The benefit and cost of prison in the UK. The results of a model of lifetime re-offending

With prisons in the UK reaching full capacity, and with similar trends in other European countries and the USA, there is much political debate about the efficacy of prison and community sentences. This paper aims to inform this debate by testing the hypothesis that prisons are an effective and efficient way of reducing re-offending. A rapid review of effectiveness studies was performed to determine the relative impact of prison and community sentences on re-offending. An economic analysis was undertaken to transform the estimates of effect into estimates of the economic efficiency of alternative sentencing options in the context of the UK. When compared with standard prison sentences, a number of community-based interventions and enhancements of standard prison sentences were found to save money, both for the public sector and for society more broadly. Diverting adult offenders from standard prison sentences to alternative interventions saves the UK public sector between ￡19,000 and ￡88,000 per offender. When victim costs are considered, diverting offenders from standard prison sentences saves UK society between ￡17,500 and ￡203,000 per offender. It was concluded that standard prison sentences are not an economically efficient means for reducing re-offending.

Why Do the Finns Trust the Police?

Ideological trends in the criminal policy of the Nordic countries since the 1960s are analysed. Although criminal policy in these countries is not unified, one can argue for the existence of a 'Scandinavian criminal policy' characterized by several common features concerning historical tradition, intensive cooperation and a similar approach to crime prevention and control. The following trends and characteristics are examined in some detail: the cycle from criticism of the treatment ideology to a reappraisal of the role of the criminal justice system and the function of penal sanctions; the differentiation of criminal policy strategies (e.g. social and situational crime prevention, cost-benefit thinking, criminal law policy, sanctions policy). Discernible tendencies towards more unified or, at least, more harmonized criminal policies on the international and European level are also examined. Active participation in this developmental process is encouraged to ensure that the fundamental principles of Scandinavian criminal policy are properly utilized.     

Liberal versus conservative public policies on crime: What was the comparative track record during the 1990s?

The purpose of this study was to examine the efficacy of social control and social support policies associated with conservative and liberal political ideologies with respect to violent crime in large U.S. cities during the 1990s. Eighty-five cities with populations of 150,000+ were included in the analysis; these cities accounted for fifty-two million urban area residents of the U.S. The use of the two-way, fixed-effect panel data method of statistical analysis enabled the authors to assess the relationship between change in local government expenditures for police and court services (social control) and expenditures on community development and park/recreation (support policy) and corresponding changes in crime rates documented within these cities. The findings indicated that expenditure on both police services and community development initiatives had significantly suppressive effects on crime in these cities during the period of the 1990s. It appeared that both conservative and liberal policies had their merits as effective countermeasures to crime.     

How Situational Crime Prevention Contributes to Social Welfare

Situational crime prevention has been met with considerable scepticism from academic criminologists primarily for its indifference to social welfare. It has been seen as contributing to a law-and-order agenda with its focus on making public places secure for business and as supplanting social welfare policies as means of responding to crime. But situational crime prevention contributes more to social welfare than sceptics allow and its advocates (may) believe. Situational crime prevention has enjoyed its fullest and robust expression, not in the free-market, neo-liberal environment of America, but within the leading welfare states of Norway, Sweden and Denmark. This essay considers the politics of the situational approach, the alleged benefits of social crime prevention, criminalisation of social policy, unplanned social welfare benefits, assumptions about the role of business, and concerns about privacy, surveillance and control. The discussion centres on the European experience: the UK, France, The Netherlands and the Nordic countries.

The impact of higher education on crime orientations

The formulation of crime policy is as complex as the phenomenon of crime itself. Numerous orientations to crime vie for consideration in the policy process, and the result is usually a confounding mixture of concepts and policies. It is the purpose of this study to analyze four prevalant orientations to crime and to assess the impact of a college education on student attitudes toward the different orientations. The findings suggest that criminal justice education and higher education, in general, have a significant impact on individuals' perceptions of the causes of crime and the functions of the criminal justice system. Given the increased emphasis on higher education within the justice system, the educational process is likely to play an important role in the evolution of criminal justice policies.     

Criminal justice policy and the psychology of peacemaking

Psychology which once was a primary influence on the development of criminal justice policy has, in recent decades, lost much of its ability to inform how laws and policies are made that concern punishment and social control. The reason for psychology's loss of inluence can be traced to the war on crime political rhetoric adopted by politicians and criminal justice administrators. This paper argues that an emerging peacemaking perspective in the criminal justice system allows the discipline of psychology to once again inform the discourse on criminal justice policy. Issues such as drug abuse, gun control, and capital punishment are appropriate subjects for a psychological perspective in the national debate on criminal justice policy.     

