Showing papers in "Howard Journal of Criminal Justice in 2005"

Man to Man Violence: How Masculinity May Work as a Dynamic Risk Factor

Abstract: This article presents masculinity as a dynamic risk factor in offences of violence between men. It argues that existing interventions into such violence, in prison, hospital and community settings may be enhanced by incorporating masculinity as a dynamic risk factor alongside other dynamic risk factors such as difficulties in anger management, social skills deficits or problems in moral reasoning. Masculinity is defined as a common denominator of men, as men, across social divisions, as opposed to existing approaches to men's identity, as men, which employ the concept of different 'masculinities' being produced by men in different social positions. The latter approach, while useful in terms of discovering men's personal identity, may be less useful in terms of explaining commonality between men, across other axes of social identity, and consequent broad patterns of violence between men. The development of masculinity as a dynamic risk factor depends on isolating masculinity from other axes of men's identity. It is argued that the individual man may demonstrate his masculinity by two categories of violence to other men: violence which includes victims in the category 'man' as worthy rivals and violence which excludes victims from the category 'man' as unworthy of being there. Masculinity as a dynamic risk factor in man to man violence is developed with particular reference to racism and homophobia.

Concepts and theory in community policing

Abstract: Community policing (CP) has an enduring appeal, but there are many constructions of its meaning, each informed by different philosophical underpinnings. The article examines approaches to CP in which the police are close to the public, know their concerns from regular contacts, and act on them in accord with the community's wishes. It assesses the prospects of such approaches, drawing on research evaluating programmes designed in line with such principles and on a conceptualisation of contemporary community life. The assessment is used to outline an approach for theorising CP and for systematically analysing the effects of CP programmes and interventions.

Bridging the Gap: Understanding Reassurance Policing

Abstract: While crime rates in England and Wales have been falling, the perception has remained, for many, that crime is rising. It has also been assumed that fear of crime is high, although measures of fear have been declining since the mid-1990s. Of greater concern is a concurrent decline in confidence in the police. This ‘gap’ underpins the need for reassurance as a means of gaining legitimacy for policing decisions. We consider the background to reassurance policing and examine interpretation at ground level through interviews with officers involved in a strategy trial based upon a ‘signal crimes’ perspective.

Hidden Injuries? Researching the Experiences of Older Men in English Prisons

Abstract: The numbers of elderly men in the prisons of England and Wales has grown significantly over the past decade, and they continue to rise. Based on intensive fieldwork in four English prisons, this article explores the prison experiences of men aged 65 years and over. Some of our interviewees had grown old in prison, some had served previous prison sentences and others (the majority) had been sentenced to a term of imprisonment in later life. These men had no prior experience of imprisonment. We are concerned in this article with the impacts of imprisonment on this prisoner group, and with the 'hidden injuries' generated by the prison regime and environment. Prisoners in this age group have to date received little research attention, and scant acknowledgement in policy debates in the United Kingdom. We will argue that those impacts may be magnified, in practical ways, by this inattention. Our concern in this article is to disclose various problematic aspects of the predicaments of older men in contemporary English prisons. 1 We argue that although the number of such prisoners has risen sharply in recent years their situation has not as yet become the object of explicit policy attention or intervention, at least not in any concerted fashion. We seek to understand why this apparent inattentiveness persists, and to outline some of its prison-level effects. Without wishing to resort too readily to the overworked notion of 'crisis' (a term that, ironically, prisons seem to attract routinely) it seems clear that, on any sober projection of current tendencies, the number of older prisoners will continue to accumulate for the foreseeable future. This presages a multiplication of needs and demands for which little in the way of planning or provision or, less obviously, cultural re-adjustment, is yet evident. There is an intriguing series of questions here in the tradition of studies of the social construction of social problems: Why do some developments seemingly fail to reach the threshold of visibility that would constitute them as a topic for policy? What consequences follow for those concerned from their low visibility? What promptings, or what scandals, would need to happen in order for that threshold to be attained? In the case of elderly

Punishing Parents for the Crimes of their Children

Abstract: In recent years there has been a profusion of laws that punish parents for their children's offences. These parental responsibility laws are based on the assumption that parents of children who offend have not accepted their responsibility and that they can be made to do so by the imposition of court orders and financial penalties. In this article I will examine the efficacy of punishing parents for the crimes of their children. I will consider whether parental responsibility laws are an effective means of tackling youth crime; or should policies that strengthen the family and improve parenting skills be pursued as strategies for preventing juvenile offending behaviour.

