Category: lecture

The role of probation services

Lisa Anderson talks about the probation service and its role in integrating prisoners back into society. Lisa uses two case studies to discuss the work of the probation service and the impact of investment/work with prisoners. Lisa is a Senior Probation Officer with the Probation Service. She has over 20 years’ experience in the field of social work and criminal justice, and holds an MSc in Social Work from UCD and an MSc in Criminology from the University of Wales. Prior to her work as a Probation Officer, Lisa worked in residential care with children and teenagers, as well as in projects targeting young, drug-using homeless people. As a Probation Officer, Lisa has worked with people both within a prison setting and on probation supervision in the community. She places empowerment and the building of meaningful and respectful relationships with clients at the core of her practice. She strives to help people build motivation to make positive changes to their lives and to develop ways of sustaining these changes.

‘Help Me Please’: Terror, Trauma and Self-Inflicted Deaths in Prison

The Criminal and Social Justice Research Cluster, School of Social Work and Social Policy, University of Strathclyde, in association with SCCJR, are hosting a public lecture delivered by Professor Joe Sim, of Liverpool John Moores University. Doors open at 4:30pm and a light buffet is provided. The lecture will commence at 5.30pm and will be followed by a Question and Answer session, and a wine reception.

Title: ‘Help Me Please’: Terror, Trauma and Self-Inflicted Deaths in Prison

Abstract: Tony Paine wrote the words ‘Help Me Please’ in a letter to his mother before he killed himself in Liverpool prison in February 2018. Figures compiled by the charity INQUEST indicate that Tony’s death was one of 245 prison deaths that occurred in England and Wales between January and October 2018, 65 of which were self-inflicted Altogether, between 1990 and September 2019, nearly 5000 prisoners died in prisons in England and Wales. Over 2100 of these deaths were self-inflicted.

This lecture critically examines this issue from an abolitionist theoretical and political perspective. In doing so, it raises a number of critical questions concerning the nature of life, death and state violence. First, it focuses on the dehumanizing nature of the prison environment, and the brutal exercise of penal power, which provide the psychologically corrosive context in which individuals choose to kill themselves. Second, it challenges the state’s definition of reality with its emphasis on the pathological nature of the individuals who kill themselves. Third, it argues that it is not only the physical violence of the state that kills but also the systemic indifference by state servants can also induce deaths in prison. Fourth, it critiques the state’s definition of dangerousness by asking for whom is the prison dangerous? Finally, it concludes by focusing on the lack of democratic accountability and the culture of state immunity and impunity that underpins these deaths and asks what should be done to hold to account those responsible for them?

Biography: Joe Sim is Professor of Criminology, Liverpool John Moores University. He was a member of the Scottish Council for Civil Liberties and is currently a Trustee of the charity INQUEST which campaigns around the slogan ‘truth, justice and accountability’ in relation to state-related deaths or where wider issues of state and corporate accountability are in question, including Hillsborough and Grenfell. He is the author of Punishment and Prisons, Medical Power in Prisons, Prisons Under Protest (with Phil Scraton and Paula Skidmore) and British Prisons (with Mike Fitzgerald).

I’m looking forward to this lecture.

Sociological Imagination

Sociologists use different methods, theories and approaches to research and understand the social world. Functionalists and Marxist study how society influences the human behaviour. (Haralambos and Holborn, 2000, p. 9-13) In contrast, Social Interactionists interested in how individuals can shape society. (Haralambos and Holborn, 2000, p. 1056-1060) In his work C. Wright Mills (2000) argued that, there is an inter-relationship between ‘the history of society’ and the ‘life of an individual’. He made a connection between personal aspects and social, historical conditions. (Mills, 1959:3) Therefore, sociologist should study history, individuals and society structures at the same time, through the glasses of Sociological Imagination.

In his notion Mills (2000) describes social reality as a three dimensional entity. It is based on the biography of individuals, their personal, unique and private desires/troubles. It is influenced by the social structures, institutions and vice versa. From a historical aspect, events, processes and issues may influence the future of the individual and/ or the social structures. It is also heavily impacted by social and political power. (John D Brewer, 2004, p. 7) In reality for example, unemployment is a personal trouble, affecting one’s personal milieu, such as financially, psychologically, socially. This private problem could turn into a wilder social issue, if unemployment reach a larger scale, such as hundreds of people losing their job, because for example a factory shuts down. This could lead deindustrialisation in the area, recession and migration of the workers. Further, it links the country’s economy decline, affecting the industry (prices) and impacts the political landscape as well. (Buchan, 2018) With the Social Imagination sociologist can examine every aspect (individual, history and social-political structure) in context to each other to explain a public issue or a personal problem. It gives them the ability to shift their perspective, see the bigger picture and predict a future outcome based on their observations. It also providing a viewpoint from the social problem, showing where the structure needs change or alteration, such as make housing more affordable or have more welfare programs.

The importance of the Social Imagination is not just that it gives an observed understanding of the world, but encourage sociologists to connect personal experiences to society in a context of history to explore public issues rigorously. (Gane and Back, 2012, p. 405) Also, Mills’ ideas are universal to everyone who wants to see the world in a different perspective and understand it better.