Prison Governor Interview

There was an interview with the governor of HMP Cornton Vale, Scotland’s only women’s prison, on the radio last Sunday, which you can listen to here

The most obvious thing to come through the interview is this individual’s clear feeling that she is more of a social worker than a prison governor, indeed, a career in social work was her first choice when she left university (she said she decided against social work after being advised that she would need to maintain professional detachment!)

I was recently having a conversation with someone who has contact with prison governors across Scotland and we agreed that many of them are quiet (or not so quiet) penal reformers, trying to do what they can in their own prison within the confines of pressures of overcrowding, the churn of short term sentences, and the very wide range of problems that prisoners present with. I wonder whether these governors arrive in their post with these feelings or whether they emerge as an inevitable consequence of their experiences in their job. I also wonder whether prison officers have similar motivations in their job, and if they don’t, why this might be.

Incidentally, in the interview, she was also very honest about the macho culture of the prison service, saying she had nearly resigned at an earlier stage of her career because of it. This was an honest answer, given that many women who reach senior positions deny there is sexism or a macho culture within their organisation, because to do so would make them appear in some way ‘weak’. I read an interview with the newly appointed first female Scottish Chief Constable recently (which I can’t seem to find online any more, sorry), who said that, while she knew from others that sexism existed in the police force, she had personally never been aware of it, which I felt very strongly was motivated by her need to be respected by her (male dominated) force at the beginning of her tenure.

The battle for Attica Square

A short video on the issue of illegal migration in Greece and the ongoing deteriorating living conditions in Athens. This is probably the hottest issue right now in Greece due to the local and peripheral elections in less than two weeks.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPl9PW7ONIQ

The producer (Journeyman pictures), although not impartial generally (if the total of the videos were taken into consideration), gives an honest depiction of the contemporary reality in Athens. On the one side the sad stories of 2-3 million people that try to avoid brutality in their homelands and on the other side the huge financial and bureaucratic burden on the Greek State and the anxieties of the locals that move towards racist views.

Nevertheless, few information are missing to complete the image. The last one year immigrants do not stay in detention centres more than 3 days. They are signing a declaration in which they acknowledge that they trespassed the borders and that they will leave the country in no more than one month. They are then allowed to evacuate the centre with the hope that they will spread across Greece and avoid concentrating in a specific area and by that creating a ghetto. Nevertheless, the vast majority of them do actually come in Attica sq. and generally the centre of Athens something which creates the explosive mixture you can witness in the video.

What is also missing is the views of dispassionate locals and not the graphic figures of the video. They are not enraptured in racist views, they are faced though with the increasing criminality of the area which is attributed to the migrants. The phenomenon ranges from petty thefts and drug transactions to robberies and arson. If the first would be tolerated and to a degree avoided with proper protection, they cannot do the same for the others. Therefore, they are looking for scapegoats.

Another very important information is that really close to Attica sq. is the Exarhia neighborhood were the treatment of immigrants is exactly the opposite. Traditionally this is supposed to be the "anarchist quarter" of the city were extreme right and racist views are not tolerated (something which sometimes leads to similar fascist views...but this is another story). Anarchist groups often take over the protection of immigrants in very brutal fights with skinheads in Attica sq.

It seems to me that the issue is falsely put as a contradiction over the "Greekness" or the Greek identity. This is rather a strong opposition between the political left and right over the issues of migration and petty-criminality. As a matter of fact few days ago people from Attica sq. attacked communist candidates campaigning for the local elections.

Online crime maps - a Murder Map of London

As a maker of crime maps myself, I have a strong interest in online and publicly available crime maps. I am always keen to look at new examples of how people are using publicly available data on crime in map form.

At their best online crime maps can provide an innovative and interesting way of representing crime data; at their worst they have the potential to be misleading, confusing, may come close to breaching individual privacy and have potential to cause distress to victims. The BBC ran interesting article discussing this, back in 2008, when official online crime maps were proposed for England and Wales.

One of the earliest examples of online crime maps was the Chicago crime map project which took data publicly reported by the Chicago police and made it available in map form. This has subsequently been developed into the everyblock website.
http://chicago.everyblock.com/crime/by-primary-type/homicide/

In recent years there has been a growth of online crime mapping, as more people have become proficient in using google maps to represent data, with some interesting recent examples.
http://spotcrime.com/uk/london

In the UK pressure / encouragement from both the Mayor of London, and subsequently the UK Home Office, the Metropolitan Police to produce an online crime mapping service in September 2008:-
http://maps.met.police.uk/

Online crime maps for all England and Wales police forces have been available since January 2009 and can be accessed through here:-
http://maps.police.uk/


Now the BBC have highlighted a recent new site showing location of murders in London, the sites founders are using court reports and believe they are providing a useful service, but the BBC also note Victim Support have said the site is "grossly insensitive" to victims families.