Appeals to community and crime prevention

This paper considers the growing appeals to the idea of community in criminal justice policy and the involvement of actual communities in criminal justice initiatives. It draws on a completed two year research study of a number of community-based crime prevention initiatives in the South East of England. The paper considers the nature of community to which appeals are made in criminal justice discourse and policies, the contribution of community to the practices of social order and the nature of community representation and participation in crime prevention initiatives. It is argued that appeals to community in crime prevention, and crime control more generally, embody shifts in what constitutes the legitimate responsibilities of individuals, collectivities and the state. This has a number of implications, the first of which is a redrawing of the cost of policing and security services. Additionally, there is an associated shift in blame for failure. Finally, actual community involvement in crime control gives rise to new structures and forms of local governance that evoke key questions about the regulation of social relations, the nature of conflict resolution, citizenship, democracy and social justice.     

刑事政策视野中的司法理念

刑事政策具有追求效率的本性,刑事政策视野中的司法理念应当是有效率的正义。以社会为本位的刑事司法理念重视解决犯罪问题的社会效果,体现了刑事政策的价值目标。刑事司法要关注刑事政策的需要,刑事政策才能借助法律手段来完成自己的使命。     

The “Tough on Crime” Competition: a Network Approach to Understanding the Social Mechanisms Leading to Federal Crime Control Legislation in the United States from 1973–2014

The increase in punitive sentiment in America over the last four decades is frequently attributed to changes in criminal justice policies and programs. While scholars have studied the impact of legislation and policy on justice system outcomes, less attention has focused on the role of political actors in legislative bodies who are largely responsible for enacting criminal justice legislation. The current study addresses this gap by examining the social organization of federal crime control policy in the U.S. Congress over a forty-two year period (1973–2014). Drawing from research on social network mechanisms, we examine whether crime control legislation was more politically attractive relative to other legislative topics, and whether Democrats and Republicans pursue these policies by working together or competing against each other. Our results provide novel insight into the mechanisms that contributed to the punitive movement at the federal level.     

论宽严相济刑事政策的定位

宽严相济的刑事政策是惩办与宽大相结合刑事政策的继承和发展。刑事政策根据其指导功能的不同,可分为刑事立法政策、刑事司法政策、刑事执行政策。宽严相济对司法领域而言,可以说是刑事司法政策;但它也指导刑事立法、刑事执行,因而也是刑事立法政策、刑事执行政策。刑事政策根据其所处层次的不同,可分为基本刑事政策和具体刑事政策。宽严相济是基本刑事政策,"严打"、"少杀、慎杀"等是具体刑事政策,后者都是前者的组成部分。说宽严相济是刑事司法政策,并不否定宽严相济是基本刑事政策。     

Corrective Justice as A Principle of Criminal Law: A Prolegomenon

This article argues that corrective justice is an adequate principle of criminalization. On my interpretation, corrective justice holds that, in order for an action to count as a crime, there needs to be a plausible normative story about an offender having violated the interests of a victim in a way that disturbs their relationship as equal persons and a subsequent story about responding to crime in a way that corrects this disturbance. More specifically, I claim that corrective justice is concerned with the protection of interests that persons have in owning private goods throughout standard interactions with other persons. The argument proceeds in three steps. First, I specify the subject-matter that principles of criminal law need to ground and provide an outline of the idea of corrective justice. Second, I show that corrective justice can account for the main cases of crime and the salient modes of criminal responsibility. I also argue that corrective justice can make sense of two prima facie recalcitrant types of cases (rape and inchoate offenses). Third, and finally, I address two objections to my corrective justice theory of criminal law. The first concerns the implications corrective justice has for locating criminal law along the private/public law divide. The second objection raises the putatively problematic consequences corrective justice has for understanding the separation between criminal and civil law.     

Distributive Justice and Crime

The heavy concentration of crime on a few areas, and the concentration on the chronically victimised within those areas, together illustrate the gross inequality of the risk of crime victimisation. This inequality also characterises other hazards of life. Criminology has too often reduced the problem of crime to the problem of the offender. Recognising crime hazard as an issue of distributive justice requires a different mind set. The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 recognises the drivers of crime as lying outside criminal justice, but does not put in place a panhazard analysis of the kind required, community safety being presented as a type of crime prevention. Movement towards panhazard thinking may well be somewhat facilitated by the workingthrough of the incorporation of the European Convention on Human Rights, actions flowing from section 17 of the Crime and Disorder Act, and a reconsideration of how emergency services might work.     

