A guest lecture on corruption by Baroness Vivien Stern CBE will mark the launch of a new interdisciplinary research group at Kent Law School – the Criminal Justice Group.
Barnoness Stern, who has policy interests in crime, civil law and justice, will deliver a talk entitled ‘Grand Corruption and the Rule of Law: a Parliamentary Perspective’ on the Kent campus at 6:00pm on Thursday 11 February.
Criminal Justice Group convenor Professor Dermot Walsh said: ‘This event marks the emergence of a vibrant and productive research group at Kent Law School, composed of a large number of staff and PhD students working across an eclectic range of topics under the general rubric of criminal justice. What connects us all is a deep commitment to addressing fundamental issues of concern to the lives of individuals and communities in their local, national, EU and international environments.’
Informed by a vision of a fairer and more inclusive society, the group hopes to promote a discourse of ideas that lead to concrete proposals for reform in criminal justice policies and processes. It will also challenge current orthodoxies and official policies. Professor Walsh said: ‘We aim to expose the distorting influence of vested interests, highlight abusive discrimination and corruption, and identify and critique the ideologies that inform and drive current criminal justice policies and frameworks.’
Current research projects within the group cover:
- Police governance and accountability
- Criminal procedure and historic child sexual abuse cases
- EU, transnational and international criminal law and procedure
- The interface between criminal justice and other areas such as: human rights, medical law (abortion), environmental law, EU law, international law (litigation on nuclear disarmament), commercial law, regulation, legal history and more.
Professor Walsh said: ‘We also have a dynamic and expanding body of PhD students working in areas as diverse as: State surveillance, pre-trial detention in Kuwait, human trafficking in South-east Asia and domestic violence. Recent PhD completions include theses on cross-border police cooperation and the effects of legal aid cutbacks and procedural reforms on defendants in criminal cases in Magistrates Courts in East Kent.
‘Our research in criminal justice also feeds into and is greatly benefited by the excellent work being done by Kent Law Clinic in the areas of: police complaints, criminal defendants who have been refused legal aid, prisoners and inquests.’
Baroness Stern received an honorary doctorate from the University of Kent in July 2014. A former member of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights, she has written books on the subject of penal reform and criminal justice including Creating Criminals: prisons and people in a market society; Bricks of Shame: Britain’s prisons; Failures in Penal Policy; Imprisoned by Our Prisons: a programme for reform (Fabian Series); The Prisons We Deserve and A Sin Against the Future: imprisonment in the world. Her independent review (The Stern Review) into the way rape complaints are handled by public authorities in England and Wales was published in 2010.
The lecture on 11 February is open to all and will begin with welcome drinks at 6pm in Grimond Lecture Theatre 1. The event is free but attendees are asked to register online to reserve a place.