For Release Upon Receipt - October 21, 2011
St. Augustine
The Department of Behavioural Sciences, Faculty of Social Sciences, The University of the West Indies, will host an International Conference on Gangs, Violence and Governance, on November 3rd and 4th 2011, from 9am to 5.30pm, at the Learning Resource Centre (LRC), UWI St. Augustine.
In recent times, there has been an intrusion of ‘gangs’ in the spheres of money laundering, drug trafficking and even the political arena. It is the responsibility of governments, and their related institutions must seek to promote mechanisms of ‘good’ governance that encourage transparency, accountability and security for its citizens. The conference seeks to address the violence and intimidation that hampers the development of democratic community organisations and, ultimately, the ability of the population to improve their living conditions and social advancement.
Conference topics will include, Understanding gangs and violence; Interventions; The role of gender in gangs and violence; Gangs and youth, and Gangs, Gender and Security in the Caribbean, to name a few. Key speakers at the conference will be: Professor Anthony Harriott, Department of Government and the Institute Of Criminal Justice and Security, Faculty of Social Sciences, UWI Mona Campus, Jamaica; Professor Nikos Passas, School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Northeastern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, and Professor Charles Katz, Center for Violence Prevention and Community Safety and School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Arizona State University, Phoenix, Arizona, USA.
Persons interested in attending the Conference on Gangs, Violence and Governance can obtain full registration details on the website: http://sta.uwi.edu/conferences/11/gangviolence. For further information, please contact Dr. Randy Seepersad at randy.seepersad@sta.uwi.edu or at (868) 662-2002 ext. 83354 or Dr. Dianne Williams at dianne.williams@sta.uwi.edu or at (868) 662-2002 ext. 83353.
For the latest UWI News, click http://sta.uwi.edu/news.
About UWI
Over the last six decades, The University of the West Indies (UWI) has evolved from a fledgling college in Jamaica with 33 students to a full-fledged University with over 40,000 students. Today, UWI is the largest and most longstanding higher education provider in the English-speaking Caribbean, with main campuses in Barbados, Jamaica and Trinidad and Tobago, and Centres in Anguilla, Antigua & Barbuda, The Bahamas, Belize, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Dominica, Grenada, Montserrat, St Christopher (St Kitts) & Nevis, St Lucia, and St Vincent & the Grenadines. UWI recently launched its Open Campus, a virtual campus with over 50 physical site locations across the region, serving over 20 countries in the English-speaking Caribbean. UWI is an international university with faculty and students from over 40 countries and collaborative links with over 60 universities around the world. Through its seven Faculties, UWI offers undergraduate and postgraduate degree options in Engineering, Humanities & Education, Law, Medical Sciences, Pure & Applied Sciences, Science and Agriculture, and Social Sciences.
(Please note that the registered name of the university is The University of the West Indies, inclusive of the “The”, hence The UWI.)