NEWS: Activists from across the world gather in London to plan for a world without prisons and police
This weekend (15-18th June 2018), London will host Abolitionist Futures: Building Social Justice Not Criminal Justice, an international gathering of activists and community organisers to coordinate and plan for a future where prisons and police are no longer used.
With more than 100 workshops with contributions from 18 countries, participants will explore practical solutions and strategies to replace detention, policing and punishment through better systems of accountability and transformative justice. Read more….
Click here for registration
Help sponsor an activist!: Click here for our bursary fundraiser for activists to attend Abolitionist Futures
Conference schedule
View a summary of the Conference Schedule here.
Download the full Conference Information Pack here.
In summer 2018, London (UK) will host an international gathering of those working for social justice in place of criminal justice.
Over four days there will be opportunities to organise and participate in activities and workshops that seek to build and strengthen local and international movements for social justice and penal abolition.
- Friday 15 June: Building The World We Want: Prison Abolition and Gender, Racial & Economic Justice. A conversation with Beth Richie, Ruth Wilson Gilmore & Deborah Coles. [Please note the Friday evening is a free public event and requires separate registration. Click here to book a free place for Friday ]Note: The Friday event is fully booked/overscribed with a wait list and overflow room. For those who are unable to get a ticket or want to tune in from around the world, the event will be live-streamed. Click here for Live-Stream on Friday 6pm (British Summer Time) to tune in!
- Saturday 16 & Sunday 17 June: Workshops, presentations, film screenings and other contributions.
- Monday 18 June: Symposium for academic papers focused on ‘what can academics do to support movement organising?’
Themes
The conference programme will focus on
- strategies and solutions for addressing the harms of policing, prisons, immigration detention and punishment
- addressing the broader systems of oppression that maintain the prison industrial complex
There will be four conference streams;
- QUESTIONING: This stream will provide introductory workshops for those who are new to abolitionist ideas.
- RESISTING: This stream will reflect on every day forms of individual and collective resistance to the prison industrial complex.
- DISMANTLING: This stream will discuss and debate concrete strategies and tactics for dismantling criminal justice and undoing social norms that feed systems of captivity and punishment.
- BUILDING: This stream will explore social justice alternatives to prisons, police, detention and criminal justice institutions.
We encourage sessions that make links between penal abolition and wider struggles for housing, health, education, and environment; and for economic, racial, gender, sexual and disability justice.
Venue
Central London: Birkbeck University of London, WC1E 7HX, London (UK).
Register
Registration is now open! Please click here to register your place.
If you have any questions, then email us at icopalondon@gmail.com
Fees
The conference will be low cost and a limited number of bursaries will be available. Please see the Registration and Financial Aid pages for more details.
Language / translation
Click here for Welsh, Spanish, Catalan, Basque, Czech, and Russian.
