Ebulletin - November 2013
WHAT HAVE WE BEEN UP TO?
How corrupt is Britain?
The December issue of Criminal Justice Matters magazine is out. It is guest edited by Dr David Whyte of the University of Liverpool and focuses on How Corrupt Is Britain? You can download David's introduction here. In the topical issues section Malcolm Torry explores the benefits system and law breaking.
Accentuate the positive
Our colleague Arianna Silvestri is asking for examples of initiatives, policies and approaches that contribute to improving conditions or enhancing the rights of people imprisoned in the UK, as part of the Centre’s European Prison Observatory project. Find out more, including how to get in touch, here.
The struggle? It's only just beginning
Rebecca Roberts has written about a recent Angela Davis lecture on the penal industrial complex and on the need to challenge criminal justice thinking and practice. Angela Davis will be speaking again at a War on Want event in London next month.
Ban HGVs from London streets
Will McMahon calls for HGVs to be banned from London streets during the day and argues that the current police crackdown on road users is 'nothing more than a media stunt'.
Criminal justice: a form of violence against women?
As part of the Centre's Justice Matters initiative Rebecca Roberts highlights the parallels between criminal justice harm and violence against women. Elsewhere Richard Garside describes our new project rethinking services for women currently subject to criminal justice capture, which starts in early 2014.
Are you following us?
The Centre’s Twitter feed has exceeded 6,000 followers this month. So a big hello to our new followers and a big thank you to everyone for following and sticking with us.
If you do not already follow us and would like to you can find us on Twitter here. We're also on Facebook.
End the undemocratic Police and Crime Commissioners experiment
The Independent Police Commission proposals to replace Police and Crime Commissioners with greater local authority oversight deserves support, Richard Garside argues.
HAVE YOU SEEN?
Lies, damned lies and HSE statistics
Steve Tombs, Professor of Criminology at The Open University, highlights how the Health and Safety Executive massively underestimates the scale of work related deaths.
Justice Matters
Following our call for contributions on downsizing criminal justice and developing alternatives, Professor Kevin Haines and Dr Stephan Case of Swansea University submitted a piece on the Swansea Bureau experiment of youth diversion. The post is available to read on our website. Ed Davie, Lambeth Councilor, also answered our call for submissions with this piece on developing alternative services for those experiencing mental health problems, to prevent them ending up in police custody.
The threat of custody
Mike Guilfoyle responds to Vicky Pryce’s book, Prisonomics, by recalling his experience of a former client, who he calls Miriam. Read Mike's post on the Works for Freedom website.
Is Big Brother watching?
Charles Farrier argues that Automatic Number Plate Recognition is a threat to civil liberties.
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For more information visit our website.
TAKE A LOOK AT THIS...
What's the alternative?
Tom Kemp, writing on the Reclaim Justice Network site, has drawn together ideas for radically downsizing criminal justice, discussed at meetings organised by the Network last month.
British Journal of Criminology
November's edition of the BJC is out now and includes articles on surveillance cameras, ecological harms, sentencing and deprivation and violence in London.
Prison and the public
November's edition of the Prison Service Journal is available to download for free from our website. It includes a special focus on prisons and the wider communities in which they are embedded.
IN THE NEWS...
Do private companies know the difference between right and wrong?
November has been a torrid month for private contractors G4S and Serco.
The National audit Office published a report suggesting that both companies had ripped off the taxpayer to the tune of tens of millions of pounds under their electronic monitoring contracts. Both companies have offered to refund any agreed overcharging.
The next day G4S and Serco representatives were part of a delegation of companies before the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee. G4S Chief Executive Ashley Almanza made the startling observation that the company had failed to 'tell the difference between right and wrong'. Serco chairman Alastair Lyons said the company had been 'ethically wrong' to overcharge.
Two days later the Ministry of Justice announced that plans to privatise three prisons in Yorkshire had been cancelled as a result of the ongoing investigations into Serco.
The following week Jeremy Seabrook accused G4S, Serco and Atos of 'pauper management' in a Guardian comment piece. He also drew parallels with the poor laws of previous centuries.
This was followed by the second rooftop protest in as many months at the troubled G4S-run Oakwood prison.
Meanwhile John Cridland, Director General of the CBI, has criticised anti-privatisation 'rhetoric', which, he says, threatens to undermine 'a great British export success'.
Phew!
Four prisons close in Sweden
Sweden has announced that four prisons and a remand centre are to be closed due to a drop in prison admissions.
The long and short of it
Lord Neuberger, President of the Supreme Court, has criticised short-term prison sentences for disrupting home and work life. He also raised concerns about overcrowding, 'bossy notices' and how little is spent on food.
The limits of law
Lord Sumption, also a Supreme Court judge, raised concerns about the 'expansion of the empire of law', in a speech in Kuala Lumpur on 20th November. Acts which previously would have been considered 'casual misfortunes' or 'governed only by principles of courtesy' were now subject to legal regulation, he argued.
On the same day Lord James of Blackheath made a pitch for the enhanced legal regulation of 'mooning'. He told the House of Lords about a particularly distressing recent incident when children on a school trip 'mooned' him and his wife. Lord James claimed that his wife, a youth justice officer, wanted the children in question to be 'put away for a year'.
Police stats: Fact or fiction?
MPs on the Public Administration Committee were told how the police regularly recategorise, downgrade or ignore potential crime in order to meet performance targets. This included discouraging rape victims from formally reporting incidents. Meanwhile PC James Patrick, who gave evidence to MPs, faced gross misconduct charges for undermining public confidence in the police.
NUMBERS OF THE MONTH
31,000 - the number of additional deaths last winter, with up to one third down to victims not being able to afford to heat their homes.
151 - the number of times the Ministry of Justice 'National Tactical Response Group' has been called out to prison 'disturbances' in the first 9 months of 2013. This compares with 129 in the whole of 2012.
£1.34 - the difference between the national minimum wage (£6.31) and the new Living Wage for the UK, excluding London (£7.65).
25% of boys aged 13 to 14 years who admitted to abusive acts against girlfriends.
6 times more likely - the greater likelihood of a black person being stopped and searched by the police compared with a white person.
QUOTES OF THE MONTH
‘In every single sphere of British influence, the upper echelons of power in 2013 are held overwhelmingly by the privately educated or the affluent middle class. To me from my background, I find that truly shocking.’ former Prime Minister, John Major, quoted in The Daily Telegraph.
'Asking a private company to serve the public is like asking yogi bear to guard the picnic baskets'. Dietmar Hipplegrubber (@hipplegrubber).
AND FINALLY...
We have been wondering this month if Lord Stevens, former Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, passed on his psychic abilities to colleagues before he retired.
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This bulletin was compiled and edited by Jordan Beaumont and Rebecca Roberts.
For comments and feedback email rebecca.roberts@crimeandjustice.org.uk.