AbstractPrison visits by academics are controversial. While they can provide an insight into penal practice, prisoner researchers warn against such visits as spectacles of degradation. In this article I examine the value of a series of prison visits for comparative research. Drawing on my own experiences and those of, among others, John Howard and John Pratt, I argue that prison visits, if ethically conducted and reflectively considered, offer benefits for investigating comparative penal practice. They can consider the self‐presentation of the prison, material conditions (including the sounds, smells and the sights), and possibly, where the script allows it, a glimpse beyond the façade of official prison discourse. As such, they have merit, in particular in the early stages of a comparative project.
This article explores arts practitioners’ methods in leading workshops with prisoners as part of the Inspiring Change pilot, a co‐ordinated pilot programme of arts interventions that took place in five Scottish prisons throughout 2010. Session review forms, which were completed by arts practitioners after each session, were designed to find out what happened in sessions, what worked well with prisoners in these sessions and what did not. Very little has been written on the arts practitioners’ methods and, in particular, the data gathered from session review forms. This article discusses the data gathered and three themes that came out of the arts practitioners’ responses including ‘Response to planned activity’, ‘Response to working in a prison environment’, and ‘Development of skills for participants’. The article concludes that documenting arts practitioners’ practice can contribute to the understanding of the connection and role of the arts in desistance studies.
Probation matters because of its role in creating a humane justice system. At probation's core is a value base which unites the profession and has been sustained through political change. The politically driven restructuring of probation through ‘Transforming Rehabilitation’ did not build on probation's achievements, nor was it evidence led. International examples show the negative impact of privatisation if values are secondary to profit. The fragmentation of service provision and removal of the requirement of a unifying probation qualification framework also pose major threats to the profession. The new Probation Institute will be important in maintaining professional identity and standards.
AbstractChild sexual exploitation (CSE) is a hidden and growing problem. Here, we consider the extent to which hotel environments present opportunities to sexually exploit children and young people; and the challenges which might be encountered in attempts to address this and disrupt offenders. There is a dearth of research on this topic and during the course of our discussion we reflect on data which emerged from a small‐scale, exploratory study in which we sought the views of hotel staff and professionals working in the safeguarding field. We conclude by examining the implications of our work for safeguarding policy and practice.
Research has shown that a significant proportion of young people in custody have experienced some form of abuse and/or loss in their lives. This article uses the biographies of three young men (all serving custodial sentences) to elucidate the feelings that experiences of this nature can engender. Crucially, none of the three was effectively helped to resolve their experiences. The article goes on to argue that more needs to be done to identify and support traumatised young people in custody. The article concludes that, while the CHAT: Secure tool may go some way to better identifying those needing support, an individual's reluctance to disclose their traumatic experiences in the first place may limit the tool's efficacy.
‘Of all his kings’, says Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce's (1978) Ulysses, ‘Richard [III] is the only king unshielded by Shakespeare's reverence’ (p.211). And is it any wonder? Richard murdered at least a dozen men, a brief list of whom includes: (from the Lancaster side) King Henry VI and his son; (from the York side) Richard's brothers and his two child nephews; and (from either side) a Lord Chamberlain apiece. Richard's record is enough to make one think that someone really should write a criminological treatise on this guy. It turns out Charles Adler already did, in 1936 (Adler 1936). In a charmingly modest psychological portrait, Adler argues that Richard (a ‘whoreson crookback’ – Joyce again) was painfully conscious of his disfigurement at a time when physical beauty was highly-prized. (As a result, he chose the worst possible moments to offer marriage to the woman he admired precisely because, in the event that he was refused, he could blame his being rejected on the timing.) As a child he was disappointed by his mother, and so turned to his father, whose example encouraged him to be bold. Richard began to think in terms of inheritance by acquisition rather than possession – hence his removal of anyone blocking his path to the throne. In Shakespeare's Curse, Björn Quiring plumbs Richard III (as well as King Lear and King John) with a much different purpose. Quiring's scholarship is tremendous, but his prose has a little too much cornflour, and the reader's stamina is tested chewing through this heavy helping. Although it should not trouble the author, for doubtless there is a more adjacent readership out there, Quiring's book is unlikely to become an essential criminology title – his choice of genre, an unusual blend that might be called Shakespearo-legal-theologic linguistics, is as esoteric as they come – but his subject does have relevance to criminologists