The site is:
http://www.murdermap.co.uk/

I'd encourage you to take a look and consider what you think.

How fair is Britain - new EHRC report - imprisonment of ethnic minorities

The Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) has just released a report called How Fair is Britain. It is a wide ranging and detailed report covering a range of themes :- Life, Legal and Physical Security, Health, Education, Employment and Standard of Living. It is the first of what will be a series an ongoing 3 yearly review reports (Triennial Reviews) assessing levels of inequality in Britain. Where possible it presents statistics for both England and Wales and Scotland.

The reports includes some interesting statistics directly relating to crime, criminal justice and imprisonment. These are mainly in Chapter 7 - Legal Security and Chapter 8 - Physical Security.

Whilst we are perhaps used to reading about disproportionately high levels of imprisonment of people from ethnic minorities in the US it's not so often highlighted for Britain.

However, from this report The Guardian has highlighted that:
- there are 'more black people jailed in England and Wales proportionally than in US',
- that the ethnic minority populaiton in prison has doubled in last decade (the EHRC report states numbers increased from '11,332 in 1998 to 22,421 in 2008' (EHRC, 2010, 172) although the rate of increase slowed from 2005).
- that the ethnic minority groups make up 25% of the England and Wales prison population (the report highlights these groups make up 11% of the general population).

For the Guardian article see here:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/oct/11/black-prison-population-increase-england

The full report can be accessed here:-
http://www.equalityhumanrights.com/key-projects/triennial-review/full-report-and-evidence-downloads/

Stigma and Drug Users

A report published yesterday said that calling problem drug users 'junkies' or 'addicts' provides a major obstacle to their rehabilitation, because of the terms' labelling affects. The report by the UK Drugs Policy Commission said that the Government's current moves toward an abstinence based approach will not work unless underlying prejudice towards drug users is tackled. See the story in the press.

Made me think about labelling theory generally and other attempts to put it into policy. The Children's Hearing System is one obvious example, can anyone else think of any others?

For evidence of stigma towards drug users in action and the many ways in which attitudes are disseminated, see today's daily mash. Sometimes it gets it really right, sometimes really wrong.

Summer Reading Project: 24th August 2010

Just a quick reminder that this Tuesday 24th August, Ellie will be presenting chapter 7 of 'Governing Through Crime'. We will be meeting in room 406 again, at 3pm as usual.

Summer Reading Project: 10th August 2010

Our reading group meets next Tuesday at 3pm when Ioannis will give an overview of Chapter 8: 'Penalty Box: Crime, Victimization, and Punishment in the Deregulated Workplace'. Please note the change in venue to Room 406 in Old College.

Summer Reading Project: 27th July 2010

Just a reminder that the next meeting is in the Inner Common Room at 3pm on Tuesday 27th July. Christine will be giving an overview of Chapter 6 from Jonathan Simon's Governing Through Crime. Look forward to seeing you there.

BBC suggests why crime falls or rises

You may be interested or entertained by an article in the BBC online magazine today which in response to the latest results from the British Crime Survey (BCS) has decided to run an article on why crime rises or falls.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-10635206

Some interesting theories are mentioned here, but many others are missing.

Their choice of experts is interesting too. They use Adam Crawford, Ian Marsh and also the human geographer Danny Dorling who has done some projects for the BBC in the past.

The article has left me pondering which theories I would include and which I would leave out if trying to summarise this topic. There's no mention of the link between age and crime for example (and the various theories relating to this). Given that the population of the UK is ageing and the majority of crime tends to be committed by younger people this might have been an interesting area to discuss. A quick look at population statistics for England and Wales (i.e. the area covered by the BCS) shows that the proportion of population aged between 15 and 34 has declined:- 30.1% in 1981, 29.6% in 1991, 26.5% in 2001 and 26.2% in 2008; the population aged 60 and over has increased: 20.5% in 1981, 21.0% in 1991, 20.7% in 2001, 22.1% in 2008(Source Office for National Statistics, 2009, Population Trends Table 1.4).

What would you include? Which experts would you have ideally liked to comment?

