read out the poems but some of the listeners phoned in and they were angry that the prisoners were seeming to have too easy a time of it, so this is in response to that:

The Ending of the Offending

For prisoners playing the price,
Just a punishment may not suffice,
The best use of time,
May be learning to rhyme,
Making sure it's not too nice a process of course; you don't want people thinking that a life of crime leads to free poetry workshops."

Friday 16 April 2010

Student article published

One of the Institute's students, Léon Digard, has just published an article in the Probation Journal entitled '"When Legitimacy is Denied: Offender Perceptions of the Prison Recall System." The article is focuses on the perspectives of sex offenders about the legitimacy of authority in the probation context. Congratulations, Léon!!

Thursday 8 April 2010

PhD Criminology Conference: online abstract submission

It is now possible to submit abstracts for the PhD Criminology Conference using the online form at http://www.srcf.ucam.org/crimphds/PhD_Criminology_Conference/Abstract_Submission.html

For more information, see the website: www.srcf.ucam.org/crimphds