Forcing the issue: new labour, new localism and the democratic renewal of police accountability

Abstract: The purpose of this article is to evaluate proposals contained in the government's Green Paper Policing: Building Safer Communities Together (Home Office 2003) and the White Paper Building Communities: Beating Crime (Home Office 2004) to re-invigorate the structure of police governance in the UK. After providing a brief overview of New Labour's initial attempts to modernise British policing, I analyse why and how the broader political discourse of ‘new localism’ came to frame the unfolding debate about the need to revitalise police accountability. The article then offers a critical evaluation of the latest Home Office attempt to reorganise the democratic structure of police governance in the UK.

Learning from ‘Near Misses’: Interviews with Women who Survived an Incident of Severe Self‐Harm in Prison

Abstract: This article describes qualitative research with women survivors of potentially lethal self-harm in prison. In-depth interviews were carried out during 2002/03 with 15 women, (adults and young offenders), from six establishments. The interviews focused on the women's own accounts of the 'near miss' incident, including intentions and motivations, factors leading up to the incident, experiences of care and support, current self-harm and suicidality, and suggestions for prevention. Recommendations include: improvements to the general prison regime; training and support for staff; specialist help for women with histories of abuse, mental illness, or borderline personality disorder; improved support following stressful life events.

Computer Hacking: Just Another Case of Juvenile Delinquency?

Abstract: Recent discussions of computer 'hacking' make explicit reference to the disproportionate involvement of juveniles in this form of computer crime. While criminal justice, computer security, public and popular reflections on hacking seldom refer to formal criminological analyses of youth offending, they nonetheless offer a range of explanations for the over-representation of young people amongst computer hackers. Such accounts of hacking can be seen to converge with criminological analyses, by stressing a range of causal factors related to gender psychology, adolescent moral development, family dysfunction and peer-group and subcultural association. The homologies between 'lay', 'administrative', 'expert', 'popular' and criminological discourses, it is suggested, offer considerable scope for developing a critical, academically-informed, and policy- oriented debate on young people's participation in computer crime. It has been noted that 'youthfulness' or 'being a teenager' appears as 'a constant source of fascination and concern for politicians, media commentators and academic analysts' (Muncie 1999, p.2), not least when involvement in supposedly 'criminal', 'deviant' and 'anti-social' activities is concerned. Whenever anxieties erupt about new threats to the moral and social order, 'youth' are seldom far away from the line-up of society's 'usual suspects'. Society's perennial fascination with 'youth and crime' has itself become the object of sociological and criminological analysis, furnishing numerous explorations of the ways in which young people and their cultural commitments have become the 'folk devils' in successive waves of 'moral panics' about crime and disorder (Young 1971; Cohen 1972; Hall et al. 1978; Pearson 1983; Hay 1995; Springhall 1998). Since the 1990s, academic commentators have observed how the Internet has emerged as a new locus of criminal activity that has become the object of public and political anxieties, sometimes leading to over-reaction (Thomas and Loader 2000, p.8; Littlewood 2003). Yet again, the category of 'youth' has figured centrally in discussions of the threat, especially in relation to 'computer hacking', the unauthorised access to and manipulation of computer systems. Politicians, law enforcement officials, computer security