Summer Reading Project: 13 July 2010

Just a reminder that the next meeting is in the Inner Common Room at 3pm on Tuesday 13th July. Katrina will be giving an overview of Chapter 5 'Project Exile: Race, the War on Crime, and Mass Imprisonment' from Jonathan Simon's Governing Through Crime. Look forward to seeing you there.

By way of a slightly tenuous link you might be interested that the Chief Inspector of Probation Andrew Bridges has called today for a 'deeper debate' on prison and punishment - whilst he recognises that prison can prevent offending, he also argues that this is a very expensive way of doing this. You can listen to the interview from Radio 4 Today programme here:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8809000/8809436.stm

Guardian Series: Crime and Fear

For your interest... the Guardian is running a series on Fear of Crime in the media at the moment, which seems to consist of articles mostly arguing that a better understanding of how 'fear of crime' is propagated can help us to progress more constructively as a society. Also, there is a preview of a documentary on the subject which is really interesting and features commentary from Rod Morgan about the progression of Law and Order issues in politics, which might tie in quite well with some of the issues we've been discussing while reading 'Governing Through Crime'.

Here's the link:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/series/crime-and-fear

Summer Reading Project: 29 June 2010

Our next meeting is on 29 June at 3pm in LO4. I'll be giving an overview of Chapter 4 'Judgement and Distrust: The Jurisprudence of Crime and the Decline of Judicial Governance' and look forward to seeing you then.

A great blog for everyday sociology with a twist of cringe-worthy humour.

Gender and policing 101...

http://contexts.org/socimages/2010/06/11/a-cop-car-for-you-little-police-boy/

Plural Policing and Transition: Reflections on Ellison an O'Rawe (2010)

For those of you with any interest in matters of plural policing, security governance, or even transitional justice, check out a recent article by Graham Ellison and Mary O'Rawe titled “Security Governance in Transition...” published in the journal Theoretical Criminology earlier this year (Vol. 14:1).

What really made this article stand out for me was the fact that unlike most previous attempts to subject Clifford Shearing's 'nodal security governance thesis' to 'empirical scrutiny' (p. 32), Ellison and O'Rawe manage to do so convincingly in relation to a transitional context through their analysis which suggests that “...contrary to the official rhetoric valorizing and claiming local community participation in the aftermath of the ICP reforms, policing has remained decidedly ‘top down’...” (p. 34). As somebody researching the police reform process in Bosnia and Herzegovina it is thus hardly surprising that reading this article immediately compelled me to look for parallels between these two transitional societies (of which I believe there to be many). Off the top of my head, Andy Aitchison's (2007) article in Policing and Society which focuses on the international donor community's approach to shaping the police reform process in Bosnia and Herzegovina similarly concludes that “...mainstream policing assistance to BiH has remained focused on a paradigm dominated by state provision...” (p. 338) while Hansen's (2008) analysis of the EUPM's recent push for greater centralisation and coordination between the country's cantonal and municipal police forces also appears to be indicative of a persistent 'top-down' reformative mentality.

From this quick comparison there arises an important question of whether there are common underlying factors which exist in most transitional (post-conflict) societies that serve to impede upon the actualisation of nodal or pluralistic policing practices or whether this trend, as observed within these two sites is better attributed to unique contextual circumstances such as the historical character of police-community relations, distinctive sources of convergence/policy transfer, and even the existing institutional culture and organization structures of both government and the police. While I would argue that local differences must not be ignored when conducting any kind of comparative analysis, there do appear to be a number of seemingly logical reasons as to why any transitional state with a recent history of conflict would hesitate to embrace a pluralistic framework for policing. Lacking the time or the energy to cover them all here, I will illustrate one such rationale which appears to be pertinent to key decision makers in all transitional contexts featuring enduring social divisions and I will then proceed to draw attention to a major flaw in its underlying reasoning as evident from my own ongoing research based in Bosnia and Herzegovina.

Reverting back to Ellison and O'Rawe's analysis of the Independent Commission on Policing in Northern Ireland, one source of concern for both transitional governments and international donors alike regarding the implementation of a participatory model of local security governance is that it could create opportunities for potentially destabilizing local actors and interests (i.e. nationalist parties or even former combatants) to assert and possibly even legitimize their divisive interests within these newly created 'spaces' (p. 43). Perhaps this reasoning should be seen as hardly surprising given that Nicola Lacey and Lucia Zedner (1995) have previously described how the the concept of community, which arguably represents the paradigmatic manifestation of these 'spaces' in most late modern societies, has come to represent an important site of political contestation between liberal and conservative interests in mainland Britain over the past two decades. Thus, while in Northern Ireland, even though the government has not overtly resisted the rhetorical impetus towards Shearing's nodal model of policing, Ellison and O'Rawe nonetheless demonstrate that it (through its various agents including the public police) has managed to subvert any real progress to this effect by “...position[ing] itself to continue to ‘steer’ policing, untroubled by the vagaries of democratic input (p. 45)...”

