Our July bulletin is now out
WHAT HAVE WE BEEN UP TO?
Calling all women
Thank you to everyone who has offered their support to our call to action to empower women, resist injustice and transform lives. Signatories include women with experience of the criminal justice system, leaders in the Women's Centre movement, practitioners, academics and the Women and Girls at Risk Transitional Steering Group. For a quick summary click here and for the full list of signatories click here.
Becky Clarke and Kathryn Chadwick penned a comment piece for our website calling on all women - not just those with an interest in criminal justice - to mobilise against punitive welfare and criminal justice policies. Davina James-Hanman, director of AVA, explains why the call to action is of direct relevance to the violence against women sector.
We're recruiting
We are currently advertising for a Research and Policy Associate (maternity cover) working 3 days per week for 12 months. The purpose of the role is to contribute to the timely and effective delivery of the Centre’s projects with a specific focus on the Alternatives to Imprisonment in Europe project.
Deadline for applications: 1st September 2014
Seeking alternatives
Work has commenced this month on the European Observatory on Alternatives to Imprisonment. We are the UK partner in this two year pan-European project funded by the European Union. This initiative aims to establish a comparative picture of the alternatives to custody available across eight European countries and to identify those measures which have achieved a decrease in recidivism and detention rates.
Back to the future...
The Centre's director, Richard Garside, spoke at a People's Parliament event organised by Strike! magazine on what a future without the police might look like. Other panel members included Justice campaigner Carole Duggan, Hannah Dee of Defend the Right to Protest and Fahim Alam of Riots Reframed.
Our new addition
We are delighted to welcome Matt Ford to the team. He joined the Centre this month as our new Research and Policy Assistant and will be working across a number of our projects with a particular focus on providing data and policy analysis for UK Justice Policy Review and Justice Matters.
On the margins
On 15th July, we heard from Belinda Carpenter on her research on the experiences of vulnerable people in the coronial system. Drawing mainly on her work in Australia, but with some reference to Britain, she suggested that marginalised groups are over-represented in coronial processes and described the ‘retraumatisation’ caused by a dehumanising and discriminatory system. A form of therapeutic jurisprudence was proposed as a more just way of dealing with vulnerable people in the coronial system. We also heard from respondent, Deborah Coles (co-director of Inquest) who offered insights into the UK system.
Human rights in prison
Zoe Ellis, Research and Policy Assistant, provides an update on the European Prison Observatory project, and our recent event held at HMP Grendon.
HAVE YOU SEEN?
Presumption against imprisonment
This month, the British Academy published Presumption against imprisonment, a new report documenting the high use of imprisonment in England and Wales and in Scotland over the last 20 years and making a case for how this reliance on prison could be more effectively addressed. It cites our publication, Reducing the numbers in custody, as one of the reports that in the last few years 'have made very persuasive cases backed by a wealth of evidence'.
No, Minister!
Clare Sambrook profiles Minister for Justice, Chris Grayling. She describes him as a 'PR man' and looks at his recent performance when giving evidence to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee.
Pirates vs economists
A study by two UK universities concludes that the local elites and communities protect pirates in Somalia because they lack an income. The study, by the University of Oxford and King's College London, is published in the British Journal of Criminology and was reported in The Economist with the headline 'Pirates v economists' and also on BBC News.
Virtually free
To coincide with the British Society of Criminology conference held this month, a free virtual issue of the British Journal of Criminology (BJC) on 'Global Criminology: Prospects and Challenges' was made available.
Summer reading
An archive of articles authored by the Centre's staff and published in Criminal Justice Matters magazine is now available to access free of charge on our website. Article subjects include capitalism and penal policy; trauma in the lives of young people; knife and gun crime; and criminal justice myths. You can scroll through a list of the available content here.
UPCOMING EVENTS
Is austerity an act of violence?
On Wednesday 10 September 2014, we'll be hosting a roundtable discussion on whether it makes sense to understand austerity policies as a form of structural violence that disproportionately affects particular groups in society. It will focus on health, housing, poverty, and the impact of austerity on violence against women. The line up includes; Dr Sarah Steele - Centre for Primary Care and Public Health, Queen Mary, University of London; Dr Vickie Cooper - Liverpool John Moores University; Ewa Jasiewicz - Fuel Poverty Action; and Heather McRobie - Open Democracy. Book your place here.
The challenges facing an incoming government
This event, on Tuesday 23 September, is one of a number that are being organised in the run up to the 2015 General Election to debate recent criminal justice developments and identify the key challenges for an incoming government in 2015. David Faulkner, former senior Home Office civil servant, will be offering reflections based on his recent book and will be joined by a panel of experts including: Frances Crook, Chief Executive of the Howard League for Penal Reform; Harry Fletcher, Director of Digital-Trust and former Assistant General Secretary of Napo; and Richard Garside, Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. Book your place here.
