Abstract
Focused specifically on women’s imprisonment, Media, Politics and Penal Reform offers a fascinating insight into penal policy-making at a national level. Influenced by the author’s previous professional career as a researcher in Parliament, the book draws upon the findings of an empirical research project based upon interviews with 35 policy-makers working around Westminster and Whitehall. Criminologists have devoted their efforts to looking at policy implementation and have infrequently explored how policies are developed. Consequently, Birkett makes a significant contribution to our understanding of criminal justice.
The book covers the period from 2010 to 2015, when the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government were in power, with the majority of the fieldwork taking place in 2011/2012. The Coalition inherited a policy agenda which was heavily influenced by Baroness Corston’s review of women with particular vulnerabilities in the criminal justice system with the sub-title ‘A distinct, radically different, visibly-led, strategic, proportionate, holistic, woman-centred, integrated approach’ (Corston, 2007: 1). A considered response to a series of tragic deaths of female prisoners, the Corston report attracted cross-party support – a considerable achievement given the often contested nature of law-and-order politics. Female prisoners moved out of the shadows and there was a period of optimism when it looked possible that more appropriate provision might by established for women. Unfortunately, as a recent report by Women in Prison (2017) illustrates, insufficient progress has been made, and this book helps to explain why.
The first substantial chapter, ‘Studying Penal Policy’, provides an overview of the political science theories Birkett later draws upon. In particular, it introduces Kingdon’s multiple policy streams approach which seeks to explain why a policy agenda becomes influential at a specific period in time. This requires the coalescing of a problem, a solution and political will to create what Kingdon refers to as a ‘policy window’. The challenge for researchers is to understand interactions between key players in what Birkett refers to as ‘the policy game’ (p. 16) which can create these ‘policy windows’. These players include campaigners, political decision-makers, journalists and the public. The book focuses on the strategic techniques used by the penal reform network in England and Wales, exploring what typically goes on behind closed doors through interviews with policy operatives, the majority of whom were high-profile public figures. Despite the long-standing involvement of penal reform organisation in criminal justice, they have infrequently been the focus of research. Hence, Birkett’s contribution to the Palgrave Studies in Prisons and Penology series is an important one.
The next chapter provides an overview of post-war penal policy in England and Wales. It analyses the different ways in which penal policy has been framed as reformative, punitive or efficient, and, as Birkett observes, it is currently an uneasy combination of all three. The subsequent chapter focuses specifically on female offending and identifies the challenges of developing a Corston inspired approach in the face of a punitive law and order agenda and a desire by the media to sensationalise female offending and rely upon stereotypical images.
Chapters 5, 6 and 7 offer intriguing insights into how campaigners, journalists and political decision-makers seek to influence the policy agenda surrounding the punishment of women. Each chapter includes lengthy quotes which are a testament to the skill of the interviewer in encouraging policy elites to shed light on network politics. Care is taken to draw attention to the range of strategies used by each category of policy elites, for example distinguishing between journalists working for newspapers with different political leanings.
The final substantive chapter – ‘Media, Politics and Penal Reform’ – considers the range of framing decision available to policy elites: punitive or crime-fighting discourse, efficiency or managerialist discourse and reformative or humanitarian discourse. It reflects upon how campaigners could be better positioned to influence political decision-makers, journalists and the public. It therefore has a more practical orientation than previous chapters. While focused on the national level, the guidance offered could also be useful for influencing local policy agenda, for example to secure additional resources for women. The chapter emphasizes the challenges of securing public interest in female offenders, who are typically seen as too few to count.
Following the time-honoured academic tradition, Birkett ends by outlining a future research agenda which includes further exploration of public attitudes towards women’s punishment and sentencers’ views of women who offend but, more generally, analysis of the media-policy nexus and policy elites’ understanding of different penal philosophies. All of these would make a valuable contribution to criminological knowledge.
This book is perhaps not an obvious one to recommend to practitioners, but for those working with women in particular it helps to understand the challenges of creating policy windows. One specific issue for practitioners to reflect upon is whether they are willing to facilitate sharing the lived experience of women who offend. There is a demand for case studies and, as the journalists interviewed observed, ‘good stories’ help to make the issues ‘more readily comprehensible (and emotionally resonant) to the wider public’ (p. 124). At the same time, there are good reasons for practitioners to be protective of their clients given the reliance on gender stereotypes when selecting and presenting stories. Media, Politics and Penal Reform appears to have been written primarily for an academic audience; it will appeal to those interested in policy-making, for whom the punishment of women is an illustrative case study, as well as those with specific interests in female offenders and penal reform.