willing to think sideways. Quiring is not interested in the aetiology of Richard's homicides: his interest is in the transformation of the law in the Elizabethan period and in what Shakespeare's characters’ cussing tells us about it. A curse is typically defined as a formula by whose mere expression its speaker seeks to inflict harm on others. In Richard III, the players pronounce on each other such awful curses as banishment, exile, excommunication, or execution. (‘Cancel his bond of life, dear God, I plead’, says Queen Margaret, Henry VI's widow, of Richard. ‘That I may live and to say, “The dog is dead”’ (act IV, scene iv, line 7).) But the standard definition of a curse could just as easily be a description of what legal judgments do. (In the Hebrew bible, curses appear either as an act of punishment by God or as an appeal to God's avenging justice.) Quiring proposes that cursing is tangled up with the making of the law and is represented by the legal order itself. He argues, for example, that the act of Holy Communion implies expulsion for those unworthy to receive it. In England, the Eucharistic ritual became a politicised State affair (with the monarch acting as mediator between heaven and earth) after Henry VIII became Supreme Head of the Church of England. Oaths – self-execrations by which the swearer accepts that he will be under a curse if he fails to meet his promises – also became part of judicial proceedings at the time that Christianity became the State religion. Quiring concludes that the curse persists in the discourses of jurisprudence to this day. Although the author does not engage with much criminological or sociological literature to speak of, there are several parallels that might be explored: the work of Émile Durkheim (1976) (on the social bond); Thomas Scheff and Suzanne Retzinger (1991) (on shame and violence); John Braithwaite (1989) (on reintegrative shaming); and René Girard (on sacrifice), would seem especially fitting. The last argues in Violence and the Sacred (Girard 1977), that the purpose of religious sacrifice in premodern times was to restore harmony to the community and to prevent violence in the future. In modern societies, the judicial system serves the same function: the penal system operates according to principles of justice that are in no conflict with the concept of revenge. Now, thanks to Quiring, we may add that it was founded on early modern imprecations too.
This stimulating book uses five key legal cases to examine different aspects of men controlling other men's violent behaviours in 19th-Century England – which can still be seen in today's legal jurisprudence in many ways – taking a socio-legal approach towards examining the detail of each case. The book starts with a short introduction, in which Bibbings describes her development of the piece in an easy-to-read and engaging way – unlike many academic writers, she speaks candidly about how she crafted the book, which was a pleasure to read and provided many new sources for those interested in the subject to follow up. Although her methodological descriptions are minimal, they tell you all you really need to know, and leave space for the gritty content with which she exquisitely engages in the five main chapters. The first chapter gives an account of R v. Prince (1875), wherein Prince is convicted of abducting a girl under the age of 16 years, in a process which Bibbings considers to be ‘policing male sexuality' (p.18). This is followed by a chapter examining male violence and its policing, delving into the distinctions between prize-fighting and boxing and the ‘manliness’ and ‘Englishness’ associated, through an examination of the case of R v. Coney, Gilliam and Tulley (1882). Chapter 3 revisits the infamous murder case of R v. Dudley and Stephens (1884), suggesting that there is a ‘context-specific recipe for manliness’ (p.105) which gives different interpretations of the manliness of killing and eating a cabin boy in order to feed other shipwreck survivors. The final two chapters look in more detail at men in marriage, with the exemplifiers of R v. Clarence (1888) and R v. Jackson [1891–4] discussing sexual relations and the issue of sexual diseases, and the ‘nature of a man's role and duties in wedlock and the powers of a husband over his spouse’ (p.163), specifically relating to forcible detention, respectively. The main criticism that I have is that there is some repetition of definitions of organisations and their remits in different chapters. Yet, this allows a reader to dip in and out of the book and have a comprehensive understanding of the issues at hand, so I cannot really fault her for that: it is only really noticeable when sitting and reading the book all at once. The internal signposting of the book is excellent, directing readers to a multitude of wider reading and thinking on the issues – the book is useful for both beginners to the issues discussed, and to those who want to learn more about certain influential cases from the perspective of masculinities and manliness. All together, the collection gives a compelling overview of the attempted legal and moral controls being used towards men in the 1800s, and demonstrates clearly the concerns that men and male behaviours raised at the time. From the moment I started to read this book, I knew it was something special. Masculinity and criminal justice are lacking in academic attention, not least historically, and this book fills the gap nicely. Its eloquent descriptions of the cases and contexts, coupled with its excellent explanations of terminology and the addition of interesting pictures from the times, make it a book that anyone could pick up and read, and was truly fascinating. I would recommend it highly.
