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Events

Registrations for our special event, '"SHUT THE **** UP ****". Reason and respect, and the culture of silencing' are coming in fast. To secure yourself a place, please ensure you register here asap.

The latest event to be announced as part of our 'Lunch with...' series is our January edition, with special guest Whitney Iles. Whitney is the CEO of Project 507 and is a regular co-contributor to our 'Critical Care' series. Book your tickets for 'Lunch with...Whitney Iles' on 18 January, 2022 now. 

You can register for our other events as part of 'Lunch with...' and 'Last month in criminal justice' here.

Short sentence reform highlights

We recently drew our project on short prison sentencing reform to a close. Interested in a snapshot of the project's highlights? Check out our infographic outlining what we did, how we did it and our achievements. You're welcome to download and share the infographic with colleagues and on social media.

News and commentary

Upcoming speakers at our events, Frances Crook, Professors Rosa Freedman and Jo Phoenix all featured in recent articles in Unherd and The Guardian. 

Frances, in The Guardian offered her thoughts on her 35-year career in prison reform which we hope to expand on in our first episode of 'Lunch with...'.

Meanwhile, in Unherd this week, Julie Bindel revealed that the University of Essex were planning to publish personal information about Jo Phoenix and Rosa, information previously redacted from the official report into their cancellation by the University. If you would like to know more about what happened to Rosa and Jo, the ongoing attempts to silence academics and institutional responses to activist backlash, why not attend our event with Rosa and Jo by registering your place.

An eye on criminal justice

It has been an interesting week for conversations on the decriminalisation of drugs. Former Conservative leader William Hague made the case in The Times for following Portugal's lead in reforming and re-framing drug consumption from a criminal justice to a public health issue. Responses have varied but it is noted that drugs, decriminalisation and public health responses have become a non-partisan issue. We have worked with Professor David Nutt a number of times over the years to highlight and promote his work, and the work of Drug Science, in grounding drugs policy in evidence and science. You can read our work on this here.

In the wake of the tenth anniversary of the 2011 riots, many prominent campaigners, politicians and journalists offered retrospectives and analysis on how far we have come since then, or not as the case may be. David Lammy MP looked back on the last ten years of growing unemployment, declining trust between communities and the police and continued societal division in The Guardian, concluding that the same problems leading to 2011's riots continue to exist today. For more context on what happened in 2011, we published a number of articles on the drivers of the riots, how the unrest was policed and government responses. 

Working for a better future

It is time for a serious conversation about the land our prisons occupy, and for action to put that land to better use.

Can you help us build this movement by making a donation?