The Abolitionist No. 19 (1985)

Introduction / Commentary by John Moore

This edition’s editorial focused on a Sexual Offences Bill, then before parliament that concluded ‘the Bill is a blatant example of the co-option of the legitimate demands of women for more effective protection, in support of a ‘law and order’ approach that has no intention of tackling the patriarchal attitudes and practices of the police and the judiciary.’  This is followed by a long interview with Ruth Hall, author a survey on rape and sexual assault, Ask Any Woman carried out by Women Against Rape. It is clear that issues of sexual and gendered violence were causing serious theoretical differences among feminist and abolitionists.  As mention in the short introductions to earlier editions, there is a potentially productive study (dissertation) of RAP and sexual/gendered violence - anyone interested please let us know - we will gladly support. The next article also focuses on the Sexual Offences Bill and its (successful) proposal to criminalise keep-crawling. ‘A Return to Victorian Values’ by the Campaign Against Kerb Crawling Legislation critiques how the law was being used against sex workers whilst claiming to protect women.

Other articles in this edition include Stephen Shaw on the Home Office’s misrepresentation of statistics; Mike Nellis on the uncertain future of ‘Intermediate Treatment’; an Obituary of RAP sponsor, Douglas Kepper; and an article Douglas wrote just prior to his death reporting on a visit to a friend incarcerated in Broadmoor hospital. Two letters are published from Mick McCallum, a prisoner in Barlinnie who had been on hunger strike for 40 days to publicise the brutal conditions inside Scotland’s jails; an article from Stephanie d’Orey on immigration detention; and an article by Tony Harris on Irish Prisoners of War.

Our copy does not have a prison briefing (there may not have been one or it may have been removed) but does have a Women in Prison (WIP) section and an Inquest Bulletin. WIP reported on the deaths of Sarah Hewer and Christina Hagland including a report on the inquest into Sarah’s death by Judy Wilson. There is an article on life in prison for epileptics, reports from Holloway, Durham, Styal and Drake Hall prisons; an article comparing the visiting regimes at a women’s open and a men’s high security prison; an account, by Maria Fragiacomo, of Athen’s Koridallos prison; and a letter from Lynn Reed on parole.

The Inquest Bulletin reports on recent sieges which ended with the person either being shot by police or shooting themselves. There are sections on both police and prison deaths as well as articles on the inquest into the death of Helen Smith and her two children, caused by the failure of Southwark Council to service her boiler; an article by Tony Ward, drawing on three nineteenth-century articles of Charles Dickens, on the history of coroners; and a shocking account of the death of Arthur Swain whose inquest had exposed that Arthur neighbours, the police and council officers had subjected Arthur and his wife to ‘harassment, indifference, neglect, false accusations and racialist abuse of his visitors’. 

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Recording & Transcript: Against Border Carcerality & Towards Abolition

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Resisting the carceral temptations of devolution