UCT Law's Centre of Criminology is delighted to be co-hosting with the University of Notre Dame Law School a conference on Criminal Justice Reform in Africa, on Friday 7 February 2025.

Bringing together academics and practitioners from across the continent, this one-day conference will examine a range of current issues in criminal justice - from gendered and international crimes to policing. The conference presents a set of papers that take stock of where things stand on a set of issues in criminal justice, and will link across the papers to consider what these may signal in terms of developing a Southern African contribution to decolonial criminology and criminal justice, and exploring what this could look like. The panel will raise questions about where and by whom knowledge is generated, and draw attention, in our different sites, to gross economic inequality and the continuing consequences of colonialism, patriarchy, racism and capitalist structures.  

With discussants from Nigeria, Kenya and Rwanda, the conference aims to use decoloniality as an opportunity not only for critique of approaches from the Global North but as a means to build alternative theoretical and empirical contributions about the role of the state and communities in framing and responding to crime. 

Discussants invited to reflect on the themes of the presentations across the African continent include:

• Dr Mediatrice Kagaba, Peace, Gender and Development Researcher, University of Rwanda & University of Gothenburg
• Dr Jane Wathuta, Dean of Strathmore Law School and Director of the Institute for Family Studies and Ethics, Strathmore University
• Prof Phil Clark, Professor of International Politics, SOAS, University of London
• Prof Tim Murithi, Head of Peace Building Interventions, Institute for Justice and Reconciliation
• Dr Mutuma Ruteere, Director, National Crime Centre in Nairobi, Kenya
• Prof Onwubiko Agozino, Professor of Sociology, Virginia University of Technology

This conference forms part of the wider long-term partnership between UCT Law School and the Notre Dame Law School and builds on an earlier engagement hosted by the University of Notre Dame and Strathmore University Law School, which considered a ‘Critical Analysis of Criminal Punishment in Africa’.

Further details, registration and the conference programme are available here.