Criminogenic needs and human needs: A theoretical model

Over the last two decades, empirical evidence has increasingly supported the view that it is possible to reduce reoffending rates by treating or rehabilitating offenders rather than simply punishing them. In fact, this shift from a punishment to a rehabilitation model is arguably one of the most significant events in modern correctional policy. Criminogenic needs, dynamic risk factors, have been the focus of a considerable amount of research and are viewed as primary intervention targets. Drawing from the correctional, psychological, philosophical, and social policy literature, we distinguish between instrumental and categorical needs. The latter are derived from assumptions about human nature and provide the theoretical grounds for the former, as well as for criminogenic needs. We argue that an enriched concept of needs embedded in the notion of human well being, can provide a coherent conceptual basis for rehabilitation and also avoid the problems apparent in the concept of criminogenic needs. From this perspective, criminogenic needs are usefully construed as the internal and external obstacles associated with need distortion. Therefore, they are directly linked to basic need distortion and the absence of the internal and external conditions necessary for a person to lead a fulfilling life. Finally, we outline a possible framework utilising categorical needs and discuss the clinical and policy implications of our perspective.     

Dynamic risk factors: a theoretical dead-end?

While the quality of empirical research on risk predication, assessment and management in the sexual offending field has been of a high standard, relatively little attention has been paid to theoretical issues related to risk and its conceptualisation. In this paper, we develop alternative ways of understanding dynamic risk factors and their utility in theory construction and case formulation. We would stress that this work is of a preliminary nature but believe that it is crucial that standard clinical and research practices are critically challenged from time to time, and their underlying theoretical assumptions evaluated. Our aim is to encourage researchers and practitioners to look at the issue of dynamic risk factors from a different viewpoint; one that we hope can help move the sex offender field forward.     

On a clear day you can see forever: Integrating values and skills in sex offender treatment

Abstract

The topic of sex offender rehabilitation frequently evokes fierce reactions, ranging from strident demands for harsher sentences contrasted with calls for more imaginative and compassionate sentencing options. There seems to be a polarization of positions centred on the question of offenders’ moral standing: are they moral strangers or fellow travellers? This fundamental disagreement about offenders’ moral status is at the core of a number of independent, although related current practice and research issues confronting the field, namely: (1) risk management versus strength-based treatment approaches; (2) the utility of utilizing individually tailored versus manual-based programmes for offenders; (3) focusing on the technical aspects or therapy as opposed to relationship and therapist factors (what has been called process issues); and (4) the conflict between protecting the community versus promoting the interests of offenders. In this paper I suggest that an approach to sex offender treatment based on a combination of human rights theory (an ethical resource) and strengths-based approaches can help us navigate our way through the above dilemmas in a way that addressees both the needs of offenders and those of the community.     

N Generations of Reform in UK Local Government: Compliance and Resistance to Institutional Pressures

ABSTRACT

The UK government under the Thatcher administration was one of the first to launch NPM-type reforms. Since then, several generations of reform initiatives can be identified in the UK—including the “quality” initiative under Major, the Blair administration's early emphasis on “Best Value,” followed by its emphasis on targets and inspection, and its recent reconversion to public governance concerns. The UK, then, represents an interesting test case for studying how several generations of reforms co-exist and inter-relate. This article examines the imprint of past reforms in the current drive towards contestability and choice in local government modernization. It argues that coercive isomorphism has been evident in local government but that resistance has been successfully mounted against each generation of reforms, that these resistance efforts have themselves displayed isomorphic tendencies but that, nevertheless, a gradual move towards a mixed economy of provision has emerged in many local authorities.     

Correlates of Co-production: Evidence From a Five-Nation Survey of Citizens

ABSTRACT

We employ data from an original survey of citizens in the UK, France, Germany, Denmark, and the Czech Republic to examine correlates of citizen co-production of public services in three key policy areas: public safety, the environment, and health. The correlates of co-production we consider include demographic factors (age, gender, education, and employment status), community characteristics (urban, non-urban), performance perceptions (how good a job government is doing), government outreach (providing information and seeking consultation), and self-efficacy (how much of a difference citizens believe they can make). We also report on results from a series of focus groups on the topic of co-production held in each country.

Our results suggest that women and elderly citizens generally engage more often in co-production and that self-efficacy—the belief that citizens can make a difference—is an especially important determinant across sectors. Interestingly, good outcome performance (in the sense of a safe neighborhood, a clean environment, and good health) seems to discourage co-production somewhat. Thus citizens' co-production appears to depend in part on awareness of a shortfall in public performance on outcomes. Our results also provide some evidence that co-production is enhanced when governments provide information or engage citizens in consultation. The specific determinants vary, however, not only by sector but across national contexts.     

Veni,vidi, vici: postcolonial studies comes of age

This review article offers a critical assessment of Ato Quayson's Cambridge History of Postcolonial Literature (2012), engaging in passing with a debate between postcolonial theorists that appeared also in 2012 in the New Literary History (43.1 & 2). It posits that the History presents postcolonial literature, and indeed postcolonial studies, as much too settled fields, a view clearly at odds both with their genesis and with that reflected in the essays in NLH.     

Critical theory and the capitalist state

This article is an overview of Michel Callon's contribution to the reformulation of economic sociology and anthropology. It contextualizes Callon's concepts within science and technology studies, and indicates the main lines of influence on his thinking about economic processes. Callon's work also opens up a number of debates and challenges to current perspectives within economic sociology. Finally, the article considers the way in which Callon's perspective reconfigures both the relation of politics and economics, and the nature of politics itself.     

Market coordination and the making of conventions: qualities,consumption and sustainability in the agro-food industry

Abstract

The coordination of activity across sites and spaces of production and consumption is a key concern for economic analysis. Joining a revival in the application of convention theory to agro-food scholarship, this paper considers complementary insights – related principally to ‘the economy of qualities’ – that animate different aspects of e/valuation, competition and alignment. These understandings are extended by more thoroughly acknowledging contemporary developments in consumption scholarship. The arguments are advanced through a case study of the orange juice market, linking its current high-carbon trajectory to the commercial and cultural significance of freshness. The analysis offers new insights into distributed processes of qualification as well as the mechanisms through which conventions are assembled and sustained. Finally, a more integrated approach to food production and consumption is outlined.