Welcome to Radical Events Ottawa! Learn more about the list here. See the full calendar here.
Please Note: Events listed on this calendar are not organized by the Punch Up Collective unless otherwise noted in the event details.
The “Right to Hug” with Alec Karakatsanis
March 10 @ 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
This event explores how carceral bureaucracies and corporate telecommunications interests have transformed family contact into a profit center, from Adams County’s groundbreaking “Right to Hug” class action to jail policies across the United States that replace in-person visits with costly, glitchy, and surveilled video calls.
The following questions frame the core issues to be addressed during the conversation, drawing on themes of legal strategy, human rights, and systemic critique:
Drawing on recent litigation by Civil Rights Corps, investigative journalism from NBC News, and critical scholarship on narrativism and punishment bureaucracy, the conversation asks: Is there—and should there be—a constitutional right to hug one’s child or parent while incarcerated?
● How video visitation bans generate millions in “kickbacks” for sheriffs and counties while extracting wealth from poor families
● The documented psychological harm of severing physical contact between children and incarcerated parents
● How corporate surveillance systems (voice biometrics, AI monitoring) turn family communication into data extraction
● Comparative questions for Canadian constitutional and human rights law: what would a “right to hug” look like in Canada’s legal framework?
● The role of media narratives in normalizing or challenging these practices