EFRJ Newsflash
March 2018 (II)
Special edition Conference Tirana #EFRJ2018

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EFRJ Conference Tirana 2018 
This year we want to meet you all in Tirana! The EFRJ team will welcome members to the Annual General Meeting on 13 June and all of you to the 10th international conference of the EFRJ on 14-16 June!

This is the deadline also for all workshop presenters to register and keep their seat in the programme!

   
And now… Get to know some of OUR PLENARY SPEAKERS!
Vincenzo Ruggiero
Vincenzo is Professor of Sociology at the School of Law at the Middlesex University, London. An acclaimed critical criminologists and prolific writer, he is world known especially for his research on crimes of the powerful and political violence. In his plenary speech, Vincenzo will present his current research and reflections on typologies of political violence, such as systemic violence, institutional violence, group violence, armed struggle, terrorism, and war. He will additionally elaborate on the principles of restorative justice that can be applied to these typologies and suggest a strategy for the reduction of the different forms of violence. This contribution will offer an original and systematic reflection on political violence and the potential of restorative justice to contribute to its reduction, and therefore serve as an important connection to some of the restorative work that has been done by the EFRJ members in Northern Ireland, Italy, Basque Country, but also elsewhere, in relation to terrorism and political violence. For his sustained and original contribution to critical criminology Vincenzo was given in 2016 the Lifetime Achievement Award by the American Society of Criminology.  

Tali Gal
Tali is Professor in the School of Criminology in the University of Haifa and a leading voice on restorative justice and children worldwide. In her plenary Tali will take us through her 20-year long engagement with children and youth in the criminal justice system, as a children’s rights advocate, founder and first manager of the Israeli Child Victim Assistance Project, as a researcher and activist exploring the rights of victimized children under national and international laws, the ability of restorative justice to meet the needs and rights of victimized children, and the status of children and youth in and out of the formal criminal justice system. In her plenary she will present the Needs-Rights Model on child victims and restorative justice, arguing that the model can be adapted to map the interests of children and youth who are victimizers as well. Convinced that the needs-based rights of young victims and offenders are not very different, Tali will compare the models illustrating with practical examples, and discussing possible heuristics for working with victimized children and with youth offenders.  

Jonathan Doak & David O’Mahony
Jonathan is Professor of Criminal Justice in Nottingham Law School, and David is Professor of Law at Essex Law School and Human Rights Centre. Together they have developed a distinctive critical theory of restorative justice and its application in criminal justice systems which they will present in their plenary. They start their presentation on the assumption that given that restorative-based interventions have increasingly been viewed as a legitimate, and even superior means of delivering criminal justice, there is a clear need to re-evaluate the utility of some of the prevailing benchmark theories surrounding restorative justice and to reimagine the shape and role of theory in guiding restorative justice provision within criminal justice. Drawing on empowerment theory, they contend that the joint concepts ‘agency’ and ‘accountability’ provide a lens for reimagining how restorative works and the normative goals it ought to encompass. David and Jonathan propose that programmes which aspire to be regarded as ‘fully restorative’ should be designed, implemented and evaluated in such ways that the concepts of agency and accountability are maximised.  

 

Moment of inspiration 
Still to be connected with our upcoming conference, get inspired by Brunilda Pali, the Board member responsible for the organisation of this event. In this TEDx talk, produced last November (#RJWeek) she presents on images of RJ because ‘only if it can be imagined, it can be done!‘.