2014 Annual Lecture: Imran Khan
The leading human rights lawyer Imran Khan, best known for representing the family of Stephen Lawrence, will be giving the 2014 Eve Saville memorial lecture on Tuesday 14th October 2014. Book your place here.
Policing - is there an alternative?
Professor Tim Hope and Dr Waqas Tufail will introduce papers to stimulate debate about how Britain could downsize its reliance on policing. This is the first in a series of 'Alternatives to....' seminars that will explore options to downsize policing, prisons, probation and prosecution. The event will take place at The Meeting Place at our offices in London on Wednesday 22 October 2014. Book your place here.
TAKE A LOOK AT THIS
Prison reform
Judah Schept examines the shift in political rhetoric in the US in relation to penal reform and welcomes the greater attention now being given to penal conditions. He warns, however, that measures to reform prisons risk reinforcing the very practices they seek to challenge. 'Prisons and jails should not be jobs programs; we should be organizing to close facilities, decarcerate populations, and demand just employment agendas for depressed rural economies. Similarly, to the extent that prisons and jails exist, they most certainly should have robust mental health, education, and treatment options, but we must resist any attachment of campaigns for programming to campaigns for expansion'.
Heather Ann Thompson, writing in the Huffington Post, notes that politicians in the US are beginning to understand and reject the high costs of imprisonment but warns against 'breaking out the champagne too soon'. She highlights the growth in 'for profit' alternatives and technological methods (i.e. electronic tags) of confining people.
Who benefits from punishment?
The Reclaim Justice Network is in the process of developing resources to aid discussion and thinking about the drivers of criminal justice expansion. The ‘penal industrial complex’ is one way of framing the conversation about contemporary punishment. Click here for a summary table and a more detailed outline of the organisations and sectors involved in criminal justice and punishment – all of whom, either wittingly, or unwittingly have a part to play in the maintenance and expansion of criminal justice in the UK.
Yarl's Wood women to give evidence
Tom Kemp, writing on the Reclaim Justice Network website writes about the 'creative activism of a number of women’s groups' that has led to the Home Affairs Select Committee agreeing to take evidence from current and former Yarl’s Wood immigration detainees.
The business of immigration detention
Imogen Tyler, Nick Gill, Deirdre Conlon and Ceri Oeppen in Race & Class discuss the dilemma posed by the cooption of migration and asylum advocacy and support groups into the immigration detention market by private sector companies.
IN THE NEWS
Risks of imprisonment
A report published by Children’s Rights Alliance for England mapping inequalities in outcomes for children in London indicates that children in Lambeth are 30 times more likely to end up in prison than those in Richmond-upon-Thames.
Punishment trumps welfare
The Independent on Sunday has revealed a catalogue of evidence demonstrating the scale of the crisis in the Probation Service in the wake of recent reforms. This includes huge backlogs of emails and overstretched staff. Former Justice Secretary, Crispin Blunt, said the reforms were introduced too quickly and Probation Trust Chief Executive Joanna Hughes recently resigned, citing the consequences of privatisation as the reason. Ian Cummins of the University of Salford links these reforms to the shift over the last 30 years to an increasingly punitive criminal justice system - and argues that ‘punishment has won out over welfare.’
What a bummer
The Independent reports that naturists in Northern Ireland have been threatened with being placed on the sex offenders register. The organisation, British Naturism, have expressed concern that this will have a 'chilling' effect on other potential naturists this summer.
NUMBERS OF THE MONTH
23% - the increase in self-inflicted deaths in custody in 2013 compared to 2012 (60 in 2012, and 74 in 2013), as reported in Hansard.
75,000 - Unseen emails, many containing vital information about people under probation supervision, to and from probation officers built up in London, reports The Independent.
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
"Within the neo-liberal frame, lawbreaking is reduced to a consequence of poor personal choices. Crime reduction initiatives are accordingly reduced to incentives and sanctions designed to shape individuals into self-disciplined governable subjects, or to lock up, medicate or otherwise abandon those who are deemed ungovernable. This framework makes it difficult to identify broader issues which contribute to an expanding criminal justice system - such as growing wealth inequality; changing health, welfare and immigration policy; and systemic discrimination - and make it harder to imagine the kinds of social change that are needed to address these issues."
Dr Sarah Lamble of Birkbeck University from her article 'The marketisation of prison alternatives' in the forthcoming September 2014 issue of Criminal Justice Matters, edited by Dr Mary Corcoran, with a special focus on marketisation in criminal justice.
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We are always keen to hear from our readers. For comments and feedback email rebecca.roberts@crimeandjustice.org.uk.