Kristel Beyens

Bio: Kristel Beyens is an academic researcher from Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The author has contributed to research in topics: Prison & Comparative research. The author has an hindex of 13, co-authored 95 publications receiving 647 citations.

Electronically Monitored Punishment : International and Critical Perspectives

Abstract: Electronic monitoring (EM) is a way of supervising offenders in the community whilst they are on bail, serving a community sentence or after release from prison. Various technologies can be used, including voice verification, GPS satellite tracking and – most commonly - the use of radio frequency to monitor house arrest. It originated in the USA in the 1980s and has spread to over 30 countries since then. This book explores the development of EM in a number of countries to give some indication of the diverse ways it has been utilized and of the complex politics which surrounds its use. A techno-utopian impulse underpins the origins of EM and has remained latent in its subsequent development elsewhere in the world, despite recognition that is it less capable of effecting penal transformations than its champions have hoped. This book devotes substantive chapters to the issues of privatisation, evaluation, offender perspectives and ethics. Whilst normatively more committed to the Swedish model, the book acknowledges that this may not represent the future of EM, whose untrammelled, commercially-driven development could have very alarming consequences for criminal justice. Both utopian and dystopian hopes have been invested in EM, but research on its impact is ambivalent and fragmented, and EM remains undertheorised, empirically and ethically. This book seeks to redress this by providing academics, policy audiences and practitioners with the intellectual resources to understand and address the challenges which EM poses.

Offender Supervision in Europe

Abstract: 1. Introduction: Studying 'mass supervision' Fergus McNeill and Kristel Beyens 2. Experiencing Supervision Ioan Durnescu, Christina Enengl and Christian Grafl 3. Decision-making and Supervision Miranda Boone and Martine Herzog Evans 4. Practising Supervision Gwen Robinson and Kerstin Svensson 5. European Norms, Policy and Practice Christine Morgenstern and Elena Larrauri 6. Conclusion: Studying mass supervision comparatively Kristel Beyens and Fergus McNeill

Encounters of a different kind Social enquiry and sentencing in Belgium

Abstract: This article draws on the results of multi-method research studying the discourse of Belgian sentencing judges and report writers in relation to the use and evaluation of social reports. To underst...

The culture of control: crime and social order in contemporary, society

Abstract: Nos últimos trinta trinta anos, houve profundas mudanças na forma como compreendemos o crime e a justiça criminal. O crime tornou-se um evento simbólico, um verdadeiro teste para a ordem social e para as políticas governamentais, um desafio para a sociedade civil, para a democracia e para os direitos humanos. Segundo David Garland, professor da Faculdade de Direito da New York University, um dos principais autores no campo da Sociologia da Punição e com artigo publicado na Revista de Sociologia e Política , número 13, na modernidade tardia houve uma verdadeira obsessão securitária, direcionando as políticas criminais para um maior rigor em relação às penas e maior intolerância com o criminoso. Há trinta anos, nos EUA e na Inglaterra essa tendência era insuspeita. O livro mostra que os dois países compartilham intrigantes similaridades em suas práticas criminais, a despeito da divisão racial, das desigualdades econômicas e da letalidade violenta que marcam fortemente o cenário americano. Segundo David Garland, encontram-se nos dois países os “mesmos tipos de riscos e inseguranças, a mesma percepção a respeito dos problemas de um controle social não-efetivo, as mesmas críticas da justiça criminal tradicional, e as mesmas ansiedades recorrentes sobre mudança e ordem sociais”1 (GARLAND, 2001, p. 2). O argumento principal da obra é o seguinte: a modernidade tardia, esse distintivo padrão de relações sociais, econômicas e culturais, trouxe consigo um conjunto de riscos, inseguranças e problemas de controle social que deram uma configuração específica às nossas respostas ao crime, ao garantir os altos custos das políticas criminais, o grau máximo de duração das penas e a excessivas taxas de encarceramento.

The Idea of a Social Science and its Relation to Philosophy.

Abstract: Preface to the Second Edition Part 1: Philosophical Bearings 1. Aims and Strategy 2. The Underlabourer Conception of Philosophy 3. Philosophy and Science 4. The Philosopher's Concern with Language 5. Conceptual and Empirical Enquiries 6. The Pivotal Role of Epistemology in Philosophy 7. Epistemology and the Understanding of Society 8. Rules: Wittgenstein's Analysis 9. Some Misunderstandings of Wittgenstein Part 2: The Nature of Meaningful Behaviour 1. Philosophy and Sociology 2. Meaningful Behaviour 3. Activities and Precepts 4. Rules and Habits 5. Reflectiveness Part 3: The Social Studies as Science 1. J.S. Mill's 'Logic of the Moral Sciences' 2. Differences in Degree and Differences in Kind 3. Motives and Causes 4. Motives, Dispositions and Reasons 5. The Investigation of Regularities 6. Understanding Social Institutions 7. Prediction in the Social Studies Part 4: The Mind and Society 1. Pareto: Logical and Non-Logical Conduct 2. Pareto: Residues and Derivations 3. Max Weber: Verstehen and Causal Explanation 4. Max Weber: Meaningful Action and Social Action Part 5: Concepts and Actions 1. The Internality of Social Relations 2. Discursive and Non-Discursive 'Ideas' 3. The Social Sciences and History 4. Concluding Remark

Bibliography “Food as Heritage”

Abstract: The following bibliography is conceived as a selection of international literature on food as heritage and as a marker of identity within the huge amount of works recently produced on the topic of food. The bibliography has been produced within the “Food as heritage” project, performed at University of Bologna and coordinated by Ilaria Porciani, with a team composed by Massimo Montanari, Paolo Capuzzo, Raffaele Laudani and Marica Tolomelli. “Food as heritage” is part of a wider projec...