People and Community

DeathRights is a new project under development in the UK by Emily Bolton and Shauneen Lambe, in collaboration with imprisoned people and their loved ones with direct experience of death, dying and bereavement in the criminal legal system.

Many years ago Emily and Shauneen worked together in the Deep Southern United States on death penalty cases, the ultimate expression of state power over human life and death. We have worked with imprisoned people for a combined total of over 50 years in the US and now the UK.  This DeathRights project was inspired by the people experiencing death, dying and bereavement in the criminal legal system with whom we have been working, and by the deaths of imprisoned clients we have mourned. 

In each case, the lack of resources in prisons contributed to the trauma being experienced by the dying person and the bereaved. Yet so much of what went wrong could have been avoided or mitigated with the right advocacy in good time, or with the right frameworks or resources in place.  We think a rights-based approach is needed to confront poor practice and reduce this unnecessary suffering.

We have a provisional sense of the problems our community faces, outlined in the CHALLENGES page, but are keen to ensure that DeathRights’ strategy reflects the needs and priorities of the community we seek to serve. We invite anyone with experience in this area to contact us via the TELL US page.

The people who will ultimately make the most difference here will be those on the frontlines, the Death Navigators whose work the project will help to define, develop and sustain, whether working as imprisoned people, as family members with direct experience, or "death doulas" from the wider community who choose to specialise in this particular field.