While perhaps these fears and the resultant actions are not surprising, I would nonetheless argue they are vastly overstated, even when one considers the potentially destabilising issues inherent to most transitional societies. As evident from the fragmented structures of both government and the police in Bosnia and Herzegovina, the risk that these newly created spaces could fall victim to hegemonic manipulation by divisive local interests may actually pale in comparison to the prospect that these same divisive interests are ultimately capable of attaining power and even legitimizing themselves through the formal institutions of the state. This is evident throughout Bosnia and Herzegovina as nationalist parties continue to dominate elections, transparency in terms of both governance and policing is lacking, and municipal police forces across the country remain largely homogeneous in terms of their ethnic composition. All of this effectively translates into a dysfunctional system of state-centric security governance whereby large segments of the population continue to view the police as either corrupt, oppressive and sometimes at best unreliable.

In lieu of these shortcomings, one must therefore consider that concept of community may in fact hold real promise for improving the local provision of security governance in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In fact, it may represent the only prospect for any positive change given that Bosnia and Herzegovina's private security sector remains highly underdeveloped and understaffed compared to neighbouring Croatia and thus does not represent a major compliment or alternative to public policing in this context. I argue that this effectively leaves community-based policing and community safety programmes as the leading options for pursuing what Aitchison (2007) has previously described as 'micro-level reforms' conducive to a pluralistic nodal model of local security governance.

Note that I plan to develop this argument further in two papers that I am planning to present at the ESC Conference and the Cambridge PhD Criminology Conference in September but for now, I suggest that if any of this interests you, read through Ellison and O'Rawe's article!

Governing through crime

In the previous meeting of the reading project, we discussed the US-specific focus of Simon's work. It seems that Gemma was not the only one to spot this! In the newest issue of the European Journal of Criminology there is an article that tries to find parallel developments in the European Union. Here is the abstract:

Estella Baker
European Journal of Criminology 7(3) 187-213.

In Governing through Crime, Jonathan Simon offers an 'interpretation' of contemporary practices, discourses and experiences of the state in the USA that aims to provide a 'thick' account of the use of crime as a governance strategy. In support of this argument, he cites a variety of constitutional, cultural, economic, historical , political and social factors. Many of them are demonstrably US-specific. Therefore, any potential for exploring the application of his ideas to another governmental entity might appear to be precluded. This article challenges that supposition, investigating their possible relevance to an understanding of the European Union's evolving and increasingly significant role as a penal actor.

Summer Reading Project: 15 June

Our third meeting takes place on Tuesday 15 June at 3pm. Please note change of venue for this meeting - Room L04. Jarrett will start the discussion on Chapter 3: 'We the Victims: Fearing Crime and Making Law'.

SCCJR Research Soundbites

Here's a link to the SCCJR Vimeo account where they have interviewed some members (most recently Fergus McNeill) on their research. Also includes lectures from Anthony Bottoms and Rod Morgan....

http://www.vimeo.com/12365719

Gritty Danish Prison Drama Anyone?

Hi everybody.

I was looking through the offerings for the upcoming Edinburgh International Film Festival and came across a film called 'R' which is a Danish prison drama. See the links below for more information and a trailer (in Danish).

http://www.edfilmfest.org.uk/whats-on/2010/r

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBLR3-NMNNg

Anyhow, I am planning to book myself a ticket to see it on Saturday 19 June at 20:45 at the Filmhouse and I think that our esteemed moderator and her non-biological twin are planning on joining me so please feel free to come along and perhaps we can all go for a drink afterwards and discuss the film.

Police Culpability for Failings in the Rachel Nickell Murder Investigation

In relation to a recent discussion on the blog regarding the use of offender profiling in the investigation into the murder of Rachel Nickell, I thought I'd highlight the ongoing media interest in this case. However, there's a change in focus today, as an IPCC report has stressed the culpability of the Metropolitan police for the failure to prevent this murder. The report details a series of police 'blunders' which prevented Robert Napper, the man convicted of this crime, from being identified sooner, in spite of numerous previous instances where he was brought to their attention. Although there's no mention of offender profiling, this does give rise to other issues. Can we reasonably expect the police to respond to all 'tip offs' from members of the public? Do the conclusions of the report indicate real failings in policing procedures, or do they merely benefit from hindsight in highlighting unfortunate police mistakes?

