There are many strands linking homelessness and the criminal justice system. Ex-offenders leaving prison struggle to access accommodation on release. They often lose their homes while in custody.
We are working with partners on the theme: Is it a crime to be poor?
Tara Casey wrote recently, ‘Poverty is not a crime and should never be treated as one’. Likewise, seeking asylum is not a crime, but is too often treated as one.
The American academic Professor Juliet Stumpf described the convergence of criminal and immigration law as ‘crimmigration’. Two recent cases illustrate how harshly asylum seekers may be treated under crimmigration law.
When adults in the workplace experience trauma or anxiety, we expect our employer to be supportive. Our children, on the other hand, are expected to carry on regardless.
As the country prepares to enter into a new legal and political era, marked by novel and complex constitutional challenges, some of the most vulnerable members of society, and particularly women, are facing legal battles which would not be out of place in Victorian times.
We are working with partners to plan an event next year on the theme: Is it a crime to be poor?
The aim would be to share knowledge and research, and to discuss how we, as academics, practitioners and penal reformers can act to end this endemic abuse of the criminal justice system.
There are many examples of ways in which the criminal justice system criminalises poverty.These...
