USask Law Lecture Series: Robin Hansen: Prison Born

Prison Born: Understanding Colonial Racism according to a Systems Theory of Law
Imagine if you - at your birth - were automatically taken from your mother and denied the ability to bond with her. Imagine this being done with zero due process, without any individualized consideration of the likely health effects of denying you - as a newborn - access to your mother. This is the reality for infants in most of Canada who are born to persons who are incarcerated at the time of their birth.
Automatic separation is happening because of unfair blanket assumptions against women and their children that circulate in the legal system.
Robin Hansen, an associate professor at the University of Saskatchewan College of Law, discussed how Niklas Luhmann’s systems theory of law explains how these dehumanizing ideas circulate in the legal system and how they can be rejected.
USask Law is grateful for the support of McKercher LLP in presenting this lecture.