The full article can be found here on the Guardian website:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/jun/03/police-blunders-robert-napper-murders

The Scheme: voyeurism and exploitation or fair depiction of hidden sections of society?

I just watched the first episode of The Scheme last night after discussion about it in our meeting yesterday. I found it compelling and slightly horrifying if I'm honest, had to watch most of it through my fingers. I had a wee trawl through comments online to see what's being said about it, and whether it has prompted any discussion about 'the underclass' as was speculated. The debates seem to be around whether this is an accurate depiction of life on that housing estate or indeed on housing estates round the country and whether the editing process has sensationalised it or not.

The local MSP and those who live in that community say the programme has picked the most extreme families of the area, and painted a picture that does not do justice to many people who do an honest day work and do the best for their families.

Even if this is case and these are the most extreme cases, it nonetheless provided a textbook casestudy worthy of any developmental criminologist's inquiry. Yikes, somebody call a social worker.

'Dear Minister' letters: and other election tales

Those still following the post-election debate and speculation about roads not yet travelled in the realms of crime and justice may find a series of letters in the current edition of Criminal Justice Matters interesting. Penned by Richard Sparks and Ian Loader, and other academics, they represent a well-timed engagement with some of the issues likely to be facing the new government, and the role of criminology.

See: http://www.swetswise.com.ezproxy.webfeat.lib.ed.ac.uk/FullTextProxy/swproxy?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.informaworld.com

And for an intriguing round-up of the Holyrood shake-up - and fallout - after the Westminster elections, along with some speculation about the likely implications for law and justice issues, see this recent entry by our fellow Law School bloggers in Scots Law News:

http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/sln/blogentry.aspx?blogentryref=8234

Prostitution debate rumbles on..

Newsnight again provides the focus for some criminological debate.. Did anyone see it last night? http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00slqlg/Newsnight_27_05_2010/

It lead with the murders of three prostitutes in Bradford, and subsequent arrest of a man for the crimes (criminology doctorate student no less - as if we don't have a bad enough reputation as it is). Not the finest of Newsnight reports I have to say, but nonetheless highlight the perennial problem of how best to deal with prostitution. What should the aim of policy be? To keep women safe (and therefore decriminalise it, so they can operate in relatively public places, or perhaps in saunas etc where there is better security)? To try and stop prostitution 'at the source'? (i.e. criminalise the men who use prostitutes? This then also drives it underground though, putting prostitutes at the same risk again). Or to criminalise it completely and send out a clear message to men that using prostitutes is unacceptable and try and help women who are at risk to come off drugs or whatever?

Similarly to Jared's posting about the immigration issue in Arizona, police emphasise that they need to have good relations with this section of the population and criminalising them will impede that. There have been recent attempts to completely criminalise prostitution in Scotland, lead by some strong feminist minded MSPs, but they were defeated in Parliament thank goodness.

Can it ever be stopped? Or should policy just be pragmatic and mange the problem? Discuss.. (only joking)

Afghanistan's Prison

If you're interested in prisons have a look at last night's Newsnight which featured quite a revealing report on Afghanistan's most notorious prison 'Pul-e-Charkhi'. It was interesting to hear the prison officers say that their aims were quite similar to many western prisons: "the prisoners should be punished, rehabilitated and returned to the community as sound members", but the reality seemed to be that a quite corrupt system created by judges who could 'release people for $20,000' was maintaining a widespread sense of injustice. Also, the control of the Taliban over sections of the prison seemed to add to the feeling that the while it appeared to be an austere and punitive setting, that in some sections the prison officers had seemingly lost their legitimacy.

Here's a link to it on the iPlayer:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00skxhl/b00skxhd/Newsnight_26_05_2010/

Law enforcement not order maintenance: the classic dilemma of modern policing in a political context

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/26/AR2010052602603.html

Profiling issues aside, does anybody actually believe that this is a) a valid use of police resources or b) see any possible beneficial outcomes which may result from this initiative? The other interesting question of course is why do you need to make a law in order to enforce a pre-existing law? Surely the limited resources of Arizona's criminal justice system are best utilized elsewhere.

