Why are critical criminologists calling for abolition now? This event explores how queer and trans theories illuminate the urgent need to dismantle carceral systems and reimagine safety, justice, and accountability.

Professor Sarah Lamble and Dr. S.M. Rodriguez bring queer abolitionist and anticarceral feminist perspectives to the forefront, challenging the myths and ideologies that sustain prisons and the broader systems of control they represent. Drawing on their respective expertise, Rodriguez and Lamble will unpack how prisons rely on and reinforce binary, racialised, and gendered frameworks that obscure the true sources of harm in society. Through critical insights into issues such as “single-sex safety” and the construction of in/vulnerability, this conversation will highlight how fear is weaponized to uphold carceral logics. By centring the lived realities of those impacted by prisons, Lamble and Rodriguez will show how queer and trans abolitionist thought offers not only a critique but also a path toward transformative, collective liberation. This event invites attendees to engage with abolitionist frameworks as a vital response to the failures of criminal justice systems worldwide, offering a radical rethinking of what justice could look like beyond the confines of punishment and incarceration.

Get your free ticket here. Please note that a ticket does not guarantee entry. All LSE events are over-ticketed.

Meet our speakers and chair

Sarah Lamble is Professor of Criminology and Queer Theory at Birkbeck, University of London. Lamble is currently researching the ‘gender wars’ in Britain and the role that carceral safety politics play in disputes over transgender rights. Lamble is an organiser with the Bent Bars Project, which coordinates letter-writing for LGBTQ+ prisoners in Britain and with Abolitionist Futures which builds education and resources around alternatives to prisons, police, and punishment. 

SM Rodriguez is scholar-activist and Assistant Professor of Gender, Rights and Human Rights. Their research advances the understanding of the impact of racialisation, criminalisation, ableism, and the imposition of gendered and sexual control on people of African descent. With a monograph and over a dozen journal articles and book chapters, Dr. Rodriguez’s work has had a profound impact on scholarship, legal proceedings, and organizational practices.

Leticia Sabsay is Associate Professor in Gender and Contemporary Culture. Dr Sabsay’s work interrogates the entanglement between sexuality, subjectivity and political ideals of freedom and justice as processes of cultural translation, both across disciplines and transnational contexts. With Sadie Wearing and Sumi Madhok, she edits the book series ‘Thinking Gender in Transnational Times’ for Palgrave Macmillan; and is co-editor of the book series ‘Critical South,’ published by Polity Press.