Breaking Bars, Building Bridges:
Challenging the Prison System & Fostering Communities of Support
WPIRG’s 2012 SCHOOL OF PUBLIC INTEREST
Friday February 10 – Sunday February 12, 2012
www.breakingbars.ca
As social and environmental justice activists struggle for a just world, one without oppression or inhumanity, where the earth is respected and all are free, we must realize that the context of our work is changing. Harper’s crime bill agenda will see an escalation in the criminalization of dissent, activism, and direct action. As social supports for the poor continue to evaporate under neoliberal attacks, more members of our community will end up behind bars, even as global resistance to the austerity agenda continues to mount. And while the government and corporations continue to pillage indigenous lands and suppress community self-determination, Aboriginal people make up a massively disproportionate segment of the prison population.
Acknowledging the importance of these realities to grassroots organizing, WPIRG’s 2012 School of Public Interest will focus on the theme ‘Challenging the Prison System & Fostering Communities of Support’. The 2012 conference will explore the role of prisons in our lives and our society, with a critical emphasis on the prison industrial complex, the intersections between oppression and crime/criminalization, and the ways that activists challenge and are impacted by the law and policing. The gathering will provide a space for in-depth conversations on prison justice, training in support and advocacy for prisoners, explorations of concepts like abolition and transformative justice, and opportunities for networking, strategizing, and building prison justice analysis and activism into our interrelated struggles. Sessions will include panels, presentations, interactive workshops, group discussions, and working meetings.
CONFERENCE SCHEDULE
(please note, due to the media coop's text formatting, full and clear schedule information is hard to upload. please see our website at http://www.breakingbars.ca/ for more detailed info!)
FRIDAY
Venue: The Button Factory, 25 Regina St. S. (2nd floor)
7 PM – 8PM
Keynote Address
Ann Hansen
8PM - Midnight
When Words Resist 3: A Showcase of Radical Spoken Word Poetry
Featuring local poets, spoken word artists, and art from prisoners; hosted by KW artist/activist Janice Lee
SATURDAY
Venue: J. R. Coutts Engineering Lecture Hall a.k.a. "RCH" Building (University of Waterloo campus)
9 AM – 9:30 AM
REGISTRATION & BREAKFAST
9:30 AM - 10 AM
Opening Ceremony
10 AM – 12 PM
Criminalization of Dissent 101
Introduction to the Prison Industrial Complex
“Can we Send Cookies to Prisoners?” Activist Prisoner Support & Interacting with Prisons 101
Criminalizing Poor Communities: Repression & Resistance
12 PM – 1 PM
LUNCH
1 PM – 2 PM
Is Canadian crime policy becoming “Americanized”?
1 PM – 2:30 PM
Red Lips [Cages for Black Girls]
Panel: Holding Ourselves Together: Experiences of Prisoner and Community Support Organizations (followed by break-out sessions)
1 PM – 3 PM
Panel: Fighting the Law: Social Justice in the Courtrooms
2 PM – 4 PM
The Save Our Prison Farms Campaign, 2009-2012
2:30 PM – 4 PM
Break-Out: Open Door Books/Books to Prisoners
Break-Out: PASAN
Break-Out: Prisoner Correspondence Project
Break-Out: Nyki Kish Support Network
Break-Out: Supporting Ourselves while Supporting our Loved Ones
3 PM – 4 PM
In an Age of Fear: Political Activism with a Transgender Perspective
4 PM – 6 PM
Freeing the Human Spirit
Noise Demos and Prisoner Solidarity
Disability and Incarceration
Federal Prisoners Discuss the Effects of C-10
The Men Against Sexism Uprising
7 PM – 9 PM
Performance: In the Belly
SUNDAY
9 AM – 10 AM
REGISTRATION & BREAKFAST
10 AM – 11 AM
Organizing Street & Gang Youth Inside and Outside
10 AM – 12 PM
The Lucasville Uprising
The Double Punishment of Migrants
Waves Through Walls: Prison Radio in Canada
11 AM – 12 PM
Freedom and Justice for John Moore
12 PM – 1 PM
LUNCH
1 PM – 2 PM
Women’s Experiences of Incarceration
1 PM – 3 PM
Strategies for Resisting Prison Construction
Parole Sans Parole: Performing Resistance with the Termite Collective
Organizing Against Police Impunity
Migrant Labour Exploitation & the Detention of Migrants
2 PM – 3 PM
Running Down the Walls 2012: Building a Prison Country-wide Support Event
3 PM – 5 PM
Panel A: Preparing for Conflict and Repression
Panel B: Prisoner Support and Beyond: Building Safer Communities
5 PM – 5:30 PM
Closing Ceremony
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