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From Outrage to Action: Why challenging family policing is key to safer communities
29 April 2026, 12:00 pm–1:00 pm
Critical Childhood Studies Centre (CCSC) Lunchtime Exchange with CCSC Visiting Research Fellow Professor Erica R. Meiners.
Event Information
Open to
- UCL staff | UCL students
Organiser
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Critical Childhood Studies Centre
Location
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Room 736, Institute of Education,20 Bedford WayLondonWC1H 0ALUnited Kingdom
Rather than the language of “child welfare” and “child protective services,” scholars and activists across US and Canada increasingly use the term “family policing” to name the violence inflicted by these state institutions. As the carceral state across the US is at another inflection point post 2020 uprising, the analysis and tools generated by organizers working against family policing, and for authentic forms of safety, is critical. Delving into why this analysis is often sidelined by organizers and scholars, this discussion argues that there is no long-haul abolitionist win—no stronger and safer communities— without this analysis and those challenging family policing.
All welcome. Attend in person (Room 736, IOE, 20 Bedford Way) or via Zoom
Image: Photo by David von Diemar on Unsplash
The Critical Childhood Studies Centre is a home for world-leading scholarship about childhood as a socio-political, cultural, and historical phenomenon in diverse global contexts. The Centre provides a focal point for faculty and students at all levels in UCL to engage in innovative and multi-disciplinary research, teaching, and public engagement geared towards achieving social justice with and for children and young people.
CCSC Lunchtime Exchanges take place on the last Wednesday of each month. If you have any proposals for future meetings, themes or speakers, please do get in touch.
About the Speaker
Erica R. Meiners
Bernard J. Brommel Distinguished Research Professor at Northeastern Illinois University
Writer, educator and organizer, Erica R. Meiners’ current books include For the Children? Protecting Innocence in a Carceral State (University of Minnesota 2016), a co-edited anthology The Long Term: Resisting Life Sentences, Working Towards Freedom (Haymarket Press 2018); the co-authored Feminist and the Sex Offender: Confronting Sexual Harm, Ending State Violence (Verso 2020); and the co-authored Abolition. Feminism. Now. (Haymarket 2022). Their work has been recognized by awards including 2025 Dorothy Smith Scholar/Activist Award from Society for the Study of Social Problems, the 2020 Noah Chomsky Award from the Justice Studies Association, the 2015 Henry Trueba Award from the American Education Research Association, a 2016 Soros Justice Fellowship, and other support from the Illinois Humanities Council, Woodrow Wilson Foundation, and the Mellon Foundation.
The Bernard J. Brommel Distinguished Research Professor at Northeastern Illinois University and a member of the labour union, University Professionals of Illinois, Erica publishes in a range of journals including In These Times, Social Text, Harvard Educational Review, Social Text, Radical Teacher, Women’s Studies Quarterly, The Advocate, Boston Review. Most importantly, Erica has collaboratively started and works alongside others in a range of ongoing ad hoc and formal mobilizations for liberation, particularly movements that involve access to free public education for all, including people during and after incarceration, and other queer abolitionist struggles. Erica is a sci-fi fan, a long-distance runner, and a lover of bees and cats.
More about Erica R. Meiners