'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...