Prison Voices

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Grant details

  • BA funding: £9,250 for the ‘Prison Voices’ conference, to be held on the 5th November 2024 at Sheffield.
  • TUoS KE funding: £2000 so far for a Research Assistant for the project, with a further bid for HEIF funding to support this role.

Project start and end dates

The Prison Voices conference will be held at the University of Sheffield on the 5th November 2024.

Research team members

Jim Chamberlain 

Background and aims of the project

The day-long 'Prison Voices' conference will be the culmination of a major research project, also called ‘Prison Voices’, which is embedded in the educational work of the charity Philosophy in Prison. It explores how the criminal justice system may silence the voices of those engaged in it, how and why this constitutes an injustice, and how this is a particular concern within the prison system. We consider how this kind of injustice affects its victims and its perpetrators, and ways in which, by education or management or training or by other means, it may be alleviated. The conference will be multi-disciplinary and open to a range of voices, including those of ex-prisoners, as well as philosophers, criminologists, legal and criminal justice professionals. We will produce an edited collection explaining and illustrating the problem of prison voices, to be published by the BA, and a public-facing report on how the prison system might adapt to meet the challenge of this longstanding injustice.