Abstract
Justice Reinvestment (JR), as Brown and colleagues note early in their book has ‘captured the imagination of communities, the actors in the criminal justice system and legislatures alike in a range of Western countries’ (p. 17). This book, by a team at the University of New South Wales, is a response to that growing interest in Justice Reinvestment in Australia both from government and the community sector where there is the possibility that JR might provide a justice renewal strategy for Indigenous people.
The aims of the authors are: first, to provide a clearer definition of JR, recognizing that it is currently conceptually vague; second, to explore the social-moral aspects of Justice Reinvestment policy recognizing that currently there is a reliance on economic justifications; third, to explore whether place-based approaches respond effectively to entrenched disadvantage; and fourth, to explore how JR might translate into an Australian context. To support these aims the authors review relevant academic and grey literature and undertake two sets of interviews with a range of US figures involved both in the development of JR.
Of particular interest to a British audience, given the current interest in Justice Devolution, will be the authors’ analysis of the place-based component of JR. Investing in local communities with high incarceration rates was a key element of Tucker and Cadora’s (2003) original conception of JR. The authors chart how, in the USA, this focus has been lost. Starting with a recognition of the complexity of tackling place-based community issues ‘top–down’ and ‘bottom–up’ place-based approaches are compared. In the former governments set the priorities and parameters and while there may be greater coordination of local service delivery and community consultation, the agenda is controlled by government. In contrast, bottom–up approaches start with the local community: a participatory democratic approach to determining, prioritizing and delivering public policy and services. These issues are examined in the context of several potentially vulnerable groups including people with mental illness, women and Indigenous people. The authors are wary of ‘localism’, which might focus attention on local multi-agency working and local administrative reform and innovation at the expense of engaging communities in local decision making. They are also concerned that top–down models of place-based approaches might leave JR as part of a process of responsibilization where JR ‘may simply serve as a guise to further extend the scope of criminalisation by greater targeting of “problem” communities and further surveillance through increased policing and substantially expanded community corrections supervision’ (p. 102).
In a similar vein, neo-liberal creep is also a concern for the authors with JR potentially acting as cover for the roll-back of the welfare state and the covert privatization of services resulting in greater responsibility being placed on families, particularly women. The authors are clear that to avoid these possible outcomes social justice must be at the heart of JR. In practice this means political commitments to local decision making and governance, developing and strengthening local capacity to respond to criminal justice problems and actual financial reinvestment to allow these changes to occur. Colleagues in the UK might well find these useful tests to apply when evaluating justice devolution initiatives.
A key conclusion of this book is that the original model of JR characterized as progressive has transmuted into a programme, which the authors term the ‘Justice Reinvestment Initiative’, that has lost its focus on local neighbourhood reinvestment in favour of ‘predominantly back-end efficiency reforms to parole and community corrections aimed at reducing recidivism and revocation rates’ (p. 13). A key question is then whether JR has become a ‘“floating signifier” divorced from the principles from which it grew’ or whether it ‘continues to evolve and be shaped by those engaged in its implementation’ (p. 92).
The lack of evidence for JR is a recurring theme. In their analysis of the Texas JR Initiative the authors raise questions about the accuracy of predicted increases in the prison population and hence whether JR had the impact in Texas that has sometimes been claimed. Brown and colleagues also explore the relationship between different models of JR and difference conceptions of evidence. They highlight the dominance of a particular ‘what works’ approach to evidence that they link with the Risk Needs Responsivity model and are concerned that the focus in this evidence base on ideas, drawn from the psychology of individual differences, places too much emphasis on individual agency at the expense of structural factors associated with crime and place-based patterns of incarceration. The authors argue that ‘a social justice-oriented justice reinvestment requires a different approach that is more holistic, reaches beyond the criminal justice system, with different measures of success that would include attention to “pre-habilitation”’ (p. 164).
Conceptualizing JR is further complicated by national differences. The authors characterize the approach in the USA as concentrating on legislative reform and technical assistance, whereas in the UK, Payment by Results (PbR) has been important. However, in the UK, while PbR remains a relevant concept, the current government’s devolution agenda is arguably now the key driver for the JR agenda. Regardless of this, Brown and colleagues are right to emphasize the difficulties in policy transfer between countries recognizing that policy formation is less rational than we like to believe and that context is key.
Read this book for its detailed and thoughtful analysis of the development of JR in the USA, UK and Australia, in particular its analysis of the role of ‘place’. Do not be put off by its rather turgid introduction: starting a book with a lengthy description of your last book does not seem to be a great way to draw the reader in.