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Annual Conference 2025
Wellbeing in Corrections: Initiatives for Staff, Systems, and Communities
Conrad Istanbul Bosphorus
Istanbul, Türkiye
26 – 31 October 2025
Join us for the International Corrections and Prisons Association’s 27th Annual Conference focused on Wellbeing in Corrections. This conference brings together correctional professionals, academics, and policymakers from around the world to explore innovative approaches to improving wellbeing within correctional settings.
The conference offers a comprehensive program featuring academic research, best practice examples from correctional jurisdictions, and cutting-edge innovative solutions to challenges facing the global corrections community. Attendees will have the opportunity to participate in networking events with global practitioners, explore an exhibition showcasing the latest in correctional technology, and join site visits to local correctional facilities.
Join us in Istanbul, Türkiye, from 26 to 31 October 2025 for a unique opportunity to advance your personal development, expand your professional network, and gain cultural insights that will inspire and enrich your correctional practice. Programme Highlights
We are pleased to reveal the Opening Keynote from Dr. Stephanie S. Covington, PhD, LCSW, Co-Director, Center for Gender & Justice, United States.
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Dr. Stephanie Covington is a pioneer in addiction, trauma, and recovery, known for her gender-responsive and trauma-informed approach to effective services across various settings. Her presentations and technical assistance focus on systems change and creating compassionate therapeutic environments. She served on SAMHSA's Advisory Council for Women's Services and was workshop chair for the Women's Treatment Improvement Protocol. Her clients include the Betty Ford Treatment Center and numerous others across the United States and internationally.
For three decades, Dr. Covington has provided training to criminal justice systems worldwide, including the U.S. Federal Bureau of Prisons, the National Institute of Corrections, and justice ministries in various countries. She co-authored the award-winning "Gender-Responsive Strategies" research project and co-directs the Institute for Relational Development and the Center for Gender & Justice.
Educated at Columbia University and the Union Institute, Dr. Covington has taught at several universities and holds memberships in multiple professional associations. She has published extensively, including twelve treatment curricula, the first comprehensive manualized treatment program for substance use disorders, and trauma-focused training materials. Her recent publications include "Hidden Healers" and the updated edition of "A Woman's Way through the Twelve Steps."
IACFP Distinguished Scholar
Professor David Cooke, PhD FRSE, Adjunct Professor, Australian Catholic University, United Kingdom.
Professor David Cooke, the 2025 Distinguished Scholar, will speak on: Managing the Wicked Nature of Violence in Prison: A Look Through the PRISM.
Violence risk assessment and management have improved remarkably over the past three decades. However, emphasis has been placed on the characteristics of the individual prisoner. Disturbed, disordered and distressed people are not violent merely because of who they are but also because of where they are, and how they are treated. By ignoring context, we ignore half of the equation; we overlook aspects of the problem that are often easier to manage and change than the entrenched characteristics of challenging individuals. Professor Cooke will explore the origins and application of PRISM—a methodology designed to systematically assess the impact of prison environments. Widely applied across various countries and secure settings, PRISM offers valuable insights into the dynamics of custodial spaces. Drawing on global experience, Professor Cooke will highlight key lessons and practical implications from its use.
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taff Wellbeing Keynote
Dr. Brie Williams, MD, MS, Professor of Medicine and Director of Amend, UCSF, USA.
Dr. Brie Williams, Staff Wellbeing Keynote, will speak on: Transforming San Quentin Prison in California: Marshalling the Experience and Perspectives of a Multidisciplinary Advisory Council to Improve Prison Staff and Resident Health and Wellbeing".
Dr. William’s presentation will describe the unique approach of the San Quentin Transformation Advisory Council, a multidisciplinary group of leaders with different professional and experiential backgrounds, including prison staff and union leaders, formerly incarcerated people, survivors of crime, prison culture change thought leaders, public heath academics, and architects with a focus on creating safe and healthy spaces who were appointed to collect recommendations and guide the dramatic transformation of San Quentin prison into a rehabilitation center. Dr Williams and her colleagues will describe (1) the leading themes that emerged in the Advisory Councils report to optimize well-being among prison staff and residents; (2) the council’s approach to eliciting input from multiple stakeholders including community leaders and prison residents; (3) the power of a multidisciplinary approach to generating solutions to improving prison culture and (4) lessons learned that might assist others seeking to engage in a similar process.
Nelson Mandela Rules Keynote
Professor Judith Resnik, Arthur Liman Professor of Law, Yale Law School, United States
Professor Judith Resnik is the Arthur Liman Professor of Law at Yale Law School, where she teaches courses on federalism, procedure, courts, prisons, equality, and citizenship. Her scholarship focuses on the relationship between democratic values of egalitarianism and the functions of government including its provision of services; the role of collective redress and class actions; contemporary conflicts over privatization; the relationships of states to citizens and noncitizens; the interaction among federal, state, and tribal courts; practices of punishment and the history of incarceration; and equality and gender. Resnik is the founding director of Yale’s Arthur Liman Center for Public Interest Law which, since 1997, has awarded year-long fellowships to more than 200 Yale Law School graduates and sponsors undergraduate programs at several universities and colleges. The Liman Center research projects include monographs on solitary confinement, a website,
Seeing Solitary, and more. Resnik received a two-year Andrew Carnegie Fellowship for research on her book,
Impermissible Punishments: How Prison Became a Problem for Democracy, available in the summer of 2025 from the University of Chicago Press. The book explores the trans-Atlantic development and infrastructure of a profession of “corrections;” the shaping of standards for the “treatment of prisoners;” the impact of World War II, the Holocaust, and the U.S. the civil rights revolution in enabling prisoners some success in gaining recognition of limits on the kinds of punishments government can, in a polity claiming to be committed to the equal status of its members, impose on individuals convicted of crimes; and the challenges of materializing that status in the face of security and community needs. Other books and articles include
Representing Justice: Invention, Controversy and Rights in City-States and Democratic Courtrooms (Yale Press, 2011, reissued as an e-book 2022); the co-edited
Federal Courts Stories (2009), and
The Capital of and the Investments in Courts, State and Federal (NYU L. Rev, 2024). Resnik is also an occasional litigator, including in the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2018, she was awarded an honorary doctorate from University College of London; she has recently been reappointed as an honorary visiting professor there. Resnik has chaired the Association of American Law Schools’ Sections on Federal Courts, Procedure, and Women in Legal Education. She is a member of the American Philosophical Society, a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a Managerial Trustee of the International Association of Women Judges.
Early Bird Registration
Take advantage of our early bird rates (available until August 15, 2025):
Early Bird Registration (until August 15, 2025):
Group Rates for groups of 10 or more (to access these rates, please contact:
[email protected]):
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