Arts House Listening Program

This forum was recorded on 30th July 2016 “The question is, am I a monster, or am I myself a victim? And what if I am a victim?” One hundred and fifty years since Dostoevsky’s masterpiece, Crime and Punishment, we’ll be talking about our enduring obsessions with transgression, retribution and justice. What purpose does punishment play in society? Is punishment good for you? And what is the connection between punishment, justice, catharsis and redemption? The answers to these questions depend on who you ask. Facilitator Madeleine Morris will be joined by former Pentridge Prison chaplain Peter Norden, female inmate advocate Debbie Kilroy, actor Uncle Jack Charles and theatre maker J R Brennan. Brennan’s work, The Chat, is co-devised by artists and ex-offenders and was shown at Arts House in July 2016. For this Insight-style forum, we’ll also hear from a range of other guests who are invested in these issues, from ex-offenders to criminologists to prison officers to dominatrixes to risk managers. Themes of cr