On the back cover of this book there are two recommendations from academics; both these blurbs praise the book's timely publication. I agree. This is a book which deals with issues that are of pressing contemporary concern. In addition, despite the rapid pace of organisational change, the book does not feel out-of-date or immediately superseded by events. The book's purpose is to chart the development of rehabilitative services to offenders over the past two decades and to set this in a framework provided by the prevailing economic, social and political context. The book, therefore, is partly a history of the probation service, partly a critique of the impact of neoliberal policies on public services, and partly an indictment of a society that increasingly seeks to blame the poor for their poverty and exclude the disadvantaged from full citizenship. Each chapter of the book brings a different perspective to the concept of rehabilitation. The first chapter is about ‘contextualising rehabilitation’; it introduces rehabilitation as a concept with competing and shifting definitions. This is ground that will be familiar to readers of this journal, but not necessarily to the wider audience that this book seeks to reach. The second chapter, ‘governing rehabilitation’, tells the organisational story of the probation service from the Criminal Justice Act 1991 to the announcement of the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms in 2013. This narrative of reorganisation and further reorganisation takes in punishment in the community, the rise and fall of New Labour, the creation of the (first and short-lived) National Probation Service, the development of the National Offender Management Service and the impact of serious further offending by supervisees on public and political debate. Burke and Collett explain, convincingly, how this history was shaped by the complex interplay of politics and economics with personalities and events. The focus of the chapter ‘providing rehabilitation’ is on probation practitioners and their occupational culture. It argues that, despite significant organisational and policy change, the idea that the supervisory relationship is central has proved resilient. It questions whether this will still hold true following the implementation of the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms. These reforms are examined in detail, and set in a wider political and economic context, in the chapters about ‘competing’ and ‘widening’ rehabilitation. Here, once again, the authors do a fine job of weaving together broader arguments about the privatisation of public services with the peculiarities of the story of rehabilitation. The chapter ‘competing rehabilitation’, in particular, is an impressively detailed account of the way that neoliberal market mechanisms have borne down on criminal justice generally and the probation service specifically. The chapter ‘blaming rehabilitation’ is a determined attack on an unfair society that takes an increasingly authoritarian and judgmental approach to those deemed antisocial or unworthy. The chapter supports its argument by taking the riots of August 2011 as its key example. The use of further and contrasting examples would have strengthened the argument here, for example by considering the steadily more punitive treatment and unsympathetic portrayal of immigrants and benefit claimants. Throughout this book, Burke and Collett's personal and political commitment to a form of rehabilitation that treats offenders as people while offering benefit to wider society shines through. However, they argue that contemporary economic and political pressures make rehabilitation of this sort increasingly hard to deliver. Their conclusions about the immediate prospects for probation work are largely pessimistic. They assess the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms as doomed to fail, because of the consequences of marketisation and because the reforms do not support desistance-focused practice approaches. The authors bring considerable experience of the probation service from academic, practitioner and management perspectives. They combine this with a well-informed account of the wider forces that have shaped the delivery of public services over the past 20 years. The work is admirably up to date and the scholarship is evident, but the book does, in just a few places, read as though it was written in haste. There are one or two obvious errors, and the occasional overuse of quotations detracts from the flow of the narrative. This book provides both a thorough case example of public sector reform in the neoliberal state and a detailed history of the policies and people that have shaped the probation service in England and Wales since 1991. It is probably not going to have the ‘profound impact on probation’ that is desired by the author of one of its cover blurbs, but it can certainly be recommended as a well-evidenced explanation for the current perplexing environment in which rehabilitation has to be delivered.
AbstractThe ethical dimension adds a key tool for the analysis of the crimes of the powerful. This dimension is introduced in the analysis of the present article, which seeks to establish how offenders endowed with resources and power justify their conduct through a selective interpretation of classical Western philosophy and by adhering to some aspects of canonical political thought.
