Comment

Poverty is not a crime: ending imprisonment for debt

As the country prepares to enter into a new legal and political era, marked by novel and complex constitutional challenges, some of the most vulnerable members of society, and particularly women, are facing legal battles which would not be out of place in Victorian times.

18 October 2019
Publication

Understanding the riots

To make sense of last summer's riots it is important to put them in historical perspective. A comparison with the 1981 riots in Brixton, Liverpool and elsewhere and with the 2001 riots in Bradford and nearby towns reveals two shifts. The concerns of the rioters have shifted from a clear response to...
By 
John Lea and Simon Hallsworth
cjm 87: The August 2011 Riots
Comment

Benefit sanctions: Britain's secret penal system

Few people know that the number of financial penalties (‘sanctions’) imposed on benefit claimants by the Department of Work and Pensions now exceeds the number of fines imposed by the courts.

26 January 2015
News

Benefit sanctions a 'parallel secret penal system'

Last week the House of Commons Work and Pensions Select Committee held an evidence session on the benefit sanctions scheme. The government was urged to suspend the sanctions regime pending a review of its impact – especially on the mentally ill and disabled, reports ...

12 January 2015
Publication

Institutional care and poverty: evidence and policy review

This review, sponsored by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, examined international evidence about the links between institutional care and poverty in order to identify strategies for reducing the risks...
26 August 2014
Comment

Institutional care and poverty: making common cause?

Consider this scenario: a social policy analyst examining evidence about two groups in institutional care notices that many members of each group come from a background of poverty and face an...

16 September 2014
Comment

On average I'm comfortable

What to make of news that the UK might finally be emerging from recession. According to Office for National Statistics...

26 January 2010
Comment

Poverty and institutional care

As part of the Centre’s evidence and policy review on poverty and ‘institutional care’ on behalf of the Joseph Rowntree Foundation we held an anti-...

25 September 2013
Comment

The politics of antisocial behaviour

There are many stories to tell about the government's antisocial behaviour strategy. One is of a policy process that was badly designed yet shrewdly implemented; another concerns the use of the...

1 April 2006