What Works in Offender Management?1

Abstract: This article traces the emergence of a trend toward a fragmented style of offender management, whereby staff increasingly occupy specialist roles, and offenders encounter a variety of staff in the course of supervision. Reflecting on existing research, it argues that offenders are not best served by a system in which they are conceived as 'portable entities', and in which staff are obliged to engage in a 'pass-the-parcel' style of supervision. It also argues that the fragmentation of practice presents risks to at least some staff in terms of morale and job satisfaction. Finally, implications for NOMS are discussed. Less than a decade ago, an offender commencing probation supervision could expect a high degree of continuity in his or her order (Burnett 1996). It was more than likely that the probation officer who prepared the offender's pre-sentence report would subsequently become his or her supervising officer, and the offender could expect to complete his or her order or licence under the supervision of the same officer. This article reflects on the recent trend toward 'fragmentation' in the delivery of probation which, it is argued, has been associated with a partial breakdown of the traditional 'relational' model of offender supervision. This trend in favour of fragmentation, it is argued, is traceable to a number of developments, beginning in the early 1990s with the formalisation of partnership arrangements and the emergence of a 'case management' model of practice. More recently, fragmentation has been encouraged by a growing tendency, at the level of management, to think about and treat offenders differentially in accordance with risk profiles. This article argues that, as the power to make decisions about the shape of offender supervision has moved further up the managerial hierarchy, notions of effectiveness have become confused. In short, 'what works' at the level of aggregate 'offender management' does not necessarily work for offenders, or indeed the practitioners responsible for supervising them.

The State of the Prisons: Exploring Public Knowledge and Opinion

Abstract: This article reviews public opinion research relating to imprisonment. Thefocus is upon British attitudes, but wherever possible we place findings from this countryin an international context. Most members of the public report little familiarity with theprison system – few people report having had any direct contact with a penal institution.A common finding around the world is that most people believe that prison conditions arequite easy; this belief helps to explain low public levels of confidence in the prison system.Despite these trends, the public does not wish to make prison life harsher merely for thepurpose of punishment. People want and expect prisoners to improve their lives whileinside, although there is widespread scepticism that rehabilitation is possible in today’sprisons. Although the traffic of people in and out of the prison gates today is large,nevertheless the prison is a silent world still shrouded in mystery. (Blom-Cooper1976, p.72) Despite the efforts of legislators to counter the problem, prison popula-tions are stable or rising in most western jurisdictions (see below). Oneexplanation for this state of affairs is the apparently strong public supportfor imprisonment as a sanction. Judges and magistrates feel underpressure to respond to public pressure on this issue (see Hough, Jacobsonand Millie 2003). However, relatively little is known about public viewsregarding imprisonment, as the emphasis in the public opinion literaturehas been upon sentencing rather than the nature of custody per se.Weknow that when asked to sentence offenders convicted of serious crimes ofviolence, most people support the imposition of a term of custody. It isequally clear from several reviews that the public believes the sentencingprocess is too lenient (for example, Cullen, Fisher and Applegate 2000;Roberts and Stalans 1997; Roberts 1992) and also that people in differentcountries underestimate the severity of current court practices (forexample, Roberts and Hough 2005; Roberts 1998; Mattinson and

The Disorderly Crowd: From Classical Psychological Reductionism to Socio-Contextual Theory – The Impact on Public Order Policing Strategies

Abstract: Following the publication in 1895 of Gustav Le Bon's seminal work, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind, psychological explanations of collective disorder unremittingly emphasised the supposedly anomalous and irrational nature of the phenomenon. Recently, however, this ‘classical’ theoretical tradition has been supplanted by increasingly enlightened social psychological and socio-political approaches which emphasise the importance to our understanding of the contexts, dynamics and underlying meanings of episodes of public disorder. This article outlines the evolution of these theoretical perspectives and notes the extent to which they appear to have induced corresponding shifts in police public order strategy.