Augustine Brannigan's Beyond the Banality of Evil is a timely look at genocide and related state-initiated violence, including inter-ethnic conflict (p.2). It challenges the common paradigm of mass violence: Hannah Arendt's (1963) thesis on the banality of evil, based on the observation of the Eichmann process and popularised in Milgram's (1963) experiment. Brannigan looks at recent evaluations of that experiment and new literature on the Eichmann story, as well as the genocides in Rwanda and Srebrenica. He concludes that we need to go beyond the paradigm of obedience and understand mass atrocities as the ‘splendour of evil’ (p.85), the product of convinced individuals, who act with zeal, seduced by their shamanic leaders or larger social collective. The book reviews recent arguments against the common reading of the Milgram experiment. One chapter discusses the paradoxes of genocide in criminology, that is, the ordinary agent of extraordinary murder, the conventionalisation of mass murder, and politically-motivated mass murder. Another chapter deals with the politics of labelling mass atrocities as genocide and the consequences, explains genocide through control theory, and explores the limits of criminal law and international justice and the possibility of alternatives (for example, reconciliation commissions). It ends with a summary of the author's main thesis within the context of changes in the role and function of sovereignty. This monograph is a true ‘tour the force’ on a complicated subject. The author has reviewed much of what is available and provided food for thought on many dimensions of a difficult topic. But I have one main reservation: Brannigan's reading of the banality of evil thesis. To Brannigan, Milgram's experiment was ‘metaphoric rather than scientific’ (p.10) as it lacked both internal and external validity. He says that Milgram's statement on an agentic shift was the result of manipulating the findings: subjects who believed pain was delivered were highly likely to disobey. The idea that ‘the individual moral compass changes when he or she enters a group, and conscience appears to take a holiday when it joins a hierarchy’ is not proved by the experiment (p.14). Subjects were mortified having to inflict pain on others, especially the most powerful shocks. When they felt the experiment was producing injury, they resisted commands to obey. Hence, it is not the bureaucratic structure that makes humans capable of extraordinary evil; it is their ideology and view of order. This new reading of the experiment accords with a recent Eichmann biography (Cesarani 2006) and the trial transcript (Lipstadt 2011). Both indicate that Eichmann's defence that he simply obeyed superiors' orders was an excuse. In fact, Eichmann was profoundly convinced of what he was doing: he believed in the ‘final solution’ when he implemented it. In several cases he acted beyond what was required of him; in others, he acted with discretion, helping ‘a number of Jews escape, including a relative’ (p.204). Thus, mass atrocities must be placed in the context of a sense of duty and strong ideological beliefs. Albeit interesting, this argument is based on a simplistic reading of the banality of evil thesis. A recent film by Margarethe Von Trotta (Hannah Arendt, 2012) and a commentary by Judith Butler (2011) both claim that Arendt did not mean to say that the men committing extraordinary evil were doing so under orders; rather, she wished to point out that their capacity for evil stemmed from their inability to think for themselves. The ordinariness of these men shocked the philosopher. They accepted the vision of reality provided by their government and were unable to dispute it. The existence of Hitler's bureaucrats was unremarkably defined by the narrative of the time. This explanation does not deny the fact that they may have believed in what they were doing or had some agency. Arendt's claim aimed to challenge the strict terms of the legal judgment. How was it possible to judge a single man, when what happened was the product of an ideology supported by the regime? Eichmann fervently believed that Jews were repellent and contributed to their extermination with zeal and agency. Yet to Arendt, the tragedy was that Eichmann demonstrated how individuals may concede the ability to think and define issues of the time. They believed what they were told. Even if I understand why such a revision of Arendt's thesis is appealing, some utility remains in the thesis. Most notably, it challenges our understanding of personal responsibility upon which the legal model of accountability is based. How can we account for these events in which a great number of people take part, if not by considering the social and political context? Milgram's experiment was based on Solomon Asch's (1951) work and its demonstration of the pressure of social groups on humans. Branningan invites us to move beyond Milgram's experiment, but in doing so, he has thrown the baby out with the bath water. We must consider the responsibility of those actors not directly involved in committing the offence: those who define the criminal social policy and those who contribute to enacting it but may not be in close proximity to the victims. We still have not found out how to sanction criminal social policy. One of the most significant contributions of criminology to criminal law's understanding of criminal responsibility is the ability to mediate an individual's actions by taking into consideration people's meanings and the specific social and historical circumstances which contributed to forming them. Milgram's, and Asch's experiment proved that humans are likely to conform to peers' expectations to please others and be accepted. Even if Eichmann was not an ordinary man and if, as recent biographies claim, he was convinced of Jews' inferiority, it is also true that a number of other Germans concurred in seeing extermination as the only solution. Regardless of whether these were reactions to peculiar material and historical conditions or the result of attachment to political groups providing a sense of belonging and identity, many Germans participated in the extermination of the Jews. So too, many Tutsis contributed to the genocide in Rwanda. If it is important to sanction those terrible acts, it is necessary to understand the conditions enabling them. Arendt argued that we should consider criminal the circumstances enabling people not to think responsibly about the consequences of their actions. She pointed to the incrimination of criminal ideologies or criminal structures, not just criminal individuals. That is no less important today and remains a challenge for our understanding of mass criminality. Overall, Brannigan's book is a welcome and challenging addendum to a growing body of work on international criminal justice. It pushes us beyond the received understanding of the processes linked to the production and sanctioning of mass atrocities and forces us to rethink the aetiology of state criminality.
