Alliance of Sport on the panel at UN Congress

Alliance of Sport Co-Founder and Chief Executive, James Mapstone, will be speaking on Monday morning at the 14th United Nations Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice.

James will be on the panel for a discussion entitled, ‘Integrating Sport into Youth Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice Strategies’ from 2.30am UK time on March 8 (11.30am in the host country Japan).

The Congress is the world’s largest global gathering on crime and justice and is organised every five years by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC). The last one, in Doha in 2015, had 4,000 participants.

UN Crime Congresses are intended for the exchange of views between States, intergovernmental organisations, non-governmental organisations and individual experts; the exchange of experiences in research, law and policy development, and the identification of emerging trends and issues in crime prevention and criminal justice.

James’s session will showcase good practices and discuss lessons learned in integrating sports-based activities into youth crime prevention and criminal justice policies. It will also include the use of sport and physical activity in the context of social reintegration of offenders and prevention of reoffending.

The session also examines:

• how the criminal justice system can strengthen multi-stakeholder engagement strategy with a view to enhancing the effectiveness of sports-based youth crime prevention programmes
• (how the social reintegration aspects of such programmes accentuate the nexus of the rule of law, CPCJ and the 2030 Agenda.

James plans to highlight partnerships and implementation mechanisms which have worked well in helping to integrate sport in crime prevention and criminal justice. Such examples include how national stakeholders can collaborate more effectively across different sectors to promote the use of sports as a crime prevention strategy, and how stakeholders across different countries/regions can engage with one another to inform future policy-making at international level.

“It is a great honour to be invited to lead a session at the UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice,” commented James. “I am greatly looking forward to sharing the experience and knowledge we’ve accrued at the Alliance of Sport in the area of sport and criminal justice.

“We are in a privileged position at the head of a global network all working towards building an evidence base, raising awareness and increasing the impact of those using sport to tackle crime, violence and reoffending.”

James’ session is being facilitated by the Thailand Institute of Justice, and will including early findings from our joint research project.

You can watch a live webcast of the UN Congress on Crime Prevention and Criminal Justice here from early Monday morning GMT.