Summer Reading Project : 1 June

Reminder to all that our next meeting is on Tuesday 1 June, 3pm, in the Inner Common Room. Gemma will give us an overview of Chapter 2: 'Prosecutor-in-Chief: Executive Authority and the War on Crime' and lead discussion.

In anticipation of Jonathan Simon's forthcoming visit to the Law School as Visting Professor 2010-11, it would be useful to further discuss how best to develop this project during his stay, so all suggestions welcome.

And for those not already following his blog for a compelling insight on the politics of crime stateside, here's the link again:

http://governingthroughcrime.blogspot.com/

Queen's Speech

In the new coalition government's first Queen's Speech today, it seems that the move towards 'putting power back in the hands of the people' and reinstating civil liberties has been extended to policing, with a bill being promised which will allow directly elected individuals to have a crucial role in overseeing the work of police forces. The 'Police Reform and Social Responsibility Bill' will implement this key Conservative law and order policy and Home Secretary Theresa May has said that "the directly-elected individuals will ensure police chiefs are held to account and serve their local people effectively". However, this seems most obviously to be a move towards a politicization of the policing system and it will be interesting to see how various members of policing organisations will react to this.

Here's a link to more information on this in today's Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/elected-individuals-to-oversee-police-forces-1982413.html

SCCJR 4th Annual Lecture - 1 June 2010

Just in case anyone doesn't know the Scottish Centre for Crime & Justice Research Annual Lecture is being given by Shadd Maruna this year. It's entitled 'What are Psychopaths for?: Dangerousness and the Popular Imagination'.

If anyone is keen to go, and has not signed up yet, you might want to get in touch to book up as last I heard places were filling up very fast. You can email enquiries@sccjr.ac.uk to reserve a place.

The lecture is on Tuesday 1st June starting at 1730 in the Playfair Library at Edinburgh University.

More details are here:-
http://www.sccjr.ac.uk/events.php?m=6&event=432#view

Prisons and Probation Policy : an interlude

With its announcement last week that it intends to conduct a review of sentencing policy, the coalition government appears to be buying itself some time to consider the vexed issue of the prison population, and perhaps how to reconcile some of their contradictory election stances (and historical commitments).

Meanwhile, the political interlude has allowed the airing of some interesting perspectives on prison and sentencing policy over the last decade or so. For the latest, see today's comment by Lord Ramsbotham, former Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales 1995-2001 :

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/may/24/prisons-policy-labour-crisis-probation

Are crime rates falling?

In our last meeting the issue of falling (?) crime rates has been mentioned. Find bellow the link to the discussion in the newsletter of the European Society of Criminology:

http://www.esc-eurocrim.org/newsletter/Apr10ESCnewsletter.pdf

Penal reform: 'key policy flashpoint' ?

For more on this issue, and some useful insight of the new Justice Secretary's (hitherto) position on the prison population, see:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2010/may/19/coalition-government-prison-building-programme

The article also gives a link to a briefing paper on prisons published today:

http://www.prisonreformtrust.org.uk/uploads/documents/prisonbriefingsmall.pdf

"Cain's House"

Following on the recent "documentary series" of the blog, you might be interested in a Greek documentary film on the issue of Murder. Hristos Karakepelis directed the film during the late 90s and it got finally out in 2000. It presents mainly the murderers' views on the causes and motivations as well as their description of the very moment of committing the crime. Additionally, and maybe more interestingly, they present (or at least try to) their feelings afterwards. They all seem to regret but some of them insist that they would do it again under the same circumstances...like the "in-escepability" of the Greek tragedy.

As the title already implies, the movie presents not only Cain but his house as well, namely the prison. In this framework, the director conducts a very interesting interview with the head guard of the prison. He simply reveals and admits what numerous criminologists working on prison environment were trying to find out.

It is not one of the common TV-documentaries but an actual movie with a rather minimalistic approach. The director chose to provide the interviews unmediated; in the way that hard facts are presented in a research. He gives, though, his personal touch in between the interviews with pictures from 'Korydallos' (the main prison serving the area of Athens) covering the induction process of detainees, their everyday life, the personnel's daily routine as well as the rank-and-file process.

The film is subtitled in English (the trailer is dubbed) and I have a legal copy of it. If interested, we can organize a presentation. In order to be by the (copyright law) book, I'm afraid that I cannot just give you the copy I have!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=slnj9Bg2yVQ

Prison Policy 'Incoherence' ?