The intersection or otherwise of Islamic law and international human rights law remains a subject of debate. What is the best way to evaluate the relationship between two important bodies of law which are influential in the current global configurations of the rule of law? A number of authors have examined and continue to devote attention to this issue. This is also the interest of the editors and multisectoral contributors – scholars of Islamic law, international human rights law, government officials and members of civil society organisations – to Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law: Searching for Common Ground?. There are 21 chapters in this volume which have been divided into five thematic parts. Each part contains essays by a specialist in international human rights law and another by a specialist in Islamic Law and legal history. These are followed by commentaries reflecting on both, or at least one, of the essays by ‘leading figures from the academy, judiciary, international legal profession, and civil society’ (p.10). Except for the first part of the book which is on Islamic law and international human rights law generally, each of the other four parts focuses on some of the most important ‘flash-points’ in the debates on Islamic law and international human rights law. The second part focuses on freedom of speech while the third examines freedom of religion. The fourth part evaluates gender equality and the last part addresses minority rights. There is no doubt that there are other ‘flashpoints’ in the debates on Islamic law and international human rights law but many students of this area of study will agree that the four considered in this book are easily the most topical. The editors of this volume – Emon, Ellis and Glahn – and the other contributors, recognise the need to analyse the divergence in the normative, conceptual, theoretical or ideological values of Islamic law and international human rights law. However, they further argue that there is a need to take account of significant considerations beyond these issues that impact on the interaction of Islamic law with international human rights law. One major such consideration is politics – a usual suspect in (de)constructing the framework for the promotion and protection of international human rights. In this regard, there is a need to recognise the important role that the State plays in constructing the context for dialogue between Islamic law and international human rights law. Civil society also has an important role in mediating experiences of Islamic law and international human rights. With varying levels of engagement, the various authors discuss their topics with consideration of the mechanisms for adjudicating violations of Islamic law and international human rights and under what circumstances these are activated; the implications of regional human rights systems as well as Islamic law on domestic and international legal systems; the role of State mediation in mediating experiences of Islamic law and international human rights law; and the impact of efficacy (or, indeed, deficiency) of State power on both. The editors of this book point out that some scholars take the view that there is no common ground between Islamic law and international law, while others challenge that view. A different group, a ‘crude form’ of the cultural relativist argument, advance the position that there is a need to recognise and accept ‘distinct systems of meaning and value’ (p.3). This book contends that each of these approaches is unsatisfactory as framed. Hence, the volume advances a ‘genealogical approach’ which the authors termed ‘clearing the ground’. This approach has affinity for the ‘common ground’ approach with due attention to the contextual dimension of the development of the interacting traditions of Islamic law and international human rights law. The aim of the ‘clearing the ground’ approach is ‘not to suggest a retreat from the search for common ground’ but a call for caution in pursuit of the aspiration for common ground between Islamic law and international human rights law. This is premised on the need to pay attention to ‘historical, intellectual and political contours of each tradition’ (p.4). Many advocates of the common ground approach are likely to agree with the need for caution in constructing common ground between Islamic law and international human rights law advanced in Islamic Law and International Human Rights Law: Searching for Common Ground?. However, those familiar with the common ground approach are also likely to argue that it does integrate and considers as fundamental, the context-consciousness suggested by the ‘clearing the ground’ approach proposed by this book. So, relevant as the ‘clearing the ground’ approach is, it is open to the challenge of not presenting a significantly distinct framework from the common ground approach to the interaction of Islamic law with international law. Notwithstanding any such challenge, this volume provides sound analyses of the ongoing topical debate on how to understand and mediate the sometimes seemingly intractable relationship between Islamic law and international law. It significantly advances and broadens our knowledge, both of the workings of Islamic law and international human rights and the interface of the two, shining new light on the importance of the agency of the State and civil society in that interaction. Scholars and students of Islamic law, international human rights law and international relations will find the contributions in this book an excellent and innovative resource.
