March 12, 2023 – Feminist foreign policy
Passblue (US) – Maurizio Guerrero
Feminist Foreign Policies Make Headway among Countries While the Originator, Sweden, Drops Out
The term – feminist foreign policy – has its origins in the declaration by Sweden’s former foreign minister in 2017. Though the term seems somewhat vague, and has somewhat defied clarity, other countries have adopted the approach by recognizing the lack of feminist perspectives in foreign policy. The practical implications vary considerably while “saying that the countries’ diplomacy will place girls and women at the center of their work.” There appears to be an advantage for women in inserting the less well defined notion into the diplomatic conversation between countries. “Although it’s a concept that has no firm definition, feminist foreign policy has become a heading that some countries use to force the international community to at least imagine what it means and how to carry it out.” https://www.passblue.com/2023/03/09/feminist-foreign-policies-make-headway-among-countries-while-the-originator-sweden-drops-out/?utm_source=PassBlue+List&utm_campaign=7617bd3d19-RSS_PassBlue&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_4795f55662-7617bd3d19-55077933 Related article: Government of Canada International Women’s Day 2023 (March 8) – Every Woman Counts https://women-gender-equality.canada.ca/en/commemorations-celebrations/international-womens-day/2023-theme.html Related article: World Economic Forum – Kim Paget and Juliet Masiga International Women’s Day: 5 leaders on why we must focus on gender parity in times of crisis (A series of articles from the international community) https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2023/03/international-women-s-day-5-leaders-on-why-we-must-focus-on-gender-parity-in-times-of-crisis/?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2796776_WeeklyAgenda10March2023&utm_term=&emailType=Agenda%20Weekly
The Marshall Project (US) – Life Inside
Dear Ira: I Want You to Know You Did Not Die in Vain – Jy’Aire Smith-Pennick participated in the robbery and shootout that claimed the life of a Delaware man named Ira Hopkins. Here is Pennick’s letter to Hopkins, “a loving son and uncle, an amazing chef and a leader.” https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/08/19/dear-ira-i-want-you-to-know-you-did-not-die-in-vain?utm_source=The+Marshall+Project+Newsletter&utm_campaign=ad8a23325b-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_03_10_03_32&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_5e02cdad9d-ad8a23325b-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D
Canadian Lawyer – Michael Spratt
Municipal police boards should do their job of holding the cops to account – These oversight bodies are not created to service the police
Among concerns around police conduct, issues around additional funding for additional police officers have brought the role of police boards into question and Ottawa criminal defence lawyer Michael Spratt has some suggestions. Says Spratt: “Yes, the police need these powers to perform their duties. But these police powers are not inherent to policing – they exist because we have chosen to give them to the police. Part of the social and legal bargain in granting police extraordinary powers is that there must be oversight and accountability.” https://www.canadianlawyermag.com/news/opinion/municipal-police-boards-should-do-their-job-of-holding-the-cops-to-account/374319 Related tweet from Greg Fergus, MP: “Sometimes unconscious bias is so obvious. Watch this exchange. “Where are you getting this data from?” asks CPC MP Larry Brock. “The Supreme Court of Canada has said it over & over & over again,” replies veteran criminal defence lawyer & UWindsor law prof Donardo Jones.” https://twitter.com/GregFergus/status/1634230914749218828 Related tweet from Tom Engel on the Role of Police Boards: “All too often police boards and commissions are the lapdogs of the police, instead of the watchdogs.” #Police #policeaccountability #policeoversight
(https://twitter.com/TomEngel18/status/1634315775334027264?s=03) Related tweet from John Pfaff (US) “Hopefully conservative attacks on reform prosecutors will be treated w the skepticism they deserve: often less good-faith debates over the facts, more bad-faith fear mobgering that won’t make us safer.” Cf string
(https://twitter.com/JohnFPfaff/status/1634564296163180547?t=GnWwO1GoIrdR3pTeheVF0g&s=03) Related article: CTV / Youtube Toronto police stole $6K during drug bust, judge finds https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jho4656TkqI Related article: Toronto Star – Wendy Gillis and Jason Miller Toronto police’s ‘largest international drug takedown’ secured zero convictions, prosecutors confirm https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2023/03/10/toronto-polices-largest-international-drug-takedown-secured-zero-convictions-prosecutors-confirm.html
Tweet from Prison Health (US) – On Addiction and domestic violence: “Agencies across the Mountain State are partnering with the National Center on Domestic Violence, Trauma, and Mental Health to launch a new program in West Virginia to support those experiencing substance use and domestic violence.” https://t.co/twFkFXN9cI
(https://twitter.com/Prison_Health/status/1634562321115762689?t=q4XEKXBCVGnANXkejaqDSA&s=03)
N.Y. Times – Alexandra Berzon and Ken Bensinger
Inside Ron DeSantis’s Politicized Removal of an Elected Prosecutor – The Florida governor accused the Democratic prosecutor of undermining public safety. But a close examination of the episode reveals just how fueled it was by Mr. DeSantis’s political aims.