The Siren’s Song: Federalism and the Cops grants

The federalization of crime control has become a focal point for criminal justice researchers. Because the federal government is limited in how it can affect crime, it often assumes the role of funding agent to state or local governments and places restrictions on the use of these monies. Generally, no consideration is given to state or local concerns. As a result, national crime control policy often becomes mired in issues of federalism. One unintended consequence is the creation of a Siren’s Song, where state and local agencies simply pursue funding dollars to expand their budgets rather than to adopt beneficial policies or make meaningful changes. This paper illustrates this point by examining the federal “100,000 Cops” initiative in one rural West Virginia jurisdiction.     

Women in Crime and Justice

ABSTRACT

Drawing upon feminist research on women in crime and justice, this study examines patterns of female crime in Israel over four decades and the criminal justice response to female offenders over two decades. The data show that crime patterns of Israeli women and the criminal justice response to their transgressions show remarkable resemblance to those discerned in other western countries. The article concludes that feminist insights and explanatory mechanisms suggested in other western countries are congruent with findings about women in crime and justice in Israel.     

Prosecutors and the Definition of the Crime Problem in Italy: Balancing the Impact of Moral Panics

In western liberal countries late modernity brings in its wake certain distinctive patterns of crime control. Common sense, experience and stigmatization of crime and deviance seem to be the basis on which crime control policies are debated and eventually implemented. Insecurity and fear of crime are the enemies for an effective legal system. What is left for specialist crime control agencies? The Italian case can demonstrate that legal actors, in particular prosecutors, can still effectively participate in the developing of the criminal justice discourse. I will argue that prosecutorial practice can possibly provide the information to understand the socio-legal conditions that shape prosecutors’ role during the pre-trial phase. This role is far from being merely reactive to certain social, historical and cultural developments. Prosecutors’ reactions appear to be aimed at restating their role of guardians of the law. While they react to external influences they try not to adapt to them. In this way they partially mediate the impact of moral panics.     

“重重”：世界范围内教育刑主义的反动

面对严重危及社会生存与发展、民众安宁与秩序的一些严重犯罪,"重重"是世界范围内的一种刑事政策选择现实与趋势."重重"绝非一种重刑主义政策,其核心含义与要求是严密法网并严格责任.其基本的理论假定是:既然刑罚的矫治罪犯、回归犯罪人并预防犯罪的目的对有些犯罪与犯罪人难以达到,那么起码有一点能够做到,那就是,让刑罚发挥其能够起到的惩罚犯罪的作用,从而更好地保护社会.     

恢复性司法与我国和谐社会建设

恢复性司法是指由受害人、违法者及其他可能受犯罪行为影响的个人或者社区成员积极参与刑事事务的解决的任何程序.恢复性司法理念有利于我们的和谐社会建设,在我国适用恢复性司法存在着有利的群众基础、政策支持、组织保证和实践经验.     

犯罪被害人的经济救济

在打击犯罪和保障人权的双重要求下,犯罪人成为传统刑事政策关注的重点,对犯罪被害人的救济尤其是经济方面的救济被忽略。随着现代刑事政策的发展,人们意识到犯罪被害人地位的提高、权利范围的扩展等也应相应的纳入到刑事政策的视野中,加强对犯罪被害人的经济救济就是其核心内容。以现代刑事政策为出发点,应着力提倡三种主要的犯罪被害人救济方式:犯罪人赔偿、国家补偿以及恢复性司法模式下对犯罪被害人的经济救济,说明对犯罪被害人实行有效的经济救济是一种理想和有效的刑事政策。     

The Convergence of Social Policy and Criminal Justice

This article discusses the shift from crime as a problem of the police and judicial authorities to a subject of local policy. It will, in particular, examine the relationship between safety policy and social policy. Safety has become an important social theme in the last decades. There are at least three reasons to explain why this is the case: the increase of crime, increased attention for the victim and the legitimacy of the government. A concentric model is proposed to serve the development of a systematically set up local safety policy. In the Netherlands programmes such as Communities that Care and Justice in the neighbourhood (Jib) are important developments which stress the integral approach of the crime and safety problem. The article closes with a discussion on the convergence of criminal justice policy and social policy.