Evaluating Evidence for the Effectiveness of the Reasoning and Rehabilitation Programme

Abstract: Reasoning and Rehabilitation is a cognitive-behavioual training programme for offenders, accredited by the Home Office for use with offenders in prison and on custodial sentences in England and Wales. Evidence the programme achieves significant reductions in offending is questionable. A matched control study is reported which used both offending and psychometric outcome measures. Findings for reconviction are mixed. Offenders whose attitudes changed pro-socially were more likely to be reconvicted than were offenders whose attitudes did not change positively. This casts doubt on whether reconviction is reduced because of attitudinal change, and on the use of measures of attitudinal change in evaluation.

Prison Officers' Concerns About Blood Borne Viral Infections

Abstract: Prison officers' knowledge and perceptions of hepatitis B, hepatitis C and HIV were explored by conducting a cross-sectional survey in four Dublin prisons with high rates of blood borne viral infections among the inmates. Most officers (87%) reported not knowing enough about these diseases to enable them to take the necessary precautions at work. Longer serving and senior officers were less fearful and less anxious about contracting the infections. Officers who had received hepatitis B vaccination were no less worried about hepatitis B than unvaccinated colleagues. Training on blood borne viruses had little effect on prison officers' knowledge or perception of blood borne viral infections.

Out of this World: The Advent of the Satellite Tracking of Offenders in England and Wales†

Abstract: In September 2004, the Home Office established three pilot programmes to test the efficacy of the satellite tracking of offenders, a new form of electronic monitoring. Satellite tracking, and the monitoring of exclusion zones which it permits, had been legislated for in the Criminal Justice and Court Services Act 2000, but the Home Office waited until putatively reliable technology – more reliable than that initially used for tracking in the USA – was available before commencing the pilots. Its arrival was formally announced in the context of a major review of ‘correctional services’, in which electronic monitoring generally is given a clearer strategic role than it has had hitherto in England and Wales. Although snippets of information about satellite tracking were drip fed into the media in the run up to the launch of the pilots, this has been a most under-deliberated initiative. This article was completed just before the commencement of the pilots and aims primarily to open up debate about this new measure. It also argues that the emergence of satellite tracking – monitoring movement rather than just single locations – sheds light on the development of electronic monitoring more generally, whose implications for more humanistic approaches to offender supervision, such as probation, are still not fully appreciated.

Changing Practices: The Specialised Domestic Violence Court Process

Abstract: Specialised domestic violence courts, initially developed in the United States of America, have been recognised by other jurisdictions including Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom. This article presents a case study of K Court in Toronto, drawing upon documentary evidence, direct observations and interviews with key informants. It is argued that the specialised domestic violence court process includes changing practices of some of the key stakeholders. Learning lessons from abroad can offer jurisdictions insights that can steer implementation of appropriate practices in the field.

‘Caught Between a Rock and a Hard Place’: Police Experiences with the Legitimacy of Street Watch Partnerships

Abstract: This article describes some of the difficulties experienced by the police in attempting to create and maintain the legitimacy of two local Street Watch police-community partnerships. Using Beetham's (1991) framework of legitimacy for analysis, it is argued that Street Watch schemes do not enjoy inherent legitimacy fundamentally because of their potential for vigilantism, which in turn can threaten to compromise the legitimacy of the police. This particular form of active citizenship is questioned in terms of its regulation and overall appropriateness within the current expansion of policing.

Places not Cases?: Re‐thinking the Probation Focus*

Abstract: John Augustus, the ‘first probation officer’, carried a caseload assigned by the court. And ever since, this way of organising the probation officer's accountability has dominated the profession. To be sure, there are plenty of probation officers who do not carry caseloads, but probation officers who ‘work the line’ do so around an assignment of specific cases. This tradition has considerable implications for the professional identity of the probation officer and the day-to-day work-styles the job generates. Recently, however, a growing movement of innovation has arisen in probation work which takes probation's focus away from the caseload: partnerships, restorative justice, community crime prevention, and so forth. Research repeatedly shows us that probationers' residences are concentrated in certain locations – typically certain more-or-less well identified neighbourhoods. This fact suggest that an alternative way of organising line work of probation officers would be by place rather than case. This article explores the rationale for such a shift in probation officer work, and it speculates about the benefits that might accrue to the profession from taking such a step. Potential problems are also identified.

