Abstract
I was particularly pleased to have the opportunity of reviewing this timely and succinct analysis of the last 30 years of criminal justice policy in England and Wales. The authors are both vastly experienced in the academic and public service arenas.
The book’s ten chapters provide a very readable examination of some of the pivotal themes underpinning a humane understanding of criminal justice. The tensions of treating criminal justice as if it were a business with efficiency, effectiveness and measurable outcomes set against the demands of justice are set out in a clear and considered way. The dominance of the soulless language of 'offender management' is explored and options are mooted that place a renewed stress on a more balanced and restorative approach to ways of resolving conflict.
Chapter 2 looks at the changing criminal justice landscape set in motion in the 1980s when demands were being placed on the system to offer a more evidence led approach, consequential concerns began to arise in areas such as sentencing practice and prison capacity culminating in the landmark Criminal Justice Act 1991. There are many fascinating obiter dicta drawn from one of the authors’ time as a Senior Home Office civil servant. The impact of personalities on policy, particularly relations between the judiciary and the government, is enlightening.
Chapter 3 details the change of direction in criminal justice in the 1990s alongside wider socio-cultural shifts in sensibilities to crime and the way that ‘offenders' are treated. Alongside the raised awareness of issues around race and gender and runs the salience of a tougher, ‘control’ rhetoric, its celebrated apotheosis being Michael Howard's ‘prison works’ approach, which symbolized the rejection of the well-grounded evidence on the negative impact of the over-use of custody. With the advent of the New Labour administration in 1997 the groundwork for the more recent Criminal Justice Act in 2003 is solidly rehearsed. There follows a résumé of the most prominent legislative milestones of the New Labour period, including the demoralizing and chaotic reorganization set in motion by the setting up of the National Offender Management Service (NOMS).
Chapter 4 surveys the areas of crime prevention, civil society and communities and ably maps the development of numerous initiatives and strategies aimed at promoting greater social cohesion and community safety. It also cautions that the ideas referenced by the shorthand 'Big Society' expression might be better received if the term 'good society' was to become more commonplace, as this arguably works more with the grain of reintegration, desistance, reform and crime reduction.
Chapter 7 looks critically at community sentences and desistance from crime. The historical shifts that uprooted probation (and youth justice) from their social work, welfare-oriented backgrounds and the replacement discourse centred within a law and order framework are well described and the references to more recent probation scholarship is to be applauded. If one recalls that Nick Clegg noted that the probation service is to be ‘cherished, not undermined’ (p. 138), the impending budget cuts and diminution of probation within NOMS prompts the authors to bemoan that probation could too easily become invisible within a multi-agency mix, although the prospect of a re-energized service working alongside the third sector is also mooted. Chapter 8 offers a crisp overview of the cultural and organizational developments impacting on the three core areas of concern to prisons, namely security, rehabilitation and humanity. The authors helpfully reference some of the more scholarly contributions on staff and prisoner relationships that are shaped by the inherent power differentials in institutional settings. There are numerous inclusions on the theme of preparing for release, women prisoners and that most neglected of areas – prisoners’ families.
The final chapter provides a suggested menu of action points ranging from early years prevention and diversion, to discretion and devolution. It is replete with reasoned and humane approaches to cool populist government policy in the 'hot climate' of criminal justice that grips and sustains much of the febrile language and policy formulation shaped by an incessant media scrutiny. There is a heartening call for a much broader and more informed understanding of 'risk' which includes not only individuals but also communities and for less reliance on criminal justice services as the only or principal means of preventing and dealing with crime. The book will be of considerable interest not only to academics and practitioners, but hopefully will find a space on the shelves of those policy makers emboldened to consider a new style of politics of justice.