The Sunday Telegraph is one of the first to comment on the apparent contradictions in Lib Dem / Conservative policies on prisons; interesting to note how quickly the debate is being framed in terms of economic restraint. See:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7728930/Why-the-coalition-is-set-to-bring-us-a-rise-in-crime.html

Whodunnit?

For your interest.. there's a fascinating piece in today's Guardian by documentary maker Jon Ronson. It's about meeting some of the people who were famous for criminal profiling and really nicely shows the almost romantic appeal of the somewhat mysterious practice, while contrasting that with the huge pitfalls of getting it wrong. Also quite an interesting take on criminology as a field from an outsider's perspective when he attends a conference and comments on the increased focus on statistics as a safer bet in these situations.

Centre for Crime and Justice Studies says Too Much is Being Spent on Police

Just saw a piece on the BBC news with Theresa May meeting community police and stating that a Conservative aim will be to slash bureaucracy and get them out on the streets again. At the same time, the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies has released a document stating that in the last ten years, overtime payments (in England and Wales) have increased by 90%, reaching £400 million last year. Meanwhile, overall policing costs grew by 48%. The BBC also reported that London Mayor Boris Johnson has been criticised for not reducing spiralling costs of the police in London. It seems like the pressure to make public spending cuts may have an impact on this huge pot of policing money.

Here's a guardian article on it...
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2010/may/13/police-overtime-spending-record-ccjs

Interesting times: Ken Clarke named as surprise Justice Secretary in new Government

Had a quick scan of the papers to see if there had been any statement about the coalition government's justice agenda - early days, I know - but the only comment I could find was the new incumbent Ken Clarke's own statement: "I'm completely out of date on issues that are terribly important." (http://www.legalweek.com/legal-week/news/1636145/ken-clarke-named-surprise-justice-secretary-cameron-s-government)

Summer Reading Project: Governing Through Crime by Jonathan Simon

The first meeting of our summer reading project will take place on Tuesday 18 May 3-5pm in the comfortable surroundings of the Inner Common Room. Yi You will lead our discussion on Chapter 1 of Jonathan Simon's 'Governing Through Crime' : Power, Authority and Criminal Law.

BBC Documentary : Hitting Home

Look out for what sounds like an interesting documentary about domestic violence on BBC1 tomorrow night ( Tuesday) at 10.35pm. It contains some footage of court proceedings ; still a little controversial. See the Guardian article for discussion and background information:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/henryporter/2010/may/09/law-courts-television-justice

Wormwood Scrubs Documentary

Tonight (Monday 10th May) a documentary portraying the relationship between prisoners and prison officers inside Wormwood Scrubs will be shown on ITV 1 at 9.00. It seems to have already gathered some media interest, with yesterday's Observer questioning whether "Some of the shocking scenes are likely to raise questions about whether they are too graphic for television". Will probably be interesting to see if the extremely truthful and graphic nature of the documentary will cause any subsequent comment in the press.

Hi all,

I'm glad to see that this blog has already attracted quite a following! Having never presented a paper at a conference before, I was just wondering if any of you lovely people would be so kind as to read over an abstract that I have developed for either this Cambridge PhD Conference or the ESC.

Cheers,

JB

Conference: 'Villains, Rogues and Deviants: Writing the Histories of People We'd Rather Forget'

I attach details of a conference at Edinburgh University on 22 October 2010 which might be of interest to some of us:

Villains, Rogues and Deviants: Writing the Histories of People We'd
Rather Forget

A one-day conference for postgraduate students and early-career
researchers from any discipline

This conference will focus on the unique challenges and benefits of
researching and writing about forgotten, immoral, ignored and disliked
individuals, groups and ideas at any time in history.

Where: University of Edinburgh
When: 22 October 2010
How to Apply: Submit a 250-word proposal for a twenty-minute paper on
any topic related to the theme by 30 June 2010 to
Lindsey Flewelling at L.J.Flewelling@sms.ed.ac.uk or
Paula Dumas at P.E.Dumas@sms.ed.ac.uk

For more details, please email the
organizers listed above.

Cambridge Criminology Conference

Hi everyone,

Here are the details for the Cambridge PhD Criminology Conference...

If you want to either submit a paper or a poster, just follow this link:

http://www.srcf.ucam.org/crimphds/PhD_Criminology_Conference/Abstract_Submission.html

You just choose 'Only poster' in the 'Submitting for' section if that's all you want to do. Apparently a 300 word abstract isn't really required for a poster only, as long as you give an idea of your topic and what the poster will include.

First years- we will already have made our posters by then, so this might be worthwhile applying for now.

