Tackling Hatred Head On: Working with Hate Crime Offenders and Extremism
Speaker Information
Keynotes
Tore Bjørgo is Professor of Police Science at the Norwegian Police University College and Senior Research Fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI). His main fields of research have been political extremism and terrorism; racist and right-wing violence; youth gangs; disengagement from violent groups; crime prevention; and policing. He has (co)authored or (co)edited eleven books, including Racist and Right-Wing Violence in Scandinavia (1997) and Leaving Terrorism Behind: Individual and Collective Disengagement (2009). He was the initiator of the first “Exit” project to promote disengagement from racist groups in Norway, a project that was later adopted in Sweden, Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands.
Dr Basia Spalek is Reader in Communities & Justice within the Institute of Applied Social Studies at the University of Birmingham. Basia’s research interests lie in community based approaches to counter-terrorism, criminal and social justice in relation to minorities, and faith/ethnicity and diversity in relation to victimisation. She has led two high-profile AHRC/ESRC funded projects under the Religion and Society research programme focussing upon exploring partnership approaches to challenging religiously-endorsed violence involving Muslim groups and police, with Dr Salwa El-Awa, Dr. Laura McDonald and Dr. Robert Lambert. Basia recently edited (2010) Counter-terrorism: community-based approaches to preventing terror crime (Palgrave) and is currently writing Governing Terror: trust, community and counter-terrorism (Bloomsbury Academic Press).
Dr Paul Iganski, is Senior Lecturer in Social Justice at Lancaster University. He specialises in research, writing and teaching on ‘hate crime’. His books include Hate Crime and the City (2008), Hate Crimes Against London’s Jews (2005) (with Vicky Kielinger and Susan Paterson), and the edited volumes Hate Crime: The Consequences of Hate Crime (2009) and The Hate Debate (2002). He has recently served as principal investigator (with colleague David Smith) for the Equality and Human Rights Commission’s project on the Rehabilitation of Hate Crime Offenders, and as the project coordinator of the European Network Against Racism’s 2010 Comparative Study on Racist Violence.
Discussant
Professor Shadd Maruna joined Queen’s University, Belfast's Law School in 2005 as a Reader in Criminology. Previously, he had been a lecturer for four years at the University of Cambridge 's Institute of Criminology, and before that was an assistant professor for three years in the School of Criminal Justice at the University at Albany, State University of New York. He holds a Ph.D. in Human Development and Social Policy from Northwestern University (Chicago, USA) and his publications largely reflect this cross-disciplinary training. In particular, his primary interests involve theories of desistance from crime, public opinion regarding law breakers, and the implications of both on ex-offender reintegration. His first book, Making Good: How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives (American Psychological Association Books) was named the Outstanding Contribution to Criminology by the American Society of Criminology (ASC) in 2001. He is the co-editor of two books with Willan Publishing on the subject of ex-prisoner coping and reintegration (After Crime and Punishment, 2004; The Effects of Imprisonment, 2005), and recently co-authored the book Rehabilitation (Routledge, 2007) with Tony Ward. He has been a Fulbright Scholar and an H.F. Guggenheim Fellow. His Ph.D. study on the social psychology of ex-prisoner reintegration based in Liverpool (UK) was awarded the Phi Delta Kappa Outstanding Ph.D. Thesis Award for Northwestern in 1998. In 2004, he was named the Distinguished New Scholar by the ASC's Division of Corrections and Sentencing.
Workshop Presenters
Hate Crimes Focus
Dr. Theo Gavrielides is the Founder and Director of the youth-led social policy think-tank, Independent Academic Research Studies. He is also a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at Open University, a Visiting Scholar at Mount Royal University (Canada) and a Trustee of the Anne Frank Trust. He is also a legal counsel specialising in criminal law, human rights and EU law. He taught criminal law and common law reasoning and institutions at the University of London, and has acted as a human rights and criminal justice advisor for various Chambers and policy bodies such as the Community Involvement Panel of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the Independent Advisory Group of the London Criminal Justice Partnership. Dr. Gavrielides has published extensively in academic journals while his book “Restorative Justice theory and practice” has been published by the European Institute for Crime Prevention and Control affiliated with the United Nations (HEUNI) and Criminal Justice Press (ISBN 978-952-5333-32-9). Currently, Dr. Gavrielides is working on a new book titled "Rights and Restoration within Youth Justice". The book is due to be published in 2012 by de Sitter Publications.
Elena Noel has been a Mediator for more than 15 years, experienced in Community Mediation, Family Mediation, Hate Crimes and Workplace disputes, tackling situations of conflict across London. Elena is the Manager of the award-winning Hate Crimes Project at Southwark Mediation Centre. She is an experienced trainer and consultant in mediating conflict resolution and conflict management, race, ethnicity and identity issues, and hate crime and has been a consultant to those involved in research, and those interested in the wider applicability of mediation, Restorative Justice, community cohesion and hate crime. Elena’s work has shaped policy locally and nationally and has enabled others interested in Hate Crime to establish projects in the UK using the Hate Crimes Project as its template. Elena has led and taken part in a number of crime reduction and community cohesion initiatives by Southwark Council and Safer Southwark Partnership. She has advised crime reduction agencies dealing with hate crime and Post Doctoral research graduates from the UK and the international communities. To date, Elena has worked with over 500 cases of hate crime. She often encounters protracted, multi-party disputes and very volatile, potentially violent situations. She is an expert Advisor in Conflict Resolution and Community Engagement for the Home Office, and has been a Neighbourhood Renewal Advisor for the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister.
