Howard Journal of Crime and Justice最新文献

Internationally, whole life sentences are becoming an increasingly common sanction. They are supported by abolitionists of state executions and ‘tough on crime’ conservatives alike and, as a result, have flourished in recent years. The US has the highest number of persons serving whole life sentences anywhere in the world with an unprecedented 55,945 persons serving life without parole sentences in 2020 (p.94). Kleinstuber et al.’s Life without parole: worse than death? considers the purpose, development and impact of life without parole sentences in the US by focusing upon the increased use of life without parole sentences across the previous three decades. The authors examine the US's increasing dependency upon these sentences by considering arguments in support of their continued use and, in so doing, shine a light on the inhumane ‘pains’ suffered by those serving such sentences.

The book starts by considering the legitimacy of life without parole sentences, questioning whether life without parole sentences are humane and subsequently ‘just’ by considering the experiences of death row prisoners who – by most people's standards – are serving a significantly ‘worse’ sentence. The authors focus on ‘death penalty volunteers’ (p.21) (death row prisoners who purposely refuse to pursue any form of appeal so as to accelerate the execution process) in order to demonstrate the inhumane nature of life without parole sentences. The authors subsequently argue that the increasing number of ‘death penalty volunteers’ calls into question the notion that ‘life’ (without parole) is ‘better’ than death.

The second chapter continues to question the legitimacy of life without parole sentences by considering the experiences of life without parole prisoners. This chapter consolidates and builds upon existing literature on the pains of imprisonment (such as Sykes, 1958) and life without parole (e.g., Hartman, 2016; Johnson & McGunigall-Smith, 2008; Leigey, 2015; Zehr, 1996) further emphasising the cruel and ‘inhuman’ (p.61) nature of life without parole sentences.

In the third chapter, the authors draw upon Van Zyl Smit and Appleton's (2019) Life imprisonment: a global human rights analysis to expose the ‘degrading’ (p.61) nature of life and whole life sentences and argue – in the words of Judge Power-Forde (see Vinter and Others v. The UK [2013] ECHR 645) – that prisoners ‘ought not to be deprived entirely of … hope’ (p.54).

These early chapters collectively present a persuasive argument against the increasing use of life without parole sentences. Nevertheless, many of these arguments have been made by various scholars within recent decades but – due to their predominantly theoretical nature – have failed to have any significant consequence; life without parole has continued to increase in popularity among legislators, judiciaries and society,

This article is based on the 24th annual Bill McWilliams memorial lecture which was delivered at the Institute of Criminology in Cambridge on 9 June 2022. Coinciding with the first anniversary of the unification of probation services in England and Wales, the lecture considered the recent past, present and potential future of the service through the lens of a central concept in probation work: namely, rehabilitation. Three ways of understanding this concept are considered: rehabilitation as restoration; rehabilitation as a process of building back better; and looking-glass rehabilitation. It is argued that each perspective suggests a different orientation to, and a different set of issues and questions about, probation's future and the work that is needed to help the unified service move on from a traumatic recent past.

This article outlines how restorative practices (RPs) were introduced into prisons in Northern Ireland (NI) over a period of 20 years. It explains the context of how this change was introduced, using real life case examples underpinned by an approach based on praxis (Freire, 1985; Schön, 1983). Through the synthesis of relevant theory and practice experience it identifies the barriers to bringing about effective and meaningful change to practice and ways of overcoming these at the micro, meso and macro level (Bronfenbrenner, 1979). The RIPPLE model is introduced as a means of successfully implementing and sustaining innovative and creative practice within a complex and potentially hostile environment. It is the success story of an accomplishment that has never been achieved before in any prison service.

There is increasing recognition that correctional officers (COs) serve a crucial role in their work in relation to communications underpinning discretion, especially regarding interactions with prisoners. This article examines attitudes and perceptions among Canadian federal correctional officer recruits (CORs) regarding what they anticipate are the greatest challenges they will face as new COs. We examine these discussions through the framework of Goffman's dramaturgical model of face work, especially face work within the ‘total institution’ of prisons. Our findings centre on anticipated challenges of building rapport with prisoners, including the requirements to monitor one's demeanour and ‘face work’. Characterisations of prisoners as inherently manipulative factor into CO anticipations of interactional challenges. We also consider the role that ‘soft power’ has in facilitating CO-prisoner rapport and trust, which, we argue, ultimately undergirds opportunities in prisons to facilitate prisoner social change and successful community reintegration and desistance from crime.

