Showing papers in "Criminal Justice in 2004"
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors review issues concerning perceptions of women's credibility in the context of police responses to sexual assault complainants and present a qualitative and quantitative analysis based on both quantitative and qualitative data.
Abstract: This article reviews issues concerning perceptions of women’s credibility in the context of police responses to sexual assault complainants. It is based on both quantitative and qualitative data dr...
267 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the symbolic and material dimensions of contemporary policing reform programs are examined, focusing on the trajectory of emergence of reassurance policing, and they are examined in terms of symbolic and physical dimensions.
Abstract: Focusing upon the trajectory of emergence of reassurance policing, this article seeks to interrogate the symbolic and material dimensions of contemporary policing reform programmes. It considers ho...
164 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors compare the original vision behind the Crime Reduction Programme -an ambitious plan (initially intended to run for 10 years) to accumulate, disseminate and use research-based knowledge about the effectiveness of a wide variety of interventions -with the reality of the multiple problems experienced during its implementation in England and Wales between 1999 and its premature end in 2002.
Abstract: The article contrasts the original vision behind the Crime Reduction Programme - an ambitious plan (initially intended to run for 10 years) to accumulate, disseminate and use research-based knowledge about the effectiveness of a wide variety of interventions - with the reality of the multiple problems experienced during its implementation in England and Wales between 1999 and its premature end in 2002. Ultimately, few projects were implemented as planned, with the knock-on effect of a dearth of conclusive research findings. It is argued that the Crime Reduction Programme benefitted initially from an unusual ‘window of opportunity’ when such a programme appeared attractive to politicians, administrators, practitioners and researchers alike, resulting in a level of funding for pilot projects and evaluation which was unprecedented in the UK in the crime reduction field. However, it was undermined significantly by inherent risks and tensions that became increasingly prominent as circumstances (and the political climate) changed. While initially conceived as research-driven, it was ‘sold’ to politicians as contributing to the government’s challenging crime reduction targets, an aim which progressively took priority over research. It was over-ambitious in scale and raised unrealistic expectations of its outcomes. It suffered from major practical problems caused by unfeasible timescales, slow-moving bureaucratic procedures, and shortages of ‘capacity’. Low commitment to project integrity, cultural resistance among practitioners, and insufficient attention to differences between academics’ and policy makers’ understandings of research, also contributed to its problems. While some useful outcomes can be claimed, the results of the Crime Reduction Programme as a whole were unquestionably disappointing. In the light of these experiences, it might be argued that - tempting as it was to seize the rare opportunity of major funding - the ideal of ‘evidence-based policy’ may be more effectively pursued as a quiet iterative process over the longer term, rather than through a risky investment in one high profile and rapidly implemented ‘programme’ which promises more than it can guarantee to deliver.
162 citations
TL;DR: The call by transgender people for the police to take violence against them more seriously has some familiar attributes. as discussed by the authors argue that these problems are the effect of particular assumptions about the nature of identity.
Abstract: The call by transgender people for the police to take violence against them more seriously has some familiar attributes. In general it is a violence characterized as hate crime. Transgender activism has highlighted many problems, for example, under-reporting, lack of trust and confidence in policing, lack of police recognition, low detection rates, clear up rates and infrequent judicial determinations of guilt. This activism might be characterized as another instance of identity politics emerging within the field of policing and criminal justice. While we welcome its emergence some scholars have been critical of the impact of identity politics upon policing and criminal justice bodies, suggesting it promotes further social and community divisions. Although we share some of these concerns, in this article we argue that these problems are the effect of particular assumptions about the nature of identity. We offer an analysis of identity politics that seeks to challenge this position, as well as an analysis ...
103 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the use of evidence from evaluation research undertaken on, and as part of, the Home Office Reducing Burglary Initiative (HRI) is discussed. But this is not a case study about the uses and...
Abstract: This article is about the use of evidence from evaluation research undertaken on, and as part of, the Home Office Reducing Burglary Initiative. More generally, it is a case study about the uses and...
95 citations
TL;DR: Part of the programme of research funded under the Crime Reduction Programme was a group of evaluative studies of innovative probation service projects known as "Pathfinders" as mentioned in this paper, and these projects were d...
Abstract: Part of the programme of research funded under the Crime Reduction Programme was a group of evaluative studies of innovative probation service projects known as ‘Pathfinders’. These projects were d...
58 citations
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors explore the knowledge and skills base and habitus of one of the new partnership experts, the community safety manager (CSM), and explore the possible futures of community safety and crime and disorder reduction when viewed from the contemporary experiences of CSMs.
