Jessica Benton
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jessbenton.bsky.social
Jessica Benton
@jessbenton.bsky.social
260 followers 520 following 190 posts
27 🇬🇧 - she/her - first year PhD International Criminal Law and justice for disabled persons, Leeds Beckett. Former local gov officer and disability support worker. Fiery, proud, angry and no longer ashamed
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jessbenton.bsky.social
As difficult as things are, I’m grateful rn. I’m privileged to get to do a PhD and one where I can read and write when and where I wish mostly. Money can be tight but I have a part time job for now I find rewarding. Look for the helpers & simple things - like an iced coffee while you write! #PhDSky
June 13, 2025 at 3:48 PM
jessbenton.bsky.social
@crips-against-cuts.bsky.social protest against disability benefits cuts tomorrow in Leeds. This is only the beginning. Check their account for actions in your area!
A flyer for the protest against proposed disability benefit cuts organised by Crips against Cuts. Saturday 22nd March at 3.30pm at Dortmund Square, Leeds, LS2 8RE. Masks mandatory- one will be provided if needed
March 21, 2025 at 11:13 AM
jessbenton.bsky.social
I thank you if you read this email I’ve sent and see any merit in my work. It bears my heart
I beg of you to do the right thing and oppose these cuts as fiercely as I know you are capable of. For my mother, for my best friends, for justice. I gave up a potential career because I couldn’t stand what this country’s systems have done. I know you can take the first steps to make this right if you find it in yourself and you stand up for us. The government should abandon this horrific green paper entirely. We should focus on preserving and getting back the basic rights of disabled people in society and co-produce any new changes with disabled people’s organisations and disabled academics. All future decisions should have bearing from the UN’s damning report on the deaths and harm done to disabled people by Covid and the DWP. Disabled people affected and families who lost loved ones to the cruelties of the benefits system, to weaknesses of response to Covid and this pervasive poisonous rhetoric around disabled people should see reparations. Kind regards, Jessica Benton
March 15, 2025 at 2:12 PM
jessbenton.bsky.social
Just wrote to @jessphillipsmp.bsky.social a v personal email on the #DisabilityBenefit cuts. My #PhD is about why mass systemic abuses and deaths of disabled at the hands of states have not shown up in #ICL. Bc as a girl and still now as a woman I see no justice. For me, my mother, pupils & friends
An email screenshot to Jess Phillips MP. It reads Hello Jess I understand it’s been a difficult time for both you personally and us all politically since we met in December and I firstly wish you well. However, it is with great concern and frustration that I must now write to you again to urgently protest the proposed disability benefit cuts. I’m sure I’m not the only constituent to contact you on this but I want to offer additional perspective both personally and how it relates to my PhD study in international criminal law. This email bears a piece of my heart. Though I’ve never been in receipt of benefits myself, I’ve seen what uncertainties and cruelties of the benefit system and political rhetoric does to other disabled women. It keeps us in workplaces, and relationships, that are toxic. I know if it wasn’t for people like my mother and fighting for support I could be in such a position if I were made redundant in local government (which I could’ve been despite my direct service to Covid response, I decided to leave myself) and now trying to stay out harmful living situations. My friend who has repeatedly been victim of sexual violence and then neglect at the hands of police and healthcare - how is it her fault that regular employment is debilitating for her when the state and men did this to her and made her life hell? My mother was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis in 2020 while working in adult social care herself. She wants to keep her job, but there are costs associated with her disability. MS as you know is a degenerative condition. Her employer’s refusal to accommodate and allow her more time to rest has led not only to the need for her to take on a legal battle but their neglect of safety led to her suffering a head injury. What is the rationale for cutting welfare to ‘get more people into work’ when said work pushes disabled people out and leaves them devastated in multiple ways? It appears that disabled people in this country are in an abusive relationship with the state itself; victim-blaming and gaslighting in our welfare, workplaces, legal system, media and healthcare. My concern is extreme when I look at the safeguards being stripped away from the Assisted Dying bill. I fear it is becoming more about non-disabled peoples pity, apathy about disabled lives and their personal comfort and not compassionate and dignified end of life care for those who need it. This is what my PhD will be all about. Justice for disabled people in this country has failed and many are dead thanks to this long term abuse which seems set to continue. Witnessing it myself while growing up as an autistic girl and then working in local government, I have turned to pushing the boundaries of international criminal law for recourse. My research is on why mass systemic abuses and deaths of disabled at the hands of states should be investigated and officials leading them prosecuted and why they haven’t yet - potentially disablism within ICL itself.
March 15, 2025 at 2:12 PM
jessbenton.bsky.social
Aaa today I submitted my first ever abstract for the @leedsbeckett.bsky.social PGR conference in June! It’s all based on the early work and aims of my PhD project. Wish me luck!! Abstract in photo if you’re interested #PhD #AcademicSky #LBUResearch
Screenshot of my abstract submitted for the LBU PGR conference. It reads; Disabled people have endured and continue to endure targeted and systematic violence and atrocity. These egregious violations of rights may show elements of Crimes Against Humanity as described under the Rome Statute. Despite this, there remains a lack of discussion of disabled people routinely experiencing these egregious violations in the interational criminal justice field. This research aims to answer the question comprehensively of how International Criminal Justice has responded to egregious human rights violations against disabled people as a group. Then, subsequently, answer how their decisions and views shaped the gap in justice and discussion of disability in international criminal justice. The thesis will make proposals for how intermational criminal justice processes and scholarship should address crimes against disabled people and create lasting progress towards equality. The contribution of this project to existing knowledge in this ares will be two_fold This will be through testing the use of Disability Legal Studies as an approach to analysing and critiquing international criminal law. Another contribution will be to construct a full, connected narrative of how disabled people and disability issues have been viewed by international criminal justice processes in relation to the development, investigation, and prosecution of Crimes Against Humanity.
February 19, 2025 at 6:44 PM
jessbenton.bsky.social
The #PhD struggle of wanting to read for pleasure but you used to read nonfiction for pleasure that’s now part of your research so you can’t read it in your downtime anymore to turn your brain off 😭 new indie bookstore opened in Leeds today so let’s give fiction a shot #BookSky
February 8, 2025 at 3:08 PM
jessbenton.bsky.social
I love seeing the grossest academic ableism from uni student pages I don’t even follow thanks insta 🙃🙃🙃sharing here bc this attitude needs to be raised and challenged amongst students and academics #AcademicSky #PhD #ActuallyAutistic
January 29, 2025 at 7:34 PM
jessbenton.bsky.social
On Thursday I went to see a performance of music written and performed by prisoners of Auschwitz. I got to ask composer and conductor Leo Geyer about his process of archival research over 10 years to put this together.

The piece Blackbird moved me most, taking me back to my Auschwitz visit at 15
The Howard Assembly Room at Leeds Opera North pre-concert, with a picture of a recovered music transcript displayed on screen
January 25, 2025 at 12:15 PM
jessbenton.bsky.social
A poem read by Flo, a domestic violence survivor at #Leeds Women’s March today. With DV being described by some as terrorism, I found the idea of women and girls fighting constant hidden battles incredibly moving bc it put some of my own experiences into words ❤️
January 18, 2025 at 5:22 PM