The Referral of Juvenile Offenders to the Adult Court in Belgium: Theory and Practice

Abstract: In Belgium the juvenile judge can exceptionally refer a juvenile offender aged16 years orover to the Public Prosecutor with the intent of prosecuting and sentencing theminor before the adult court. As in the UK and the USA, this transfer mechanism isincreasingly pushed forward as a preferential solution for serious juvenile offenders.With this, a more classic penal angle and an increased repressive tenor seem to haveentered the juvenile justice system and are replacing the individualised justice andrehabilitative ideal. That this new culture of control with facilitated waiver conditionsand ‘populist’ policy discourse does not necessarily result in more repressive judicialpractices can be illustrated with Belgian transfer statistics and interviews withmagistrates.From the beginning of the 20th Century with the Children’s Act of 1912,the underlying premise of the Belgian juvenile justice system – as in mostcountries ofthe EuropeanUnion –has been the concept that children neednot be punished but rather protected and (re)educated. This rehabilita-tion-tradition was re-affirmed in the Youth Protection Act of 1965: untiltheir 18th anniversary, juveniles are presumed to lack penal responsibilityand are dealt with separately from adults. Exceptionally, however, thejuvenile judge can decide to refer a juvenile offender aged over 16 years tothe Public Prosecutor with the intent of prosecuting and sentencing theminor in the adult court.Since it was intended to be an exceptional measure, and the applicationhas indeed been limited, little research has been done on the topic. Fromthe beginning of the 1980s, however, a slow but steady rise in theapplication of transfer seems to have occurred (Henry 1984). Because ofthe lack of reliable statistics, the Free University of Brussels, at the requestof the Ministry of Justice, has been conducting a research project to paint aquantitative as well as a qualitative picture of the actual practice of thereferring of juvenile offenders to the adult court in Belgium.

UK Policing and its Television Portrayal: ‘Law and Order’ Ideology or Modernising Agenda?

Abstract: The portrayal of the police on UK television has attracted a degree of academic attention over the years. The current article provides a survey of the relevant literature and a consideration of some select TV portrayals past and present to assess the outlooks on policing they promote and reproduce. It is argued that analysts need to investigate further the impact of television portrayals of policing on the police themselves if we are to fully understand their significance.

Who Needs Theories in Policing? An Introduction to a Special Issue on Policing

Abstract: Policing, or to be more precise, the activities and policies of the 43 territorial police forces in England and Wales, has been the subject of extensive review and reform over the past 40 years. Indeed the whole history of the police is one of almost constant change and development but this has never been more apparent than in the recent past. Successive governments have embarked on a series of police reforms which have seen a significant shift in power to the Home Office and a consequent reduction in local accountability. At the same time, the police have been granted extensive new powers to deal with newly emerging threats ranging from locally-based crime and disorder to international terrorism, yet many of the reforms are taking place with little apparent understanding of the potential long-term consequences and without proper evaluation. The purpose of this introductory article is to set the scene for a series of articles which explore some of the theoretical issues which underpin modern policing practice and the practical consequences of some of those changes.

The Prison Service Drug Strategy: The Extent to which Prisoners Need and Receive Treatment

Abstract: This article discusses availability of drug treatment in English and Welsh prisons, within the broader context of drugs-and-crime issues. The article draws on a large pre-release survey of prisoners. Nearly two-thirds of those reporting problems staying off drugs before they were imprisoned subsequently received some treatment in prison, while one in ten went on an intensive rehabilitation programme. However, long-sentence prisoners were disproportionately likely to receive treatment. Outstanding challenges include a need to improve access to different types of treatment, especially for short-term prisoners, if treatment is to play as full a part as possible in addressing prisoners' drug problems and reducing reoffending.

