Violence prevention roundtable held today
The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies hosted a roundtable event today to consider the existing knowledge about interventions and policies that prevent violence against women and girls. Held as part of our Justice Matters for Women initiative, the purpose of the roundtable was to inform our work going forward and identify opportunities for collaborations and partnerships.
The meeting opened with an introduction from the Centre's Senior Policy Associate, Rebecca Roberts, where she outlined the need for practices and policies to reduce levels of gendered violence and supporting women whilst simulataneously making the need for criminal justice interventions unnecessary and irrelevant.
This was followed by a presentation from Dr Maddy Coy of the Child and Women Abuse Studies Unit at London Metropolitan University and Annie Ruddlesden of End Violence Against Women (EVAW) on 'Starting points on prevention'. Dr Sarah Lamble of Birkbeck University then followed with an outline of her research on transformative justice and community anti-violence programmes. Sarah's slides are below.
Participants were invited to consider the following questions:
- What does the evidence tell us about primary prevention policies?
- What are the challenges and opportunities for policies that go beyond criminal justice and legal interventions?
- How do we challenge structural inequality and eradicate punishment and control in women's lives?
One of our participants couldn't hide her disappointment over the shape of the table.
The sense of crushing disappointment when you're asked to attend a 'round-table' meeting and the table isn't round. :-( Oh life.
— Karen Ingala Smith (@K_IngalaSmith) November 19, 2014
You can read an abridged version of Rebecca Roberts' introduction here.
Useful resources highlighted by Annie Ruddlesden of EVAW include the 2011 reports, A Different World is Possible: A call for long term and targeted action ending Violence Against Women and Promising practices to prevent violence against women and girls.