ICOPA
The International Conference on Penal Abolition (ICOPA) is a bi-annual gathering of activists, academics, journalists, practitioners, people currently or formerly imprisoned, survivors of state and personal harm, and others from across the world who are working towards the abolition of imprisonment, the penal system, carceral controls and the prison industrial complex.
Timeline
In 1976, Faye Honey Knopp published the Handbook "Insted of Prisons".
In 1981, the Canadian Quakers - the Quaker Committee on Jails and Justice (and its prominent member Ruth Morris) - spoke out against prisons:
- "The prison system is both a cause and a result of violence and social injustice. Throughout history, the majority of prisoners have been the powerless and the oppressed. We are increasingly clear that the imprisonment of human beings, like their enslavement, is inherently immoral, and is as destructive to the cagers as to the caged."
- ICOPA I in 1983: Ruth Morris et al., Toronto
- ICOPA II in 1985: Herman Bianchi, Amsterdam
- ICOPA III in 1987: Montreal, We moved from PRISON abolition to PENAL abolition. The seriousness and the correctness of this change has become increasingly clear. A court and policing system based on revenge would need something just like prisons or even worse, if we got rid of prisons. So it was logical to move to penal abolition: getting rid of revenge as the purpose of the whole system.
- ICOPA IV in 1989: Poland, Monika Platek
- ICOPA V in 1991: Indiana, Harold Pepinsky
- ICOPA VI in 1993: Costa Rica, Elias Carranza (Deputy Director of ILANUD, the UN research institute on crime in Latin America). At the memorable opening day Louk Hulsman, Monica Platek and Ruth Morris presented abolition and answered questions about it from these assembled participants, mostly of Latin America, all day.
- ICOPA VII in 1995: Barcelona, Maria Theresa Sanchez Concheira
- ICOPA VIII in 8-21 February 1997 - Auckland New Zealand - Aotearoa
- ICOPA IX - Toronto. Ninth International Conference on Penal Abolition May 10-13, 2000. Ryerson Polytechnic Uni and Metropolitan United Church
- RESOLUTIONS PASSED AT THE 10TH INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON PENAL ABOLITION (ICOPA X), LAGOS, NIGERIA,AUGUST 29, 2002.
- ICOPA XI in Tasmania, Australia from February 9 - 11,2006
- ICOPA XII in 2008: London
- ICOPA XIII Belfast 23-25 June 2010, Deaglan Coyle
- ICOPA XIV in June 2012, Trinidad & Tobago (The Institute of International Relations, University of the West Indies, St. Augustine)
- ICOPA XV in June, 2014: OTTAWA
- ICOPA XVI in 2016, New Zealand (Pat Magill)
Einschätzung von Angela Davis u.a.
Angela: The ICOPA conference in Toronto revealed some of the major strengths and weaknesses of the abolitionist movement. First of all, despite the rather homogenous character of their circle, they have managed to keep the notion of abolitionism alive precisely at a time when developing radical alternatives to the prison-industrial complex is becoming a necessity. That is to say, abolitionism should not now be considered an unrealizable utopian dream, but rather the only possible way to halt the further transnational development of prison industries. That ICOPA claims supporters in Europe and Latin America is an indication of what is possible. However, the racial homogeneity of ICOPA, and the related failure to incorporate an analysis of race into the theoretical framework of their version of abolitionism, is a major weakness. The conference demonstrated that while faith-based approaches to the abolition of penal systems can be quite powerful, organizing strategies must go much further. We need to develop and popularize the kinds of analyses that explain why people of color predominate in prison populations throughout the world and how this structural racism is linked to the globalization of capital.
Dylan: Yes, I found that the political vision of ICOPA was extraordinarily limited, especially considering its professed commitment to a more radical abolitionist analysis and program. This undoubtedly had a lot to do with the underlying racism of the organization itself, which was reflected in the language of some of the conference resolutions: "We support all transformative measures which enable us to live better in community with those we as a society find most difficult, and most consistently marginalize or exclude" (emphasis added)1. A major figure in ICOPA even accused a small group of people of color in attendance of being "racist" when they attempted to constructively criticize the overwhelming white homogeneity of the conference and the need for creative strategies to engage communities of color in such an important political discussion. Several black student-activists I met at ICOPA told me how alienated they felt at the conference, especially when they realized that the ICOPA organizers had never attempted to contact the Toronto-based organizations with which these student-activists were working: a major black anti-police-brutality coalition, a black prisoner support organization, etc. So I certainly share your frustrations with ICOPA. At the same time, I find myself wondering how a new political formation of prison abolitionism can form in such a reactionary national and global climate. You have been involved with a variety of prison movements for the last 30 years, so maybe you can help me out. How do you think about this new political challenge within a broader historical perspective?
(...)
Angela: Since the invention of the prison as punishment in Western society during the late 1700s, criminal justice systems have so thoroughly depended on imprisonment that we have lost the ability to imagine other ways to solve the problem of "crime." One of the interesting contributions of prison abolitionists has been to propose other paradigms of punishment or to suggest that we need to extricate ourselves from the assumption that punishment must be a necessary response to all violations of the law. Reconciliatory or restorative justice, for example, is presented by some abolitionists as an approach that has proved successful in non-Western societies -- Native American societies, for example -- and that can be tailored for use in urban contexts in cases that involve property and other offenses. The underlying idea is that in many cases, the reconciliation of offender and victim (including monetary compensation to the victim) is a much more progressive vision of justice than the social exile of the offender. This is only one example -- the point is that we will not be free to imagine other ways of addressing crime as long as we see the prison as a permanent fixture for dealing with all or most violations of the law.