The article sheds some light on the underlying political issues around the notion that elected district attorneys who advocate progressive criminal legal system reforms are subject to replacement by other elected officials for establishing the polices of progressivism to start with. The struggle between the progressive and more conservative justice officials is playing out in many US cities, notably Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington (DC). In this Florida case, a twice elected prosecutor had an election promise not to prosecute women and doctors performing abortions. But the issue touches on many other criminal concerns as well – bail reform, sentencing, mass incarceration, drug prosecutions, etc. What is most striking, say the authors, is the absence of any connection between these policies prompting the removal and public safety. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/11/us/politics/desantis-andrew-warren-liberal-prosecutor.html?smtyp=cur&smid=tw-nytimes Related article: The Guardian (UK) Magistrates ‘incredibly disappointed’ as sentencing powers scaled back – Powers had been doubled less than a year ago to tackle backlog in courts and cut prison overcrowding https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/mar/10/magistrates-incredibly-disappointed-as-sentencing-powers-scaled-back?s=03
Toronto Star – Moira Welch and Steve Russell
He spends his days caring for his wife, who has dementia. This is his lonely struggle, in photos – Bill Lynn is a full-time caregiver to his spouse, Marg. Like many Canadians facing a similar predicament, he’s spending his later years in a life of devotion and isolation.
The report has some commentary but invites more an empathic response to a series of photographs by Russell that detail the struggles of 88 year Bill Lynn and his wife of 89 years who suffers from dementia. “After some 60 years together, Bill misses the life he and Marg once shared. “My whole life nowadays is just wishing,” he says. “I just wish it was five years ago. That we could still do the things we did five years ago. If we could just just go out and go to church on Sunday and visit restaurants and go to theatre and art galleries and stuff like that. Every summer we used to go to Stratford and see several plays. So that kind of thing has just gone by the board now.” The story may be helpful in the current discussions of health care reform and privatizing health care. https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2023/03/04/why-caring-for-an-aging-spouse-can-be-a-lonely-struggle.html?source=newsletter&utm_content=a04&utm_source=ts_nl&utm_medium=email&utm_email=404CAADEF7EB839FC77B1B04F0C251E1&utm_campaign=lng_171093
The Guardian (UK) – Melissa Denes
‘I know where the bodies are buried’: one woman’s mission to change how the police investigate rape – For the past two years, Betsy Stanko has been leading an unprecedented investigation into why the police have been failing so badly to tackle sexual violence. But is there any chance of fixing a system that seems so broken?
Stanko, a criminologist, wanted to know why less than 3% of the rapes reported to the London Metro Police resulted in a charge being laid. A year later, in 2021, the 3% ratio almost halved. Stanko and a group of colleagues undertook an examination of the rape cases at the request of the British Home Office. “What Stanko’s team found was alarming: investigations that focused on the victim (Was she drunk? Was she lying?); impossible workloads; inadequate training. The austerity years had seen an exodus of senior officers, and the new officers, most of them hired since 2020, had little understanding of how to investigate rape cases. In an interim report published in December 2022, Stanko’s team shared anonymised conversations with officers from four forces, including the Met. One recalled the junior colleague who asked a woman to swab herself vaginally, something that should be done by a forensic specialist; another said: “When a sexual offence job comes in, there’s almost like this panic of like, ‘Oh my God, what do I do?’” https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/mar/07/one-womans-mission-to-fix-how-the-police-investigate-rape-operation-soteria-betsy-stanko?utm_term=640c512bb4854afd78fb8c5ad28f56d0&utm_campaign=TheLongRead&utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&CMP=longread_email
Public Safety Canada – Update on the Special Report on Structured Intervention Unit Advisory Panel
“Isolation in prison is intimately intertwined with mental health issues. For decades, it has been well-established that almost all reputable research on this topic has concluded that being held in solitary conditions of confinement, especially for long periods of time, is harmful to prisoners’ mental health. More recently there is some important research suggesting that the causal arrow between solitary conditions of confinement and mental health issues may point in both directions. Specifically, there are now data that suggest that even when controlling for the in-custody behaviour of prisoners, those prisoners with mental health challenges may be especially likely to be targeted for placement in solitary conditions of confinement. Our first Annual Report contained a section addressing mental health issues. This update builds on those initial findings.” https://www.publicsafety.gc.ca/cnt/rsrcs/pblctns/mntl-hlth-strctrd-ntrvntn-nt-2023/index-en.aspx