Monthly News Bulletin
Email Bulletin March 2008
Welcome to the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies' monthly email bulletin, bringing you a round-up of news, research, political developments, events and updates on our work.
WHAT HAVE WE BEEN UP TO?
Is the state becoming too dangerous?
... one of the questions that Jamie Bennett asks in a new monograph `The Social Costs of Dangerousness: prison and the dangerous classes'. Jamie, editor of Prison Service Journal, argues that the concept of dangerousness `has become widely used' but `is poorly understood' and is contributing to a `moral impoverishment of society'. Published as part of the Centre's `Whose Justice?' project, this offering is sure to stimulate debate.
A firing squad to shoot the messenger
A couple of years ago our magazine, Criminal Justice Matters (cjm), carried a series of articles about the use and abuse of criminological research under the title of `Uses of Research'. It is fair to say it provoked a lot of debate about the relationship between academic criminology and the Home Office - including a discussion on Radio Four's flagship news programme, `Today'. (Centre members can now access the controversial issue on-line - see below.) We asked two contributors to the issue, professors Tim Hope and Reece Walters, to expand on their ideas in a newly published monograph titled `Critical thinking about uses of research'. They pull no punches and it can be read here.
Criminal Justice still Matters
To much fanfare, cjm has been re-launched with publishing partners Routledge. Exclusive access to the entire back catalogue is now available to members of the Centre, details of which are here. Members will be sent an email from 'Informaworld Support' with details of usernames and passwords. Members who experience any technical difficulties, should contact the online support team at
The themed section of the current issue of Criminal Justice Matters, edited by Dr David Scott of the University of Central Lancashire, takes a detailed look at 'detention' in all its different guises. Covering a variety of settings, the authors explore prison, psychiatric hospitals, immigration detention centres and police stations.
11 Million
Aka the Office of the Commissioner for Children met with Will McMahon and Enver Solomon to discuss possible joint projects, following a speech by Al Aynsley-Green which identified children and young people's concerns around violence, bullying and abuse. 11 million have agreed to make the voices of young people central to an issue of cjm planned for 2009.
Una Padel Award
Details of all last year's Una Padel Award winners and short-listed projects. Details of the 2008 Award will be available on our website at the end of April.
Other stuff
Richard Garside, director, discussed the kind of prisons we `want', with Juliet Lyon of the Prison Reform Trust, at The Guardian criminal justice summit. Will McMahon, policy director, talked crime and harm to the Health and Social Science School, Sunderland University. Helen Mills, research and policy associate, heard Professor Simon Hallsworth's inaugural lecture on how violent worlds are defined, with a focus on 'gang culture'. Rebecca Roberts, senior policy associate, has been working on a briefing looking at the myth of black on black crime. Enver Solomon, deputy director, attended a roundtable organised by the National Youth Agency on gangs and violence, and spoke as a guest of the University of Ottawa, on Labour's record on crime prevention...And finally, the gendarme met with Richard to discuss matters of mutual interest... say no more.
Articles and speeches
Richard Garside, writes in the Barrister magazine on the purpose of the criminal justice system... and on dealing with knife crime through stop and search in the Evening Standard.
Further discussion of knife crime by Enver and Roger in June's cjm ...
In Policy Review magazine Enver Solomon writes on Labour's record on criminal justice reform.
Meanwhile, Roger Grimshaw, research director, wades into the crime debate among London mayoral candidates in Time Out (27/3/2008)
Where's the harm in it? Will McMahon and Rebecca Roberts look at death, injury and deprivation through a social harm lens in the current cjm.
Also, coming soon...
There is still time to register for the free seminar on 24 April in the `New developments in criminal justice' series; the Hon Mrs Justice Dobbs DBE HM Court Service will discuss demographics and diversity in the judicial system. For more information or to register please email
with your name, job title, organisation and phone number.
TAKE A LOOK AT THIS...
More political jousting
`Let me come to prisons', Jack Straw talked about building confidence in the criminal justice system at the RSA Prison Learning Network.
And here's what the others think...
...read here about the Tory's 'prisons with a purpose',
Or we can cut crime with the Lib Dems,
And here's some crime prevention and justice from the Greens.
In the shadow of Canary Wharf...
41 per cent of the capital's children live below the poverty threshold, compared with a UK average of around 30 per cent according to the London Child Poverty Commission's new report. The commission also reports there has been no significant decline in the capital's poverty rates since 2000. Carey Oppenheim, the chair of the commission, said: `In London it is not just that child poverty rates are higher than elsewhere in the country, families are more likely to be in deeper poverty, more likely to be without a job, to have fewer choices about their housing and to face multiple disadvantages'. Its worrying detail can be read here.
Unjust proposals
The Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC) has published a briefing paper on the Counter Terrorism Bill 2008. Download the briefing paper here. (pdf file, 2.3mb)
Women dying in prison
The result of INQUEST's Women's Deaths in Prison project Dying on the Inside - Examining Women's Deaths in Prison, by Marissa Sandler and Deborah Coles, examining concerns about inadequate treatment and neglect raised by the increasing number of women dying in prison.
Surveillance and Inequality
The editorial in this months issue explores the differing 'effects of surveillance on marginalised and privileged social groups'. Edited by Torin Monahan and Jill Fisher.
IN THE NEWS
Critical thinking about detention...on the bbc and press association.
Two in every 1,000 in detention in Britain, according to a survey published in cjm this month.
1,000 child deaths could be prevented
1,000 of the 5,000 children who die every year in the UK could live according to new research by a paediatrician appointed by the government to research the subject. Dr Peter Sidebotham of Warwick University argues that inter-agency working could have a big impact because children from poor backgrounds have a mortality rate of 7 per 1,000 compared to 3 per 1,000 in managerial and professional groups. Observer (23/03/08)
`Corporate killing law tightens'
`Companies will be exposed to more police investigations, higher fines and a wider range of possible offences, lawyers claim, under a new corporate manslaughter law due to come into force next month'. Critics argue that the legislation doesn't go far enough. David Bergman of the Centre for Corporate Accountability said the new law will end the status quo in which large companies go unprosecuted and big business `have much more to fear. Now there is the prospect they could be held accountable'. Financial Times (25/03/08)
`Proof that we fail too many children'
Deborah Orr challenges the way early intervention is being administered. Citing evidence including the ten fold rise in the number of incarcerated children in the last 10 years (without the same increase in serious criminality being recorded), and sentence inflation in the community sentencing of children, she suggests early intervention `speeds up rather than slows down or stops the child's progression to jail'. The Independent (19/03/08)
'Legal pursuit of homeless people beggars belief'
Adam Sampson, the chief executive of Shelter, comments following a judge's dismissal of a criminal case brought against a homeless man for breaking the terms of his asbo by begging. The Guardian (19/03/08)
'I have a 30ft catapult filled with chicken droppings - and I'm not afraid to use it'
The Times (05/03/08)
QUOTEs OF THE MONTH
'Only fools fear crime: we all fear poverty.'
Undershaft in Major Barbara by Bernard Shaw, currently playing at the National Theatre.
`Yet again, the socialist State is waging war on the conscientious and aspirational on behalf of the feckless and nihilistic.'
A Daily Express editorial gets things out of proportion in response to the announcement by Ed Balls that secondary schools will form local `behaviour partnerships'. Daily Express 27/03/08