Panel Discussion: Is the British police force institutionally racist?
Is the British Police Force institutionally racist? If it is, how constructive is this label? What impact does stop and search have on the relationship between BME communities and the police, and has the recent reduction in the use of the technique had any discernible impact? Featuring
What We Stand For: Ione Wells on the Paris attacks
On Saturday 14th November 2015 I woke up on my 21st birthday. That day also marked the end of the week that saw over 120 deaths in Paris’s shootings and bombings the night before, at least 43 deaths in Beirut’s suicide bombing, and over 20 deaths caused by a suicide bomber in Baghdad – all [&h
Beyond the Numbers
In Budapest, a city of some 1.7 million people, life goes on apparently as normal. Locals and tourists bustle about in the wide avenues, and the dramatic scenes of a couple of weeks ago—crowds of migrants flooding around Keleti Station or through the streets—have largely subsided. But, beneath t
What Online Campaigning Has Taught Me about how the Media Presents Sexual Assault
As with almost all projects, one tends to learn much more about the issues that you are grappling with, or the problems that you are trying to solve, once the process is already underway. Since I began campaigning against sexual violence and victim blaming with the #NotGuilty campaign in April 2015,
Abortion in Northern Ireland
“Pregnant people with money have options and pregnant people without money have babies. Or drink bleach,” observes Mara Clarke, the director of the Abortion Support Network in Northern Ireland. Together with draconian restrictions in the Republic of Ireland, Irish attitudes towards abortion have
Set Her Free: Meltem Avcil on Life Inside Yarl’s Wood
“Believe it or not, when you are a refugee you are always taught that being a refugee is a bad thing. So, to some extent you are subconsciously ashamed of yourself.” Meltem Avcil has an incredible story. Aged 13, she and her mother were locked in Yarl’s Wood, the notorious women’s immigratio
When They Were Bad: Notes from a Pupil Referral Unit
Pupil Referral Units. Short Stay Schools. Education Centres. There are numerous names for the places that teach the children rejected by mainstream schools. Given the current vogue for television documentaries exposing the educational lives of ‘bad’ teenagers, pupil referral units (PRUs) are in
On the Campaign Trail with UKIP
“There’s a woman who uses asparagus to see the future and she knows who’s gonna win.” Jim’s cancerous throat wheezes out this barely comprehensible sentence. It’s three weeks before the general election and I’m having gammon and shandy with a local UKIP faction in the West Midlands. I
Extreme Education: Inside the South Korean School System
Late at night, Seoul’s backstreets are the domain of more than just the homeless and the drunk. In most cities these particular nightwalkers would be an unfamiliar sight. From 10pm until the early morning children and teenagers can be spotted shuffling home, still in their school uniforms laden wi