8 October 2008
Academics from Monash University will launch two books this week that examine violence in Australian prisons and counter-terrorism policing post 9/11.
Violence in Incarceration, co-authored by Associate Professor in Criminology, Jude McCulloch, was conceived in the immediate aftermath of the humiliation and killing of prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq, the suicides and hunger strikes at Guantanamo Bay and the disappearances of detainees.
Associate Professor McCulloch, who has published extensively on deaths in custody, police violence, police shootings and paramilitary policing, said the book was the first to make the link between domestic imprisonment policies in countries including Australia and the treatment of US detainees in the war on terror.
"Solitary confinement, sensory depravation, shackles and sexual humiliation are not aberrations of the war on terror but regularly endured by prisoners in Australia," Associate Professor McCulloch said.
"A defence lawyer at a recent trial of 12 men charged over terrorism-related offences claimed that they had been held in Guantanamo like conditions in a Victorian prison.
"The book confronts this reality arguing that the scandalised responses to revelations of abuse at Abu Grahib and Guantanamo Bay are hypocritical and misinformed."
The second book to be launched, Counter-Terrorism Policing, discusses the changing role of police in the formation and implementation of government counter-terrorism strategies since 9/11 and the attacks on London and Madrid.
The books authors include Associate Professor Jude McCulloch, Associate Professor David Wright-Neville and Associate Professor Sharon Pickering.
Both books will be launched at a function this Thursday.
Who: Authors Associate Professor Jude McCulloch, Associate Professor David Wright-Neville, Associate Professor Sharon Pickering, Dr Bree Carlton; visiting professor, Ken Polk; and Head of Criminology Dr Dean Wilson.
What:
Launch of Violence in Incarceration and Counter-Terrorism Policing.
Where: Mama Duke Cafe, Basement Building H, Caulfield campus, Monash University
When: Thursday 9 October, 2008, 5 pm - 6 pm
For more information contact Shaunnagh O'Loughlin, Media Communications on + 61 3 9903 4843 or 0448 574 148.
| 