*** The deadline for papers AND posters is the 7th of May***

If you'd rather just attend as a delegate, the registration for this opens soon, so keep your eyes peeled for that.

springer books?

Hi everyone

Has anyone managed to find the link to Springer books that we mentioned in the last meeting? I've had a poke around the website and I can't seem to find it...

elections, measuring crime and 'broken britain'

In response to Fiona and Gemma:

the Tory's are scrabbling about for anything to back up their broken Britain clap trap. They can't use the BCS because that doesn't back up their thesis so they're falling back on official statistics, which only measure an increase because police changed the way they measure violent crime. Politicians must think we’re stupid, it makes me furious!! I heard an interview with Chris Grayling on the radio and subsequently felt like contributing to some violent crime myself! When the interviewer started challenging him, he reverted instead to talking about individual crimes which have been in the headlines recently, saying things like “these crimes would have never happened in the past”. Arg!

On a more general note, having spent some time working on the Scottish equivalent of the BCS for a short time (the Scottish Crime and Justice Survey), I can say that yes, there are problems with these sorts of surveys, one of them (which the Conservatives do highlight) is that it doesn’t' measure crime against the under 16s, which is a considerable shortcoming. However, all methods of collecting this sort of data have their short comings and surveys such as the BCS and the SCJS are by far and away the best measurement that is available.

Also - the 'Broken Britain' thesis. I really enjoyed that Guardian article (I would though, woudn’t I?!) It was right to point out the way the term can be used and interpreted in any way according to your own particular worry “It is an accordion-like concept, stretching and squeezing to fit different definitions depending on what the major worry of the hour is – youth crime, teenage pregnancy or anti-social behaviour.”, and also to argued that Easterhouse was not an example of ‘broken britain’ but rather a Britain that is still “profoundly unfair”

The problem then comes for the Tory’s when they try and find evidence to back their thesis, and here ‘crime’ is clearly needed. Hence the reliance on official statistics because it suits their case, and I also heard David Cameron say something like ‘there are over 1000 incidents of antisocial behaviour a day’ in his same broken Britain speech. Well, antisocial behaviour is such a socially constructed concept! And it includes things like dropping your kitkat wrapper on the pavement.

Anyway – interesting indeed. Labour don’t really have anything to say on crime, the Tory’s are grasping at broken straws and the Lib Dems (no, I’m not just jumping on any bandwagon) are being sensible.. What’s interesting is that the Tory’s and Labour aren’t attacking them more strongly on this, I’ve only heard a couple of ‘the Lib Dems are ‘soft on crime’’ attacks, and the other parties could have capitalised on this much more I think. Which proves that there is really is little political mileage on crime in this election, which is very interesting indeed. This could be because, as Rod Morgan suggested, there’s nowhere else for them to go, they’ve ‘out-toughed’ each other in unsustainable ways. And also because there’s nae pennies in the coffers for more big crime policies (and the consequential prisons places). Plus, the whole ‘crime’ rhetoric just sounds sort of tired now.. Very much associated with New Labour and that era seems to have ended..

Goodness – rant! See what happens when you’re trying not to write a presentation for the next day!

Criminology Postgraduate Research Group

A reminder to all that our Criminology Postgraduate Research Group is meeting this Friday (30 April) at 3pm in room L05 in the Law School. Items on the agenda include the summer reading project, the Cambridge PhD Conference and future presentations to the group. Katrina Morrison is presenting a paper at the 3rd Year PhD Presentation series earlier that day and we look forward to continuing the discussion with her at our meeting.

Many thanks to Gemma for setting up this blog.

crime in this election

there hasn't been that much coverage of crime in this election (compared to every other election in the last 15 years anyway!) interesting interview with Rod Morgan about why that is, on the Today programme yesterday

Greetings everybody from Bosnia. I noticed that the abstract submission deadline for this Cambridge PhD conference is coming up very soon. Is anybody planning on presenting there?

Hello!

Thanks for setting up the criminologists' blog, Gemma! Look forward to seeing everyone's messages here very soon! You Yi

Hello Criminologists!

This blog has been created to provide a space for us to post information about upcoming events or any criminology-related news which might be of interest to anyone in the group. Hopefully, this will allow us to keep up to date with talks and conferences, reading-group activities and anything going on outside the law school. However, you should feel free to use the space to facilitate discussion on criminological issues, or for group organisation.

I'll be sending round an email soon with information on how to post, but if anyone has any questions, please feel free to contact me at: g.flynn@sms.ed.ac.uk