The Penal Landscape
The Penal Landscape

Author: Anita Dockley

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-07-18

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1135919852

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The Howard League for Penal Reform is committed to developing an effective penal system which ensures there are fewer victims of crime, has a diminished role for prison and creates a safer community for all. In this collection of ten papers, the charity has brought together some of the most prominent academic experts in the field to map out what is happening in a specific area of criminal justice policy, ranging from prison privatisation to policing and the role of community sentences. The Howard League guide has two main aims: first it seeks to paint a picture of the current state of the penal system, using its structures, processes and the specific groups affected by the system as the lens for analysis. However, each author also seeks to identify the challenges and gaps in understanding that should be considered to predicate a move towards a reduced role for the penal system, and prison in particular, while maintaining public confidence and safer communities. In doing so, we hope to inspire researchers and students alike to develop new research proposals that challenge the status quo and seek to create the Howard League’s vision for the criminal justice system with less crime, safer communities, fewer people in prison.

Justice and Penal Reform
Justice and Penal Reform

Author: Stephen Farrall

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2016-02-05

Total Pages: 264

ISBN-13: 1317277627

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In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, Western societies entered a climate of austerity which has limited the penal expansion experienced in the US, UK and elsewhere over recent decades. These altered conditions have led to introspection and new thinking on punishment even among those on the political right who were previously champions of the punitive turn. This volume brings together a group of international leading scholars with a shared interest in using this opportunity to encourage new avenues of reform in the penal sphere. Justice is a famously contested concept and this book takes a deliberately capacious approach to the question of how justice can be mobilised to inform new reform agendas. Some of the contributors revisit an antique question in penal theory and reconsider the question of what fair or just punishment should look like today. Others seek to make gender central to understanding of crime and punishment, or actively reflect on the part that related concepts such as human rights, legitimacy and trust can and should play in thinking about the creation of more just crime control arrangements. Faced with the expansive penal developments of recent decades, much research and commentary about crime control has been gloom-laden and dystopian. By contrast, this volume seeks to contribute to a more constructive sensibility in the social analysis of penality: one that is worldly, hopeful and actively engaged in thinking about how to create more just penal arrangements. Justice and Penal Reform is a key resource for academics and as a supplementary text for students undertaking courses on punishment, penology, prisons, criminal justice and public policy. This book approaches penal reform from an international perspective and offers a fresh and diverse approach within an established field.

The State of the Prisons - 200 Years On
The State of the Prisons - 200 Years On

Author: Richard Whitfield

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2013-01-11

Total Pages: 209

ISBN-13: 1134941463

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In 1777 John Howard wrote The State of the Prisons in England and Wales, with Preliminary Observations and an Account of Some Foreign Prisons. Two centuries later, this extraordinary document commemorates his achievements in campaigning for reform. In the spirit of Howard himself, the Howard League for Penal Reform have compiled detailed observations of prisons from Sweden to South Africa, and from India to Nicaragua. The result is a valuable resource which includes unique insights into previously undocumented prison regimes.

Penal Cultures and Female Desistance
Penal Cultures and Female Desistance

Author: Linnéa Österman

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-12-12

Total Pages: 424

ISBN-13: 1351979957

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This book makes a unique contribution to the internationalisation of criminological knowledge about gender and desistance through a qualitative cross-national exploration of the female route out of crime in Sweden and England. By situating the female desistance journey in diverse penal cultures, the study addresses two major gaps in the literature: the neglect of critical explorations of gender in desistance-related processes, and the lack of internationally comparative perspectives on the lived experience of desistance. Grounded in a feminist methodology – underpinned by a critical humanist perspective – this book draws on 24 life-story narrative interviews with female desisters across Sweden and England. The discussion covers departure points, qualitative experiences of criminal justice, as well as barriers and ‘ladders’ in the female route out. While some cross-national symmetry is detected, particularly in the areas of victimisation and issues around short custodial sentences, overall the findings indicate that diverse macro-processes and models, especially in terms of 'inclusive' versus 'exclusive' penal cultures, effectually 'trickle down' to the women in this study and produce different micro-experiences of desistance. Providing new qualitative evidence of the 'Nordic Exceptionalism thesis’, this book finds that, comparatively, the Swedish model offers a macro-context, supported and reflected in allied meso-practices, which is more conducive to the formation of female desistance narratives. This unique comparative study marks a step-change in desistance literature and will be essential reading for those engaged in the disciplines of penology, rehabilitation, gender and crime, and offender management.