A few years ago, academic bookshelves were groaning under the weight of new texts on restorative justice (RJ) (for example, see Daly 2004) but more recently there has been something of a lull. All the more reason to welcome this new volume by Meredith Rossner. Just Emotions is a product of a study which, Rossner explains, was prompted by her experience as a researcher attached to an experimental trial of RJ conferencing conducted by the Metropolitan police in the early 2000s. This scheme was one of a number of RJ pilots funded by the Home Office and independently evaluated by a team at Sheffield University, of which I was a member (Shapland, Robinson and Sorsby 2011). The London experiment was unusual in that it trialled RJ with adult offenders and serious offences (burglary and robbery), and it provides much of the data on which Rossner draws in this book. It is a long time since I have read a book as engagingly written and genuinely original as this, and even longer since I read an entire academic text in one sitting. What Rossner accomplishes in this slim volume constitutes an important advance for RJ theory. Taking as her starting point the idea that how we define ‘success’ in RJ (primarily in terms of outcomes like reduced reconvictions or victim satisfaction) is somewhat at odds with how facilitators describe their best experiences of convening conferences (which emphasise processes and emotions), Rossner advocates a micro-sociological approach to understanding the ingredients of both ‘successful’ and ‘unsuccessful’ encounters. Applying concepts from the sociology of interactional rituals (set out in Chapter 3) to a range of empirical data, Rossner develops a theory of RJ conferencing which centres on the ‘emotional work’ performed by participants. Particularly fascinating is the detailed analysis, presented in Chapter 4, of a single conference which was captured on video for facilitator training purposes. This analysis, which enables Rossner to expose key microsociological concepts like ‘rhythmic entrainment’, ‘emotional turning points’, ‘balance’ and ‘solidarity’, adds empirical weight to the theory which she goes on to test using data from various sources, including interviews with police facilitators in London, who share details of their ‘best’ and ‘worst’ conferences (Chapter 5). In Chapters 6 and 7, Rossner takes her analysis several steps further, setting out to establish, statistically, whether there are relationships between the interactional dynamics of a conference and its outcomes – both short term and long term. Here she is somewhat constrained by reliance on data derived from the earlier RISE experiment in Canberra, Australia (Sherman et al. 1998), which are not direct measures of the concepts which are central to her theoretical model. Nonetheless, she finds a relationship between short-term outcome measures of ‘solidarity’ and ‘emotional energy’ on the one hand, and longer-term rearrest rates on the other. Her findings are also consistent with the argument that RJ processes are more likely to encourage desistance among more experienced offenders who have committed more serious offences. Rossner concludes by suggesting what her work can contribute to policy and practice – and, in particular, to the training of facilitators. This is an exceptionally rewarding read which has something important to say, not just to RJ researchers but to anyone with an interest in the relational and/or emotional dynamics of criminal justice. Whilst reading this book I paused several times to reflect on personal experiences of the dynamics described and captured so beautifully here. Just Emotions is an impressive accomplishment for Rossner, and a worthy addition to the prestigious Clarendon series.
This edited book demonstrates that ‘complexity theory’, in its various forms, is a highly-valuable theoretical concept when applied to the fields of criminal justice and social work. The text has been published at a time where ‘whole systems’ thinking is being applied or recommended in various social policy fields to address the complexity which characterises public services (for example, in child protection in England and youth justice in Scotland). The text is original and timely as it is the first of its kind to rigorously apply complexity theory to criminal justice and social work. The basic premise of complexity theory, and, indeed, this book, derives from the argument that positivism's causation model is unable to explain the intricate, multidimensional nature of human behaviour. A key argument put forward by Pycroft and Bartollas is that ‘outputs from any complex system are not necessarily proportionate to inputs and are, in fact, unpredictable due to the interaction effects within the system, subsystems and wider environmental demands’ (p.2). In this comprehensive 15-chapter book, a range of experts in this emerging theoretical field cover the central tenets of complexity theory as applied to criminal justice and social work, through introducing and explaining concepts of non-linearity, chaos, self-organisation, emergent properties and adaptation. In Chapter 6, Stephen Case and Kevin Haines demonstrate the usefulness of applying complexity theory to youth justice. Case and Haines challenge the dominance of reductionist risk-based models of understanding and responding to offending behaviour, and argue for the positivist risk paradigm to be replaced with a new way of conceptualising youth justice. The authors persuasively argue that research and practice based on complexity theory has the potential to open up creative ways of working through promoting less prescriptive practice, with interventions being more attuned to socio-structural contexts and accessing the views of young people who offend. An important feature of the book is that the theory is applied and explained through differing perspectives and epistemological positions by the author of each chapter. This book takes the reader on a journey by approaching complexity theory from different angles; Chapters 2–5 are based on positivist understandings, Chapters 6–11 derive from post-positivist and realist viewpoints, and lastly, Chapters 12 and 13 come from a constructivist perspective. There is considerable benefit and value in having a variety of different epistemological perspectives incorporated into the one text, because the reader is challenged to step away from typical theoretical silos and engage with crossovers and connections. However, due to this, readers of the book would need to have prior understandings of epistemology in order to really appreciate the text. Overall, this book is a challenging, insightful and engaging text that goes a long way in convincing readers of the value of applying complexity theory to criminal justice and social work.