Dev Barrah has worked with broad range of organizations and is an accomplished facilitator. He has worked nationally and internationally as an advocate fighting for equality, supporting victims and developing organisational responses to hate crime. His experience provides unique insights into the effects of hate abuse on individuals and communities. He currently works with Racist Attacks Monitoring Unit (RAMU). This involves working with hate crime victims, liaison with police agencies and providing multi–agency resolutions. He set up, Greenwich Action Committee Against Racist Attacks (GACARA) in 1978, the first racial monitoring group in the UK. The group developed a range of support structures, and initiated a perpetrator programme for hate crime perpetrators. He chaired campaigns to support families of hate crime murders, Rolan Adams and Rohit Duggal. His evidence to the Stephen Lawrence Inquiry was incorporated in twenty two of the subsequent recommendations. Dev was born in Africa, but would identify African–Asian. His multi–cultural perspective provides a genuine insight into difference.
Dr. Harald Weilnböck has studied, taught and worked in New Haven, Los Angeles, Paris, Zurich and Berlin, covering the areas qualitative-empirical social research, psychotherapy studies, culture/ media studies, and team/case supervision. He is tenured at Leipzig University and presently conducts various EU projects. Harald has worked closely with London Probation Trust, in particular as part of its strategy ‘Towards Preventing Violent Radicalisation’ (EU-Directorate Justice), investigating ‘Violence Prevention Network’s’ method of working with groups of young hate crime offenders in German prisons.
Radicalisation Focus
Christopher Dean is a Principal Forensic Psychologist tasked with developing assessments & interventions to help prevent convicted offenders in custody and the community from committing extremist offences. Chris works with convicted extremist offenders in addition to advising NOMS staff delivering similar work. He has considerable experience of facilitating, supervising, managing and developing offending behaviour interventions at a local and national level.
Hanif Qadir is the Founder and currently the Projects & Programme Director of the Active Change Foundation. ACF is a registered charity set up to tackle a range of issues such as violent gang, gun, knife and street crime but more specifically, recruitment into violent extremism and terrorist networks. Hanif remains actively involved in advising & assisting senior policy makers in reforming key aspects of the Preventing Violent Extremism agenda, addressing and presenting to a wide range of institutions including: ACPO, OSCT, RICU, HMIC, UK Ports and most of the UK’s Police authoritie, with a view to apply a much more sensitive and sensible approach in counter terrorism strategies. As a direct result of his own recruitment into violent extremism and working very closely with a number of individuals previously involved in terrorist activities, Hanif has developed an unique understanding of the methods that are applied by violent extremist groups or individuals inspired by these group. Hanif remains at the cutting edge of preventing violent extremism, in his own words “my aims are to prevent young people from being recruited into terrorist networks, especially those who are experiencing similar strong feelings to mine, which confuse them into reacting negatively in the name of Islam.”
Gary Manders is PhD student within the Institute of Applied Social Studies, University of Birmingham. His PhD research is exploring the role of religious faith identities in shaping youth offending behaviours, looking at how young people make sense of their offending behaviour in light of their beliefs and values. Gary has over ten years experience working within the criminal justice system as a Probation Officer and Senior Practitioner in a Youth Offending Team, managing a team of six specialists, and supervising young people on statutory Court Orders. He is a qualified social worker with a counselling background and is a member of the management team of a local charity based in the West Midlands, Networkfour, that provides mentoring for disaffected young people and assists them to access education, training and employment.
Plenary Panel Members
Debbie Gupta joined the Home Office in October 2009, as Director of Prevent in the Office for Security and Counter Terrorism (OSCT). This role has oversight and responsibility for the Prevent strand of CONTEST which aims to stop people becoming terrorists or supporting violent extremism. She also has responsibility for OSCT's Research, Information and Communications Unit, which plays a key role in supporting Prevent’s objectives and communicating Government's counter terrorism strategy. Debbie previously worked at the Department for Work and Pensions, where she was Director for Benefit Performance, charged with improving benefit accuracy and delivery. Prior to this, she supported Ministers in steering the two Pension Reform Bills through Parliament. Debbie started her civil service career in 2003 at the Women and Equality Unit which was then located in the (former) Department for Trade and Industry. Prior to joining Government, Debbie worked for a think tank, a voluntary sector campaigning organisation, and as an academic - embarking on, but never completing, a PhD in social movements and public policy.
Pat Conway worked as a generic, child protection and community development social worker from 1980-1990 in the London Borough of Enfield and North and West Belfast Trust. In 1990 he set up the Base 2 Project located with the Northern Ireland Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders (NIACRO). Base 2 provides a crisis intervention service for individuals and families primarily under threat from paramilitary organisations. In 1995 Pat became NIACRO's Employment Services Manager and since 2000, he has been Director of Adult Services. He is also responsible for research and communications. He has served on boards of a wide range of groups and organisations - many conflict related - and is currently chair of the Committee on the Administration of Justice (CAJ) a sister organisation of Liberty.
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