Author(s):

Sarah Smith

Published date:

26/01/2026

Sarah Smith’s Fellowship focuses on women’s experiences of the justice system in Canada, Germany and Finland, and explores how organisations and individuals in these countries deliver and advocate for community-based approaches for women. Smith explores different sentencing practices, initiatives run by third sector organisations and policy work in communities moving “closer to a future where prisons are not seen as the solution”. Reflecting on how we respond to harm in communities, this report emphasizes that it’s never just about the justice system “it’s about inequality, it’s about structural violence, it’s about trauma, and it’s about how we treat those who have often been chronically failed and excluded by systems and services.”