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ICOPA
- Index
- Intro & History
- IFPS
- ICOPA IX
- ICOPA X
- ICOPA Index
ICOPA VIII
- Index
- Speakers
- Workshop &
Schedule
- Resolutions
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18-21 February 1997 Auckland New Zealand / Aotearoa
The closing session of ICOPA VIII produced 18 resolutions.
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Insofar as all delegates advocate penal abolition, these declarations represent immediate steps towards that goal.
The resolutions illustrate the extent to which the elements of crisis in criminal justice and penal systems are experienced by countries from all over the world.
ICOPA participants encourage all who support meaningful alternatives to current penal systems based upon retributive justice to utilise and distribute these resolutions as widely as possible.*
The Resolutions:
Preamble
The delegates to the 8th International Conference on penal abolition, held in Auckland, Aotearoa/New Zealand in February 1997, come from 17 countries and four continents; we are justice officials, agency workers, lawyers, community workers, judges, and people who have lived in prison as well as been victims of crime.
Purpose:
For 16 years, ICOPA has stood firmly for the abolition of ALL prisons, recognising that prisons are an archaic and inhumane response to our social differences. Since 1987, ICOPA has advocated penal abolition, rejecting punitive and retributive systems for those which promote healing for victims, offenders, and communities.
While standing clearly for complete penal abolition, ICOPA supports these immediate steps as a means of achieving that goal:
1. ICOPA VIII urges the government of Aotearoa/New Zealand to encourage and support community-controlled community group conferences as an official response to adult crime. We urge that victims and offenders and officials who have experienced youth justice family group conferences be consulted as to methods of implementing such conferencing with a view to achieving restorative/transformative justice outcomes.
2. ICOPA VIII opposes all for-profit privatisation of incarceration and detention. In particular, ICOPA VIII opposes restrictions on access to information and research on such privatisation.
3. ICOPA VIII condemns the gross over-representation of indigenous and minority peoples in the penal systems of the world and supports the call of these peoples for self-determination.
4. ICOPA VIII calls on the United Nations to put restorative/transformative justice on the main agenda of the next Congress on Crime in the year 2000.
5. ICOPA VIII supports the protection of youth and children. Accordingly, as an urgent priority, ICOPA VIII calls for the immediate release of women prisoners who are pregnant or who are mothers.
6. ICOPA VIII condemns the imprisonment of young people and calls for the implementation of restorative/transformative justice to deal with youth offending. 7. ICOPA VIII further supports and promotes restorative/transformative justice for all people.
8. ICOPA VIII supports the decriminalisation of illicit substances.
9. ICOPA VIII condemns the actions of the Canadian government in constructing more prisons units for women, including the recent decision to house women in maximum security units in men's prisons, a decision which takes womens' imprisonment back to the turn of the century.
10. ICOPA VIII condemns all moves everywhere which increase the size of and the profit motive in the prison industry.
11. As a concrete expression of our commitment to penal abolition, ICOPA VIII members undertake to organise action(s) in support of penal abolition on August 10th, Prisoners' Justice Day.
12. ICOPA VIII supports the decriminalisation of offences by people who are mentally ill and intellectually challenged; such acts should be dealt with as health and welfare rather than criminal issues.
13. ICOPA VIII calls on the government of Aotearoa/New Zealand to:
(a) place a moratorium on the construction of any more prisons in this country;
(b) release all minimum security prisoners currently held in this country's prisons;
(c) use the resources allocated for the building and maintenance of these institutions for resourcing existing successful community-based options;
(d) provide for a public accounting for the spending of this money in a manner which is freely available for public scrutiny.
14. ICOPA VIII condemns the United States of America for being the first country in history to openly admit that it holds over 1 million people in custody and over 5 million people under the control of its criminal justice systems. ICOPA VIII expresses grave concern that the majority of USA prisoners are Native-Americans, Latinos, and African-Americans, and asserts that the only way to develop an equitable society is to completely dismantle the penal system of the USA. ICOPA VIII condemns the USA for promoting private, for-profit prisons in other countries.
15. ICOPA VIII condemns the death penalty as an appropriate penalty in any criminal justice system.
16. ICOPA VIII demands an end to the killing of people in and by prisons.
17. ICOPA VIII acknowledges that people who die soon after leaving prison, having died as a reslut of being in prison, should be recognised as deaths resulting from imprisonment and should be condemned.
18. ICOPA VIII demands an end to the killing of people by police forces.
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