Strong evidence of racial and ethnic disparities has been documented in recent government-led reports, suggesting the presence of discrimination in sentencing, with Black and ethnic minority defendants being systematically sentenced more harshly than their white counterparts. However, we still do not know how these disparities come about as most of the sentencing research has relied on quantitative designs focused on documenting the problem, rather than exploring its causes. In this exploratory study we use qualitative interviews with criminal law barristers to explore the different mechanisms that may give rise to these disparities. From our interviews we identified two predominant causal mechanisms: the differential consideration of mitigating and aggravating factors and indirect discrimination arising from defendants’ socio-economic backgrounds and over-policing. Based on these findings, we suggest effective strategies such as explicitly listing social deprivation as a mitigating factor in the sentencing guidelines and increasing judicial diversity for redressing these disparities.

Our aim in this conceptual article is to theoretically reimagine the concept of ‘healthy prisons’ in a way that more thoroughly grounds it in the everyday experiences of prisoners. Our point of departure is the observation that there seems to be an intriguing conceptual and theoretical overlap between first-person oriented empirical studies of two spheres of human experience that are normally seen as separate: serious illness and imprisonment. Our analysis leads us to reimagine the term ‘healthy prisons’ in a way that increases its usefulness for anyone interested in making prisons healthier and more constructive and reinventive institutions.

Research into desistance from crime has progressed enormously in the past three decades. Despite this tremendous growth, some issues remain unexplored. Among these is the extent to which the reasons why people stop offending might vary by the age at which they stop, and their previous lifestyles. Herein we explore the extent to which the reasons why people desist are associated with their age, and the length and nature of their criminal career. We find that there are no particular associations between the reasons for their desistance and any of these variables, though social context is important. So particular social contexts are seen by those desisting as key to their wish to desist, but they may occur at different ages and it is when they are salient to that individual that they promote action. We close by discussing why this might be the case and the ramifications for theories of desistance.

Women's deaths in custody remain under-researched around the world. This article reports on a large-scale study on deaths in custody conducted in Australia that involved an analysis of 736 coroners’ inquest reports dated between 1991 and 2020. Women were substantially under-represented among this sample, comprising less than 5% of all deaths, but half of the women were Indigenous. While most of the women had a range of individual risk factors in common – such as a history of victimisation, mental illness and drug and alcohol use – the Indigenous women also experienced systemic racism from their custodians and the medical personnel to whom they were referred for treatment. While most coroners focused primarily on the cause of death, some made recommendations directed at addressing unconscious bias. This research supports calls for alternatives to detention for women and the decriminalisation of racialised offences such as public intoxication.

This article proposes that loved ones supporting prisoners with experience of remand in England and Wales may use Sykes & Matza's (1957) ‘techniques of neutralization’ by proxy. Adopting neutralisations may enable those in prison to be viewed not as those who have harmed, or bad people, but as those who themselves have been harmed. Potential benefits of these techniques are twofold: they help to reject stigma; and explain and enable continued contact. This framework may be a useful basis for work exploring familial contact and support for those affected by imprisonment.

Although by no means a ‘given’, in terms of implementation in practice, good multidisciplinary working and interagency co-operation have always been critically important as goals to be achieved by criminal justice organisations and the other systems with which they interact. Such co-operation is especially important if positive client outcomes are to be maximised. In more recent times, such themes and issues have achieved more prominence, as governments, their ministries and agencies have striven to ensure more ‘joined-up’ working between the criminal justice system and the health and social service sectors, to drive greater effectiveness and efficiency. Consideration of interagency co-operation though, is often set against a backdrop of frustration expressed by various players and stakeholders regarding the perceived and real barriers to productive collaboration.

These barriers are frequently evidenced in so-called ‘siloed’ working and thinking, where individual organisations and agencies – and those working in them – can sometimes appear to be more concerned with preserving and protecting their own interests and resources, as opposed to ‘putting the person/client at the centre of concerns’. To begin with, interagency co-operation can be a challenge even within and among the various criminal justice agencies themselves; however such challenges are often magnified and more difficult to resolve in relation to how the penal system, for example, collaborates with health and social services more widely. And just to add to these challenges, it can be difficult, if not impossible, for those involved to ‘get under the bonnet’ of interagency relationships, so as to better understand and thereby improve them. The present publication goes some way to exploring and explaining these challenges and demystifying many of the issues involved.

As referenced in one of the papers in this book, interagency and multidisciplinary collaboration is ‘a fuzzy concept’ (p.258), which can lead to lack of mutual understanding, language and goals, not to mention a lack of shared analysis of appropriate processes and ways to improve them. This general lack of understanding in common can militate, in conjunction with a range of other factors, against the ready or easy application of such co-operation in practice, even with the best intentions of those involved.

Fieldwork for the studies in question was undertaken in Norway, Finland and the United Kingdom. The 17 chapters are each written by between two and seven co-authors, drawn mostly from a range of academic and research backgrounds, as well as a number of individuals who might describe themselves as ‘practitioners’, representing a total of 35 distinct contributors. In that context, the editors and contributors have achieved a consistency of approach and presentation throughout the volume, which is to be applauded. Following an introductory ‘setting the scene’ chapter by the editors, the substanti