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Our August bulletin is out now

Tuesday, 26 August 2014

August edition of our ebulletin.

WE'VE GOT SOME EVENTS COMING UP. HAVE YOU BOOKED YET?

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', come and debate with David, Frances, Harry, Tim and Richard
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; Professor Tim Newburn of the London School of Economics; and Richard Garside, Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies. Book your place here

Eve Saville Lecture: Imran Khan will speak on 'Policing in Britain: Corruption, surveillance and institutional racism' 
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

WHAT HAVE WE BEEN UP TO?

Putting women in their place
The Centre's Senior Research Associate, Rebecca Roberts, has been continuing her work on the Justice Matters for Women initiative. Most recently she wrote a piece outlining why women should play a central role in challenging gender violence, inequality and criminal justice harm. Bea Campbell, commenting on the piece on Twitter, dubbed it as 'sensible thinking on justice' and 'splendid'.

When in Rome
Our Deputy Director Will McMahon and Research Associate Helen Mills jetted off to Rome for the first meeting of the 8 project partners involved in the European observatory on alternatives to imprisonment. The initiative aims to establish a comparative picture of alternatives to custody across the 8 european countries and identify which measures have achieved a decrease in recidivism and detention rates. Helen Mills gives the lowdown on what happened at the meeting, including an illuminating discussion about what exactly is meant by 'alternatives to custody'.

More than the bare minimum
Our Research and Policy Assistant, Zoe Ellis, has written a comment piece which reflects on the themes which emerged from our discussions with residents and practitioners at HMP Grendon in June. The Centre organised the event as part of the European Prison Observatory project. She identified a general feeling amongst the participants that in many UK jails service provision is poor and attributes this to a chronic lack of funding. HMP Grendon itself is considered well above average.

Justice Matters' 1st Birthday
We launched our Justice Matters initiative one year ago this month. It's been a busy first year where we've: published the core themes of the initiative; developed a specific project, Justice matters for Women and a Call to Action; outlined in detail the core thinking behind the project; and developed dialogue and relationships with individuals and partners who share our interests. To find out what our plans are for year two, check out this summary. Thanks to everyone who has helped so far!

Garside goes viral
Strike! Magazine has posted a video of the Centre's Director, Richard Garside, speaking at their People's Parliament event on 8 July. Richard talked about what a future without the police might look like. You can watch it here, where you will also find clips from the other speakers; David Graeber, Hannah Dee, and Fahim Alam.

COMING SOON...

Stack 'em high, sell 'em cheap 
The next issue of our magazine Criminal Justice Matters  is out in September. The focus of this edition is the marketisation of criminal justice and it includes Andrew Henley's prize-winning essay on abolishing the stigma of punishments served. Also in this issue Becky Clarke writes on chasing the 'reoffending rainbow', and Jamie Grace reports on the domestic violence disclosure scheme. You can read a shorter version of Mary Corcoran's article on transforming rehabilitation here

Institutional care & poverty
An evidence and policy review on poverty and institutional care authored by our research director, Roger Grimshaw, and Rebecca Roberts will be published later this month. Funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, it covers five insitutional care settings: prisons; immigration detention centres; mental health placements including psychiatric secure hospitals and centres; placements for children being looked after including homes, residential schools and units for children; and placements for people with disabilities.

HAVE YOU SEEN?

Getting gender on the agenda 
This month DMSS released a report which highlights the risk factors associated with negative outcomes across the life course for women and girls. The report fell on deaf ears though as Theresa May ruled out ringfencing budgets for women's refuges as they close across the country, and Britain failed to ratify the Council of Europe's Instanbul Convention on violence against women. Sign our call to action to help develop social interventions which tackle the root causes of the injustices facing women. 

Blowing our own trumpet
Two publications by our very own Helen Mills and Rebecca Roberts were cited in an academic article published this month in Crime, Media, Culture. The author of the article 'Penal reform discourse for women offenders: Campaigners, policy strategy, and 'issue reframing'' adopts the discourse framework devised by our researchers in their work on reform sector strategies to investigate the different approaches used by campaigners to influence politicians, the media and the public. Nice to see that we're having an impact!

​​A different approach to people who sexually abuse?
Mike Guilfoyle reflects on his supervisory experience with 'John'. He asks whether it's time for a more therapeutic approach to rehabilitating people convicted of sexual offences.