The Howard Journal of Criminal JusticeVolume 54, Issue 5 p. 521-525 Counterblast Counterblast: Some Discussion of the Home Office Discussion Paper ‘Opportunity/Security as a Driver of Crime’ GRAHAM FARRELL, GRAHAM FARRELL Professor of International and Comparative Criminal Justice, Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, School of Law, University of LeedsSearch for more papers by this author GRAHAM FARRELL, GRAHAM FARRELL Professor of International and Comparative Criminal Justice, Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, School of Law, University of LeedsSearch for more papers by this author First published: 28 August 2015 https://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12148Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Volume54, Issue5December 2015Pages 521-525 RelatedInformation
‘Politics may be serious’, pronounced a headline in the New York Times in 1997, ‘But it's crime and sex that sell newspapers’ (Faison 1997). A truism of long standing, perhaps, but as historian, Lucy Bland, demonstrates in her new book, the press coverage of courtroom scenes and the sexual scandals they expose can reveal a great deal about the politics and pressing concerns of their age. And during the latter years of the First World War and the early 1920s, as men fought abroad while wives and daughters took on their work at home, as empire struggled and suffrage expanded amidst economic instability and the eventual challenges of returning to life in peacetime, it was the behaviour of the modern woman that was often singled out for scrutiny. This examination of a selection of high-profile trials from 1918 to 1924 offers a lively and engaging account of how contemporary anxieties surrounding the modern woman were played out in court and in the popular press. Beginning with dancer, Maud Allen's, libel case, in which she fought to clear her name of imputations of lesbianism, it covers inquests and prosecutions surrounding the trade and consumption of illegal drugs, the contrasting trials of two women accused of the murder of their husbands, and a bitterly-fought divorce suit involving cross-dressing, contested consummation, and a ‘virgin birth’. Each of the cases under examination was enormously well known at the time, and as Bland demonstrates through her skilful analysis of court transcripts, police records, letters, voluminous newspaper coverage, and more, they placed the morality, sexuality, ambitions, and even the dress and hobbies of the new type of fashionable young woman on trial. Bland also draws out the multifarious ways in which the wider social moment and concerns about class boundaries, sexual knowledge, marriage, motherhood, nationhood and race – especially the fearful ‘Orient’ – and the popularity of novels, nightclubs and dancing, shaped these cases, their eventual outcomes, and their depictions in the press. The most striking example is that of Edith Thompson, now widely regarded as the victim of a miscarriage of justice, who was executed for inciting her lover to murder her husband. Her adultery and passionate love letters, her childlessness, her enjoyment of romantic fiction, her suburban lower-middle-class status, her successful career, and her love of dancing and spending money are all highlighted by Bland as contributing to her public condemnation and now-astonishing criminal conviction. The book is particularly effective, however, in its inclusion of a variety of cases, which, when brought together, highlight the disparate, competing, and sometimes contradictory, fears, struggles, and mores of the era. Perhaps, given the importance of newspapers as a source for this book, more time could have been given throughout to contextualising these and examining their editors, contributors, and the differences and similarities in their representations of these cases. However, as an example of what we can learn from the nuances of courtroom performances, decisions and reporting, as well as an exploration of the fears and anxieties surrounding women and their changing behaviour in this particular period, Modern Women on Trial is an excellent work of history and a fascinating read.
The Howard Journal of Criminal JusticeVolume 54, Issue 1 p. 91-95 Counterblast Counterblast: Challenging the Corporation/Challenging the State Steve Tombs, Steve Tombs Professor of Criminology The Open UniversitySearch for more papers by this authorDavid Whyte, David Whyte Reader in Sociology University of LiverpoolSearch for more papers by this author Steve Tombs, Steve Tombs Professor of Criminology The Open UniversitySearch for more papers by this authorDavid Whyte, David Whyte Reader in Sociology University of LiverpoolSearch for more papers by this author First published: 05 January 2015 https://doi.org/10.1111/hojo.12116Citations: 8Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditWechat Citing Literature Volume54, Issue1February 2015Pages 91-95 RelatedInformation
AbstractThe advent of the Internet has expanded opportunities to commit fraud and millions regularly fall victim. Fraud victims in general have been largely neglected by researchers in comparison with other crimes. There has also been very little research on issues related to the sentencing of fraudsters. This article offers some of the first insights on what individual online fraud victims actually want regarding the sentencing of the scammers who target them. It explores their views on aggravating and mitigating factors as well as the different types of sanction which can be used. The article particularly highlights the opportunities and attraction of restorative justice‐based approaches to victims. It uses data from in‐depth interviews with 15 online fraud victims, six focus groups with a further 48 online fraud victims and interviews with nine professional stakeholders involved in combating this problem.
