FDUP/CIJ hosted the ‘cream’ of Criminology teaching and research
On November 27, 28 and 29, the Faculty of Law of the University of Porto (FDUP) and CIJ hosted the autumn session of the Common Study Programme in Critical Criminology (CSPCC), an informal network of universities that teach and research Criminology.
Organised by the FDUP School of Criminology, the event was attended by nearly 150 participants from 14 higher education institutions in 10 different countries (Portugal, Hungary, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, the United States of America, Greece, Norway, the United Kingdom and Lithuania).
In total, the programme featured 39 oral presentations, the majority of which were given by young students (from undergraduate to PhD) in Criminology.
The topics covered included authoritarianism, extremism and radicalisation, prison systems and punitive techniques, the victimisation of vulnerable populations, perceptions of security and many more, always within the framework of Critical Criminology.
Living in times of dictatorship
With the theme ‘Democracy, Criminology and the Rule of Law’, the conference also marked the 50th anniversary of the 25 April Revolution, bringing together various testimonies from people who lived under dictatorship in different European countries.
From Portugal, Aurora Rodrigues, a retired prosecutor and anti-fascist resister, told of her experience of torture and survival in a PIDE prison when she was just 21 years old.
Amadeu Recasens i Brunet, a former lecturer at the FDUP and director of the Catalan Police, analysed the transition to democracy in Spain, as well as how the justice system kept many of the Francoist actors on the scene.
Argentinian Damián Zaitch described the various popular movements of mothers, grandmothers and children who, through peaceful popular justice, are demanding information about all those killed and disappeared during the dictatorship. Sofia Vidali recalled how torture was a common instrument of population control in Greece.
The Scientific Committee for this autumn session of the CSPCC was made up of FDUP lecturers Rita Faria, Pedro Sousa and Ana Guerreiro. The Organising Committee included the contributions of Mária Calmeiro (FDUP assistant professor and Criminology PhD student), Ruben Pinto (FDUP assistant professor and Criminology Masters student) and Nathália Castro (FDUP Criminology PhD student).
The event was also supported by Turismo do Norte, the Engº António de Almeida Foundation, Caixa Geral de Depósitos, the FDUP and the CIJ - Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Justice, of the same faculty.
