Gavin Slade, PhD

"Zero Tolerance Schooling: Crime and Education in Georgia"

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Since 2004 in Georgia crime has taken central stage as the social issue to be solved by government. The talk aims at exploring the ways in which a relentless political focus on crime can influence policy-making in fields outside criminal justice. Plotting changes in the sphere of education and the issue of order in schools, and particularly the introduction of School Resource Officers (mandaturi) in 2010, the talk will theorize how we might understand these changes in the wider context of Georgia's war on crime. This leads to a bigger question of the extent to which 'governing through crime' - the use of a criminal justice logic and discourse in unrelated policy spheres - might be seen as an emerging mode of governance in Georgia. Finally, the talk discusses what a research agenda might look like for investigating governing through crime in Georgia and the impacts of the education reforms in this context.

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Gavin Slade recently finished a PhD on organized crime in Georgia from the University of Oxford. He spent last year working in Georgia as an international fellow at CRRC, Georgia office and a visiting scholar at the International School for Caucasus Studies at Ilia State University.

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W-i-P is an ongoing academic discussion series based in Tbilisi, Georgia, that takes place every Wednesday at the International School of Economics (ISET) building (16 Zandukeli Street). It is co-organized by CRRC and the American Councils for International Education: ACTR/ACCELS.

The purpose of the W-i-P series is to provide support and productive criticism to those researching and developing academic projects pertaining the Caucasus region.

Would you like to present at one of the W-i-P sessions? Send an e-mail to wip@crrccenters.org.