I’ve been negligent and uncertain as to whether to keep this Chatting Critically website alive – more weary soul-searching to follow.

However I could not resist posting this link to a challenging interview with Debbie Kilroy, one of Australia’s leading advocates for protecting the human rights of women and children through decarceration – the process of moving away from using prisons and other systems of social control in response to crime and social issues.

i was privileged to meet her nigh on a decade ago on a flying visit to Brisbane, Australia to speak at a Youth Work conference there.

https://amosgebhardt.com/debbie-kilroy-1?

Debbie Kilroy

We all need to build communities … where we have safety and security and not rely on these carceral, systems cops, courts, prisons. The more cops we have, the safer we are is an absolute lie… It’s about building relationships where there’s accountability, transparency, but also love and care… Relationships are the things that bring safety, [being] accountable in the context of relationships not to a state who picks and chooses who’s accountable.

Drawing on personal experiences from her time in prison, Debbie highlights the role of class, state violence and radicalised capitalism in the creation and perpetuation of the prison-industrial complex. She discusses the strengths of transformative justice in addressing harm, accountability and repair at a community level to liberate our world from carceral logics.

Debbie’s passion for justice is the result of her personal experience of the criminal (in)justice system and an unwavering belief that prison represents a failure of justice. Debbie completed a degree in Social Work inside prison. Since then, she has become a qualified Gestalt Therapist and Legal Practitioner, and has completed a Graduate Diploma of Forensic Mental Health.