Comment
More police, more prosecutions, more punishment
To 1945, 1979 and 1997 might be added 2019: a pivotal General Election with the potential to reshape policy and politics in the UK for a generation.
Comment
Looking back on the establishment of Drug Science
I first came across David Nutt in July 2007, when he spoke at a conference called ‘Criminal Justice and Social Justice’, which the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies held at King’s College London. David spoke on the subject of ‘Why adopt a harm approach in relation to drugs?’.
Comment
Let female prisoners decide who can share their spaces
Just under a year ago, I pitched into the debate over the housing of transgender prisoners.
News
Richard Garside
Richard is the Director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies and Senior Visiting Research Fellow at The Open University. Prior to joining the Centre, Richard worked at Nacro as Head of Communications.
He joined to the Centre in 2003 to set up an the 'Crime and Society Foundation' project, having secured a major grant from The Atlantic Philanthropies. The Crime and Society Foundation sought to explore the role and limitations of approaches to social problems based on criminalisation and...
Comment
Prison violence and the limits of reform
In May last year I was among more than a hundred organisational representatives who trooped over to the (unfortunately named given current events in Syria and Iraq) Isis youth prison in south east London.
News
UK Justice Policy Review 8 is out now
The eighth edition of UK Justice Policy Review is out now, covering the period from the 2017 General Election to the summer of 2018.
Produced annually, the Review uniquely offers concise coverage of key policy developments in criminal justice across England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.
To improve accessibility and raise public awareness of the changing criminal justice landscape, data are presented in a...
Publication
UK Justice Policy Review: Volume 8
Since 2010, the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies, with support from The Hadley Trust, has been assessing criminal justice developments across the UK through its UK Justice Policy Review programme. Our latest publication – UK Justice Policy Review , Volume 8 – covers the period from 8 June 2017...
News
Call for delay to government probation plans
Our Director, Richard Garside, is one of eight signatories on a letter to the Justice Secretary, David Gauke, calling for him to 'pause and reconsider' the government's plans re-let probation contracts to private companies.
The call comes in the wake of a damning National Audit Office report last week, which concluded that the Ministry of Justice 'should pause and reflect on whether its propsed approach is both deliverable and consistent with its strategic aims for the probation system'.
The seven...
News
'Not transphobic' to critique transgenderism
Our Director, Richard Garside, is one of more than 50 researchers and academics who have co-signed a letter expressing concern over the harassment and intimidation of those engaged in critical research and discussion on transgenderism.
According to the letter, published in The Guardian, a number of the co-signatories have 'experienced campus protests, calls for dismissal in the press,...
News
Centre's Director, Richard Garside on the BBC
In recent weeks our Director, Richard Garside, appeared on BBC Look North (Yorkshire) and BBC Radio Two's Jeremy Vine show to discuss Karen White's life sentence, prisons and transgender prisoners.
Karen White, a transgender woman with a conviction for indecent assault, indecent exposure and gross indecency involving children, was sentenced on Thursday after being placed in a women's prison and sexually assaulting two prisoners.
On BBC Look North, Richard said:
...
Comment
Transgender prisoners
Transgender prisoners – those, mostly males, who assert a gender identity at odds with their birth sex – pose a challenge for prison managers.
News
Our Director's evidence to the Justice Committee
Our Director, Richard Garside, gave evidence to the Justice Committee earlier today as part of the Prison Population 2022: planning for the future inquiry.
Key questions were asked about:
- factors driving up the prison population
- the role and impact of community sentencing
- the balance between accountability, effectiveness and toughness in sentencing
A clip of the proceedings can be found below....