Our latest eBulletin, sent out to subscribers on Friday, 28 March
Sixty years ago, Carl Aude, the then principal of the Danish training school for prison officers, attended a training seminar in Wakefield, England.
“It was my first meeting with the English prison system”, he later wrote, “and my expectations were great”. He continued:
“England has always been ahead in prison reform. John Howard and Lionel Fox are the first and the last names in a long line of world-known reformers. From the annual reports of the Prison Department I was informed of the heavy problems connected with overcrowding in outmoded buildings and the endeavours to solve them. England has been characterized as a land of contradictions in the prison system”.
I came across Aude’s fascinating observations, buried away in a half-forgotten edition of Prison Service Journal (PSJ), from 1966, while working with colleagues on the digitisation of the entire back catalogue of PSJ, starting with the first edition in 1960.
Change a few names and it could have been written today.
If anything, though, the problems Aude referred to have only got worse. The current version of “heavy problems connected with overcrowding in outmoded buildings” has the feeling of a runaway train, with our dilapidated prisons forecast to run out of space by early 2026 by the latest.
And it is not just our prisons. The justice system, the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee argued earlier this month, “faces total gridlock in 2026”.
But if the crisis has the feeling of a runway train, it is ministers who are in the driving seat. It is in their power to apply the brakes.
Earlier this month I was speaking to a senior Ministry of Justice official about what the government planned to do. They were waiting for David Gauke’s review of sentencing, they told me, after which they wanted to move quickly.
How quickly, I asked. Legislation would be laid before parliament before the summer recess, the official told me.
These comments came a few days before the confected row over so-called “two-tier justice”, occasioned by the publication of new Sentencing Council guidelines on pre-sentence reports.
If government ministers are to be serious about applying the brakes to the runaway train, and addressing the general crisis in the justice system, they are going to have to get better at making the case for systemic reform, and at facing down spurious criticism.
Richard Garside
Director
Breaking out of the Justice Loop
On Tuesday 18 March, the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, in collaboration with the National Women’s Justice Coalition, hosted an event to launch the publication of a new report. The report Breaking out of the Justice Loop: Creating a criminal justice system that works for women, by Naomi Delap and Liz Hogarth, examines why the justice system continues to fail women, and what needs to change.
If you missed the event or would like to watch it again, the video can be viewed here.
The full report can be found here, and you can read a comment piece by the authors here.
Offensive Weapons Homicide Reviews (OWHRs)
This week we hosted a small roundtable meeting to discuss the implications of Learning from tragedy? The potential benefits, risks and limitations of Offensive Weapons Homicide Reviews. The report, authored by Dr Susie Hulley and Dr Tara Young and funded by the Barrow Cadbury Trust, examined previous homicide review powers to identify the potential benefits and risks of OWHRs.
The roundtable brought together a small group of professionals and academics to review the report's key findings and think about potential next steps. The group discussed how learnings from reviews could be effectively implemented and the need for more systemic and national-level analysis.
What's wrong with the Independent Custody Visiting Scheme? A theoretical perspective
In the fourth paper of our working paper series, Dr John Kendall critiques the Independent Custody Visiting Scheme based on evidence from his own research and grounded in theoretical perspectives on power and ideology.
The Independent Custody Visiting Scheme was introduced in the 1980s following recommendations from Michael Meacher MP and Lord Scarman in the aftermath of the Brixton riots. Dr Kendall argues that, despite its apparent aim to protect detainees and prevent abuses, the scheme was designed in ways that minimised disruption to policing and discouraged critical oversight.
Kendall draws on Steven Lukes' theory of power and Herbert Packer's models of criminal justice ideology to examine the problems with the scheme. He identifies a number of issues, including the influence of police perspectives on volunteer visitors, who receive little training or knowledge about the criminal justice system.
Interested in writing a Working Paper? Have a look at the guidelines here.
Commentary and analysis
Last month we began a series of comment pieces reflecting on the sentencing review, in which our colleagues in other criminal justice organisations share their ideas on what needs to be done.
This month, Mollie Ruler and Harry Annison set out why there is a need for a robust strategy to achieve meaningful sentencing reform. Meanwhile, in the context of both the sentencing and court capacity reviews, Sashy Nathan addresses the political challenges of communicating what needs to be done.
Also this month, Danny Shaw explains the background to the recent row over newly published guidelines from the Sentencing Council.
Finally, Katelyn Owens demonstrates a critical thinking approach to official statistics.
Interested in submitting a comment piece? Drop us a line.
What’s what in The British Journal of Criminology?
For more than sixty years, The British Journal of Criminology has published some of the most significant research in the field.
A number of open-access advance articles have been published this month:
- Bronwyn Arnold on the descriptions of victim-offenders in sentencing remarks
- Mitra Mokhtari looks at the role of higher education in criminal justice reform in Canada
- Valerie Houghton and Thaddeus Muller develop a typology of disablist hate crime
- Pernille Søderholm Nyvoll examines the challenges faced by two Norwegian low-security prisons
- Rosie Cornish and Iain Brennan share findings from their study on the connection between school exclusion and risk of serious violence
Prison Service Journal
This month’s issue focuses on women, criminalisation and the need for differential approaches that recognise the part that gender plays in women’s pathways into the criminal justice.
Articles in this edition include:
- Phoebe Lill, Jessica Trick and Natalie Booth on diverting women from the criminal justice system
- Shona Minson and others on problem solving courts
- Kevin Wong and others on voluntary sector services and how they have been evaluated
The whole issue is available to download here.
The PSJ was first published in July 1960 and archival issues offer a fascinating insight into topics of concern at the time, which also have resonances today. We are currently working through the back catalogue, to get the entire archive digitised online. Check out the early issues, from 1960 to 1967 here.
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