Crime Orientations, Social Relations and Involvement in Crime: Patterns Emerging from Offenders' Accounts

Abstract: This article presents findings from a research project that set out to inform our understanding of crime by exploring offenders' accounts of themselves, their lives and their offending behaviour. Eighteen convicted offenders were interviewed. Official data about their offending were also collected. Analysis of these qualitative data revealed two central concepts in participants' accounts of their involvement in crime that are reported here: (i) crime orientation – an individual's stance towards crime; and (ii) social relations – an individual's formal and informal connections to society. More positive crime orientations and more negative social relations were associated with deeper levels of involvement in offending. The analysis also indicated that these were gendered concepts, being experienced differently and having different implications for men and women. It is concluded that crime orientations, social relations and gender are central to understanding offending behaviour when seen from offenders' perspectives.

An Evaluation of the CARAT Initiative

Abstract: CARAT (Counselling, Assessment, Referral, Advice and Throughcare) schemes have been operational in prisons throughout England and Wales for three and a half years, designed to increase the support available to drug-using prisoners both during custody and on release. Specifically the CARAT service has a remit to ‘bridge the gap’ between custody and the community. However, to date there have been few attempts to evaluate schemes or their impact on throughcare provision. This article presents some research findings which highlight a number of shortcomings with current throughcare provision, many of these stemming from ineffective partnership working between the agencies that share responsibility for this. A qualitative design was used, employing semi-structured interviews to ascertain the beliefs and experiences of drug users and those working with them on either side of the prison gate. The authors propose a radical re-structuring of the services in place to support drug-using offenders on release, with the aim of promoting continuity of care, facilitating effective joint working between agencies and securing a responsive and accountable service for users.

Why the Failure of the Prison Service and the Parole Board to Acknowledge Wrongful Imprisonment is Untenable

Abstract: This article analyses key documents that were produced in collaboration between the Prison Service and the Prison Reform Trust. It identifies an organisational inability on the part of the Prison Service and the Parole Board to acknowledge that the courts can return incorrect verdicts and that wrongful imprisonment can, and does occur. It argues that this renders the ways in which the Prison Service and the Parole Board deal with life prisoners who maintain that they are innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted untenable. To demonstrate this, the article distinguishes two broad categories of wrongful imprisonment. It concludes that those charged with a duty of care for, and the possible release of, those given custodial sentences by the courts must, therefore, be prepared to 'think the unthinkable' and make adequate provision for the innocent victims of wrongful imprisonment that are sure to come their way.

Co‐operation in Drug Treatment Services: Views of Offenders on Court Orders in Scotland

Abstract: Accessing client perspectives about co-operation in substance misuse treatment offers important information to enhance services and improve drop-out rates. This article reports upon qualitative data from a localised study of service needs of offenders in Scotland who were undertaking community-based court orders. The views of 27 men and two women on their current and recent treatment offers rich insights into factors influencing their co-operation in treatment. In contradiction to the voluntaristic ideology of treatment services, their voices identify the criminal justice system as offering strong support in the completion of treatment programmes. At the heart of the current UK government's ten-year strategy for tackling drug misuse is to improve 'the participation of problem drug misusers, including prisoners, in drug treatment programmes which have a positive impact on health and crime' (Cabinet Office 1998, Aim (iii), p.11). With significant capital investments, drug treatment services have been respond- ing to UK policy concerns about the number of problematic drug users

