On Wed 30th Sept, team members Gill and Paula, along with collaborotors, joined an international panel at the 15th UN Congress Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice in Abu Dhabi.
Olivia Rope from Penal Reform International opened the discussed the strong human rights basis for lived experience involvement in criminal justice, emphasising that people affected by criminal justice systems should have meaningful opportunities to contribute to the development of the policies and standards that affect their lives, recognising participation as an important aspect of rights-based and inclusive approaches to criminal justice.
Gill Buck traced the long history of formal and informal organising by people in prison and advocated for greater continuity and institutional memory in participation mechanisms, ensuring that the knowledge and insights of people with lived experience are not treated as one-off contributions but are preserved, connected, and built upon over time. This includes meaningful and sustained participation in both national and multilateral processes, alongside engagement with other stakeholders working on these concerns, so that lived experience remains part of the knowledge base shaping criminal justice standards, policies, and programmes.
Chontit Chuenurah spoke about work in Thailand to involve people in prison in policy development and co-design. She highlighted the importance of ensuring that this involvement is grounded in clear ethical principles, including choice, recognition, reciprocity and privacy. The approach emphasises creating meaningful opportunities for people with lived experience to contribute to policies and programmes that affect them, while ensuring their participation is voluntary, valued, mutually beneficial, and respectful of their privacy and dignity.
Danica Darley drew on her lived experience of imprisonment as a mother to call for a participation framework grounded in rights, support, safety and accountability. She emphasised that women and girls’ participation should be recognised as a right and paid and supported appropriately, with safeguards against re-traumatisation and exploitation. She also highlighted the need to remove structural barriers, ensure diverse voices are represented and measure participation by whether it makes a meaningful difference to women and girls; not just by how many are engaged.
Paula Harriott highlighted evidence-based models of lived experience involvement from the UK, including prison councils, which provide structured opportunities for people in prison to contribute to decision-making and improvements within the prison system. She also advocated for greater development and recognition of lived experience leadership, both nationally and internationally, so that people with direct experience of criminal justice can play a sustained and influential role in shaping policy, practice and standards. She signposted delegates to the collective work of the Prisoner Policy Network and Unlock.
Host and chair Dwayne Antojado summarised the contributions and facilitated questions and comments from the floor.
The panel made a clear case for democratic, multilateral spaces to reflect stated commitments to participation and systematically build from strengths within communities.