Abstract: It is difficult to ignore the growing salience of the new governance of crime and disorder in many late modern societies. To date there has been limited empirical exploration of the practices and experiences of these new local actors and institutions. This article aims to correct this neglect in the criminological literature by its exploration of the knowledge and skills base and habitus of one of the new partnership experts, the community safety manager (CSM). In particular, the article involves an engagement with recent research findings from Britain together with the more abstract conceptual tools opened up by current debates in critical social and political theory. It begins with a brief history of the community safety occupation during which the key features of the ‘profession’ are explored. Next, the thesis of a hegemonic risk management governmental logic in the field of community safety is critically examined. By exploring specific sites and contexts of community safety ‘work’, doubt is cast on totalizing narratives of neo-liberal transformation currently popular in criminology and sociology. Finally, the possible futures of community safety and crime and disorder reduction when viewed from the contemporary experiences of CSMs are considered.
53 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors trace the changing theories in and of the crime reduction program as a whole and the changing forms of evaluation that were conducted under its auspices, trying to distil realistic lessons for the conduct of informative evaluation in the context of large-scale government programs.
Abstract: The Crime Reduction Programme began in April 1999 and was largely finished by March 2002. It went through a number of major changes. It also incorporated an ambitious initial evaluation component and a range of forms of evaluation activity. This article traces the changing theories in and of the programme as a whole and the changing forms of evaluation that were conducted under its auspices. It attempts to explain how and why the programme metamorphosed and how and why provisions for evaluation activity evolved as they did. It tries to distil realistic lessons for the conduct of informative evaluation in the context of large-scale government programmes. It also attempts to locate the potential for realist evaluation within such programmes.
43 citations
TL;DR: Despite substantial misgivings about the activities and character of private prosecutors in England and Wales, the office of the Director of Public Prosecutions was established only reluctantly and hes...
Abstract: Despite substantial misgivings about the activities and character of private prosecutors in England and Wales, the office of Director of Public Prosecutions was established only reluctantly and hes...
36 citations
TL;DR: The Home Office Crime Reduction Programme, mounted in England and Wales between 1999 and 2002, failed to meet the expectations that it would substantially improve the knowledge base about crime control, and the article considers possible reasons as discussed by the authors.
Abstract: This article examines the Home Office Crime Reduction Programme, mounted in England and Wales between 1999 and 2002. The programme failed fully to meet the expectations that it would substantially improve the knowledge-base about crime control, and the article considers possible reasons. There were problems of implementation limiting what could be learnt. Underlying this poor implementation was an oversimplified view of order maintenance that was implicit in the design of the programme. Those programme strands that were concerned with policing overemphasized the crime control function and underemphasized other features of policing that preoccupy middle-level police managers, such as organizational legitimacy. As the programme failed to engage with these everyday preoccupations, the projects funded under it tended to receive little priority from those who were in a position to determine their success.
30 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reviewed the community safety officer role in local government and provided results from interviews with CSOs in the Australian state of Victoria and concluded that this role is one concerned with change management, and that building CSO capaci...
Abstract: Community safety officers have become central to the delivery of crime prevention and community safety policy both in Australia and elsewhere. This article reviews the community safety officer (CSO) role in local government and provides results from interviews with CSOs in the Australian state of Victoria. The experiences, challenges and problems faced by CSOs in implementing Victorian schemes are outlined. It is argued that the focus by governments and criminologists on developing training packages, competencies and identifying ‘what works’ discounts the administrative and political environments in which local level CSOs work. These contexts present obstacles to strategy development and implementation. Likewise a similar criticism is made of the governmentality thesis, that it too fails to engage with and interrogate local practice, overlooking issues of contingency and agency that encompass the CSO role. It is concluded that this role is one concerned with change management, and that building CSO capaci...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors critique the move towards establishing standardized cognitive behavioural interventions for violent men within the National Probation Service of England and Wales (NPS) within the UK.
Abstract: This article critiques the move towards establishing standardized cognitive behavioural interventions for violent men within the National Probation Service of England and Wales. The article queries...
TL;DR: The model has been shown to be problematic, and questioned whether it is transplantable to other countries as discussed by the authors. But it has been a growth industry in the UK and the USA.
Abstract: Originating in Britain and the USA, community policing has been a growth industry internationally. However, studies have shown the model to be problematic, and questioned whether it is transplantab...
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the suggestion that crime control policyshould emulate environmental regulation by concentrating on thealteration of fundamental incentive structures and explore the promise of a culturally plural model of crime control that is notdominated by the state.