Partnership in working with young offenders with substance misuse problems

Abstract: This article describes the quality of the partnerships between youth offending teams and substance misuse projects working with young offenders. It draws on local evaluations of 25 projects funded by the Youth Justice Board's Development Fund from 1999 to 2002. For the most part, the relationships were described in mainly positive terms but a number of areas of potential and actual conflict were identified, notably confidentiality, referral criteria and enforcement. The findings are compared with previous research on partnerships between criminal justice and voluntary agencies, which generally indicate similar advantages and tensions. To some extent, YOTs and projects were able to avoid some of the predictable tensions by careful liaison and planning. However, the speed of the tendering process and the practical complexities of setting up the projects at the same time as the YOTs themselves were coming into being made this difficult for some projects. This article describes and evaluates a major national initiative in encouraging partnership between youth offending teams (YOTs) and statutory and voluntary substance misuse agencies in working with young offenders. It compares the evaluation with the findings of previous research on partnerships in the criminal justice system and identifies a number of persistent challenges to the effectiveness of collaboration between agencies. The initiative took place within the context of the Crime and Disorder Act 1998, one of many recent UK acts and policies explicitly intended to improve inter-agency and interdisciplinary working practices in social care and health. The Act established the Youth Justice Board (YJB) and local YOTs to conduct, co-ordinate and develop such work for youth offending, creating teams of youth justice workers from different professional backgrounds, including youth justice, probation, police, social work,

Meeting the Needs of Welsh Speaking Young People in Custody

Abstract: This article explores issues of discrimination which may be experienced by Welsh speaking young people from Wales within the youth justice secure estate of England and Wales The article provides a brief outline of the current use of the Welsh Language in Wales and explores the significance of being a territorially bound and historically situated linguistic group Perceptions of members of a youth offending team (from an area with a high proportion of Welsh speakers) are used to illustrate some key issues affecting Welsh speaking young people sentenced to custody The developmental and rehabilitative implications of the current situation for young Welsh speaking people and the institutional responses to their linguistic needs are explored Concluding the discussion, the authors argue that either the current Youth Justice Board for England and Wales needs to engage more proactively with the bilingual context of Wales, or a new Youth Justice Board for Wales should be constituted Such a Board, they suggest, would be specifically concerned and focused on Welsh issues and might therefore be more committed towards making equal opportunities a reality for Welsh speaking young people in custody

Are Cognitive Problem‐solving Skills Programmes Really Not Working? A Response to ‘Evaluating Evidence for the Effectiveness of the Reasoning and Rehabilitation Programme’

Abstract: Many believe that offenders are involved in criminal activities because they make poor decisions. Accordingly, problem-solving skills programmes have been delivered to literally thousands of offenders on both sides of the Atlantic. In ‘Evaluating evidence for the effectiveness of the Reasoning and Rehabilitation Programme’ (Wilkinson 2005), the authors cite outcome research suggesting that involvement in Reasoning and Rehabilitation does not significantly reduce reoffending in comparison to untreated control subjects. This article proposes that it may not be the underlying premise that is faulty. Rather, it is possible that a proliferation of cognitive-behavioural interventions, most of which include aspects of problem-solving skills development, has washed out any potential differences. Simply put, being managed in a cognitive-behavioural framework that adheres to the principles of effective correctional interventions (for example, Andrews and Bonta 2003) affords offenders an opportunity to develop better problem-solving skills.

Young People, Crime and School Exclusion: A Case of Some Surprises

Abstract: During the 1990s the number of young people being permanently excluded from schools in England and Wales increased dramatically from 2,910 (1990/91) to a peak of 12,700 (1996/97). Coinciding with this rise was a resurgence of the debate centring on lawless and delinquent youth. With the publication of Young People and Crime (Graham and Bowling 1995) and Misspent Youth (Audit Commission 1996) the 'common sense assumption' that exclusion from school inexorably promoted crime received wide support, with the school excludee portrayed as another latter day 'folk devil'. This article explores the link between school exclusion and juvenile crime, and offers some key findings from a research study undertaken with 56 young people who had experience of being excluded from school. Self-report interview questions reveal that whilst 40 of the young people had offended, 90% (36) reported that the onset of their offending commenced prior to their first exclusion. Moreover, 50 (89.2% of the total number of young people in the sample), stated that they were no more likely to offend subsequent to being excluded and 31 (55.4%) stated that they were less likely to offend during their exclusion period. Often, this was because on being excluded, they were 'grounded' by their parents.