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Lecture

Policing in the US: What’s Feminism Got to Do with It?

Date
Wednesday 31 May 2023
Time
Address
Wijnhaven
Turfmarkt 99
2511 DP The Hague
Room
Spanish Steps

During this lecture on Wednesday 31 May, Josephine Ross will discuss questions about bodily integrity, what a 'victim’s perspective' looks like, and how to redefine 'consent' within the context of police encounters. 

About the lecture

Police kill approximately one thousand civilians every year in the United States and that sometimes obscures the other ways that current police tactics harm individuals and communities. There are rules that govern when police may stop people and rules limiting when police may search our cars, homes, and bodies. But these rules are often meaningless because of an exception called 'consent'. Consent is the legal exception that swallows the rule because most searches in the US are based on so-called 'consent'. Feminists have a lot to say about consent in the context of sexual harassment and sexual assault. Josephine Ross turns to feminism as a tool to raise questions about bodily integrity, what a 'victim’s perspective' looks like, and how to redefine 'consent' within the context of police encounters. These questions will be discussed during her lecture. 

The lecture will be moderated by Dr. Joery Matthys.

About the speaker

Josephine Ross is Professor of Law at Howard University in Washington DC, and an expert on the constitutional limits on police. As a former criminal defense lawyer, she often litigated the constitutionality of police stops. Her book, A Feminist Critique of Police Stops (Cambridge University Press), argues for the abolition of 'stop and frisk' and shows how so-called 'consent' searches and 'consent' stops, creatures of Supreme Court doctrine, perpetuate racial profiling and blame the victim of unwanted police encounters. She has given presentations at libraries, universities, law schools and judicial gatherings and spoken to audiences in Canada, Spain, Sweden and Great Britain, as well as throughout the United States.

Registration

Please register for this lecture via this form

Questions

If you have any questions, please send an e-mail to Dr. Joery Matthys.

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