This book is remarkably timely, and full of cross-disciplinary insights and relevance. Behan opens by reminding the reader that: ‘Prisoner enfranchisement remains one of the few contested electoral issues in twenty-first-century democracies. It is at the intersection of punishment and representative government’ (p.2). The author's research locates prisoners’ right to vote in a wider historical, social, and political context, while emphasising the value in recognising voting rights as one part of a ‘mosaic of citizenship’ (p.201). Although the book's central framework is specific to Ireland and its curious prisoner voting history, Citizen Convicts extends the discussion into an international perspective and places the Irish case study within that landscape. This approach is what distinguishes the book from others on prison voting disqualification, and marks it as a noteworthy read. While Behan is upfront and explicit in his position against prisoner disenfranchisement, he thoroughly – and thoughtfully – evaluates the primary arguments for, and against, prisoner voting. At the heart of the disenfranchisement debate is the fundamental dispute of what the objective of imprisonment is. The second chapter is particularly compelling in this respect, as the author skilfully attempts to untangle the complexities of prisoners, punishment, and politics internationally. He highlights South Africa's stance, which stresses that ‘everybody counts’ (p.30), Canada's long-standing legal debates, as well as historic precedents in Italy, Austria, and Australia. The UK and USA are also discussed at length, due to their especially punitive ‘blanket ban’ policies, and the collateral consequences these produce. The following chapters present Behan's own research, which (in part) examined Irish prisoners’ political engagement and voting behaviour leading up to the 2007 general election, when those in custody became formally eligible to vote. The author's analysis of Ireland's journey to enfranchisement is framed by his questioning of why, in a country where so many prisoners and ex-prisoners have achieved prominent political positions, this had not facilitated a greater positive impact on progressive policy, or moving prisoner voting rights further, faster. The uniqueness of the political terrain in Ireland, along with the nearly absent public objection – or support – toward prisoner enfranchisement, makes this an exceptional case study. The remaining sections explore the significance and implications of Behan's study, along with a broader discussion of citizenship, civic and social capital, and potential ways this can be developed or energised in marginalised or excluded groups. The author argues that giving prisoners the opportunity to vote is a two-way dynamic, in that it is a positive and symbolic sign from the government, and is also indicative of change. Echoing Putnam's (2000) work, Behan concludes: ‘Widespread abstentionism reflects something deeper than not voting. It indicates disengagement from the political system and civic society. A robust and healthy democracy is built on participation among all sections of society’ (p.142). Indeed, disenfranchisement is not just a prison(er) problem; it is a societal failing. Citizen Convicts is an enjoyable read cover to cover, as Behan's passion and depth of scholarly knowledge shines throughout the text.
What can criminology or socio‐legal studies tell us about the causes of the financial crisis – a failure of regulation, at the very least – or ways in which further such crises might be prevented, mitigated, responded to? The article begins by setting out the emergence and dimensions of the academic orthodoxy on regulation – a series of shared assumptions regarding feasible and desirable forms of regulation. Then it undertakes a quantitative and qualitative content analysis of work on regulation and the crisis to assess the extent to which this orthodoxy has been reassessed in the light of events since 2007.
Such is the power of American television and film that many of us feel that we ‘know’ the USA. That ‘knowledge’ may even lead some into error about the nature of crime and criminal justice in our own country. The popularity of nordic noir has not yet achieved that distinction. There is very little mention of the media and none of popular culture in this collection, though ‘cowboy’ masculinity features in Chapters 1 and 4. The emphasis is on violence or the threat of violence, usually by men; and by both criminals and criminal justice agents. After an introduction to the theoretical and Nordic context by the three editors, there are 13 chapters by 18 contributors from Norway, Sweden, Finland and Denmark, of both genders. Much of the work is empirical, but engaged with theory and grouped into sections on control, vulnerability, and risk. Chapters 1 (Jon) and 2 (Pettersson) respectively show how the control structures and personnel of institutions enforce, rather than undermine, stereotypical masculinities and, unsurprisingly, we learn in Chapter 3 (Ugelvik) of the significance of the ‘inmate code’ in ‘being a man’. Equal opportunities legislation is behind Lander's (Chapter 4) claim that ‘police women’ are accepted, yet makes no mention of Heidensohn (1995) and other researchers who have looked at the issue. Burcar (Chapter 6) seeks to empower the young male victims of muggings. The challenges to masculinity that Honkatukia and Suurpää (Chapter 7) examine are racism in Finland. Racism features in Heinskou's chapter (8) where ‘fictitious’ rapists were often described in terms of the racialised ‘other’. Houge's chapter (9) on sexualised war violence by and against men in the former Yugoslavia is challenging in its content, though its only Nordic connection is the author. However, it fits seamlessly into the theoretical field of the book. The risk-taking of the final section involves cars (Balkmar and Joelson, Chapter 10), poker (Simonsen, Chapter 11) and drugs. In the final chapter (13), Pettersson and Carlson take a life course perspective to drug use and desistance. Most interesting though, is Harder and Ravn's insistence, in Chapter 12, on the ‘masculinity’ deployed by young women in their recreational drug use. As the book results from a seminar, it is a little unfair to mention the omissions, but sexuality is clearly one. The selective index makes no mention of ‘gay’, ‘homosexual’, ‘queer’ or even ‘sexuality’. This, despite many citations of Judith Butler and some claims in the introduction; there is mere passing reference to ‘homosexuality’ in Chapter 5 on the past use of castration to treat ‘abnormal sexuality’. In common with much of the ‘masculinity turn’ in criminology, the book sees gender but still fails to fully see sexuality (Groombridge 1995).