It's that dark figure of crime again
The September issue of the British Journal of Criminology is now available to download (subscription only). Articles include Bond and Jefferies on sentencing outcomes for domestic and non-domestic violence in New South Wales; Castelbajac on the dark figure of crime in the run up to the British Crime Survey; and Williams and Tregidga on hate crime in Wales.

TAKE A LOOK AT THIS

Absolutely tagged
Deborah Orr, in The Guardian, sets out the case for 'sobriety tags', a new device for monitoring the abstinence of alocohol dependent people. Welcoming the announcement that the devices will be trialled in four London boroughs, she explains that they are a good alternative to custody as 'they combine punishment and opportunity in a way prison should, but rarely does'. However James Kilgore, writing in Truthout, offers a stark warning about the negative consequences of these kinds of sanctions. 

You have the right to remain spied on
The chief constable of Greater Manchester police, Sir Peter Fahy, said that he wants the police to have access to medical records without the consent of the individuals concerned, The Guardian reports. He reckons this will enable the police to make better decisions when dealing with vulnerable people, who he claims now make up 70% of police work. Most controversially, he wants to be able to access medical information about women experiencing domestic violence. Deborah Orr, writing in The Guardian, has welcomed recognition of the vulnerability of people in contact with the police. But she warns that police responses to the people left behind by cuts to social services are not the answer.

A few days later it was revealed in The Guardian that Fahy was facing interview under caution regarding allegations that his force may have knowingly placed a child in contact with a suspected sex offender. 

The thin blue line is starting to look very red
The adversarial tactics of the police against protesters in the Missouri state of Ferguson drew attention to just how militarised state police forces in the US have become. Tim Walker of The Independent uncovered how much surplus military equipment has been transferred to the police by a controversial Department of Defence programme. Sarah Stillman of The New Yorker highlighted the less visisble but equally oppressive 'economic arm' of police militarism, whereby a relatively minor initial infraction spirals into deepening poverty and fear at the hands of private criminal justice agencies for those who are already disadvantaged. 

Going public
The July issue of the Prison Service Journal is now available to download free from the Centre's website. This month it focuses on the prison and the public, and includes an article by Mary Corcoran on the privatisation of the public sphere. 

IN THE NEWS

'Safety' in custody figures released
The Ministry of Justice released it's quarterly safety in custody stats earlier this month. It's not looking good though, with a 69% rise in suicides, 30% rise in serious assaults, and three murders in the year leading up to march 2014, The Guardian reported. Chris Grayling has struggled to explain it, but an editorial in The Independent links it to overcrowding and cuts in funding.

No profit, no point
A4e pulled out of a £17 million contract to provide education and training in 12 London prisons because it wasn't commercially viable. They cited 'a number of constraints' which had 'a heavy impact on attendance, completion and achievements' as the reason for market failure. Charities linked this to the reductions in staffing in prisons which they said have made it difficult for prisoners to attend lessons.

Routine armed patrols come to Britain
BBC news reports on the little-noticed move to arm policemen on routine patrol in the UK and asks how this will change the relationship between police forces and the public.

Ex-po-po-sed
It emerged in The Independent that over the last five years hundreds of police officers have been investigated over racist or threatening social media activity, and even revealing details of a planned police operation on facebook. 

NUMBERS OF THE MONTH

350 - the number of youth centres that have closed across the UK since 2012 according to a Unison report.

2000 - the number of youth workers that have been axed over the same period according to the same Unison report.

28% - the proportion of reported rape cases referred to the CPS, the lowest level since records began. Reported in The Independent.

CLIP OF THE MONTH

A satirical take on for-profit prisons on YouTube. What the prison industrial complex can do for you! 

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

“I am not convinced that the violence currently blamed on gangs is by any means all gang related, nor do I believe that the permissive application of the term ‘gang’ to explain events as disconnected as sexual violence, the drugs trade, riots, ‘dangerous dogs’ and gun crime, is remotely helpful or accurate. Such arguments reflect more the fantasy life of gang talkers, not the truth of a violent street world whose complexity escapes such reductive reasoning.” Simon Hallsworth (2014), Gang talking criminologists: A rejoinder to John Pitts in Youth and Policy Journal

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This bulletin was compiled and edited by Matt Ford and Rebecca Roberts. We are always keen to hear from our readers. For comments and feedback email matt.ford@crimeandjustice.org.uk.  

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