Counting the Cost of Exclusion: Linking criminal law, political exclusion and socio-economic inequality

Around the world, States routinely deploy law enforcement, courts, and prisons against marginalized communities for reasons that have little to do with safety, but rather to protect the boundaries of wealth and privilege. The arbitrary enforcement of punitive criminal laws, many with roots in the age of empire, is compounded by multiple, intersectional forms of oppression (including combinations of gender, disability, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, and class). This results in fundamental rights violations, negatively inflecting justice outcomes for those on the margins.

Often missed in the growing discourse on the criminalization of poverty and status are the economic and political incentives that drive these discriminatory legal frameworks. Moreover, the profound socio-economic impact is seldom acknowledged, of laws that punish and disenfranchise people for who they are rather than for what they have done.

On 24 March 2022, the Campaign to Decriminalize Poverty and Status will host a virtual seminar: Counting the Cost of Exclusion: Linking criminal law, political exclusion and socio-economic inequality. During the event we will explore the complex interplay between social, economic and political exclusion, and criminalisation. We will bring together experts from intersecting fields of criminal, economic and spatial justice, and development, to explore opportunities for interdisciplinary collaboration on this important issue.

Simultaneous interpretation will be provided in Arabic, English, French and Portuguese

Register here