Abstract: This article examines the suggestion that crime control policyshould emulate environmental regulation by concentrating on thealteration of fundamental incentive structures. The ‘greening’ ofpolicy can occur in a number of different ways. A dominant modelof environmental regulation is skewed towards government andtechnicist in orientation. This model does not consider the diversityof incentives that incite action and runs up against a commitmentproblem. An alternative model of regulation, derived from the grid-group theory of Mary Douglas, is described and its promise forinspiring a culturally plural model of crime control that is notdominated by the state is explored. These suggestions aresubstantiated by examining recent debates concerning policing andcrime prevention and the progress of the Crime and Disorder Act inEngland and Wales, which might point to an altered role for thestate in the provision of security. Key Words governance • greening • grid-group theory • regulation • wickedproblems
TL;DR: This paper reviewed some of the recent political rhetoric and public opinion on the controversial subject of youth crime and how to deal with it, particularly the Young Offenders Act of 1984 and the new Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2002, from a social constructionist perspective.
Abstract: This article reviews some of the recent political rhetoric and public opinion on the controversial subject of youth crime and how to deal with it, particularly the Young Offenders Act of 1984 and the new Youth Criminal Justice Act of 2002, from a social constructionist perspective. Recent controversy over youth crime and justice is nothing new, reflecting differing views about the causes of crime and the appropriate ways of responding to it as specific manifestations of more fundamental and conflicting ideological assumptions regarding views of human nature, the degree of individual responsibility for behavior, and the fundamental values of society. The debates surrounding the new Youth Criminal Justice Act continue to reflect these ideological conflicts. Generally, there is a substantial gap between much of the rhetoric and the reality of youth crime and justice. Youth crime and justice in Canada is certainly an important issue that requires serious attention, but it is hardly the crisis that some would ...
TL;DR: One of the projects from the Home Office Crime Reduction Programme, which focused on hate crime and domestic violence, was described in this paper, where the authors argue that the project achieved its aims: police crime records can and do provide eviden...
Abstract: This article outlines the lessons from one of the projects from the Home Office Crime Reduction Programme, which focused on hate crime and domestic violence. Funded near the end of the initiative, the project differed from many of the interventions. Rather than proposing to test an intervention to see ‘what worked’, it set out to produce the evidence upon which decisions about intervention could be made. Led by a senior academic criminologist (Stanko), housed within the largest police service in the UK - the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) - the project had sponsorship from influential members of the uniformed management team. The project further employed a team of social science researchers - some of whom had worked within the MPS and others who had no experience of working inside the police organization - to work on transforming routine police crime records into evidence to inform policy and strategy. The article argues that the project achieved its aims: police crime records can and do provide eviden...
Journal Article•
TL;DR: This article examined the way in which the serious offender provisions have been applied in the County and Supreme Courts of Victoria in order to determine whether there is a difference between the Government's intentions in introducing the legislation and the outcomes.
Abstract: In 1993 and 1997 the Victorian government introduced changes to the Sentencing Act 1991 (Vic) enabling sentencers to impose longer than proportionate sentences for serious offenders in the name of protection of the community. Many commentators predicted that these provisions signalled the demise of proportionality in sentencing for those offenders. However, although incapacitation policies are popular with politicians and the public, it appears that the judiciary have not embraced these provisions. This article examines the way in which the serious offender provisions have been applied in the County and Supreme Courts of Victoria in order to determine whether there is a difference between the Government's intentions in introducing the legislation and the outcomes. Language: en
TL;DR: A number of recent commentators, most notably and perhaps most elegantly David Garland, have outlined the contours of a new crime control dispensation that is said to characterize modern society as mentioned in this paper.
Abstract: A number of recent commentators, most notably and perhaps most elegantly David Garland, have outlined the contours of a new crime control dispensation that is said to characterize modern society. One strand of the evidence for this development is the upward trend in countries’ per capita prison populations. The purpose of this research note is to highlight some of the difficulties associated with any analysis carried out at this level of abstraction, especially with respect to the USA.
TL;DR: In this article, the authors discuss the blurring of boundaries between organizations and their responsibilities, the legitimation of the exchange of information between the participating organizations and the question to what extent the introduction of "justice in the community" should be understood as the symptom of a process of juridification.
Abstract: 'Justice in the Community' in The Netherlands promotes the cooperation between criminal justice and other organizations. It increases the visibility of the Public Prosecution to other partners and has an important symbolic function for citizens in multi-problem urban areas, which the state has not left alone with their problems. The scheme also promotes the use of more integrated and extra-judicial reactions to crime and, by using a range of mediation methods, more attention is paid to the position of victims of crime. Justice in the Community' creates more rapid interventions and settlements of criminal cases. However, there is no evidence that ‘Justice in the Community’ results in a higher levels of ‘objective and subjective safety’ in the neighbourhoods concerned. Some fundamental issues with regard to 'Justice in the Community' are discussed, for example, the blurring of boundaries between organizations and their responsibilities, the legitimation of the exchange of information between the participating organizations and the question to what extent the introduction of ‘Justice in the Community’ should be understood as the symptom of a process of juridification.