Criminology & Criminal Justice

As different social groups are directly and indirectly confronted with diverse forms of police practices, different sectors of the population accumulate different experiences and respond differently to the police. This study focuses on the everyday experiences of the police among ethnic minority young people in the Nordic countries. The data for the article are based on semi-structured interviews with 121 young people in Sweden, Norway, Finland and Denmark. In these interviews, many of the participants refer to experiences of “minor harassments” – police interactions characterized by low-level reciprocal intimidations and subtle provocations, exhibited in specific forms of body language, attitudes and a range of expressions to convey derogatory views. We argue that “minor harassments” can be viewed as a mode of conflictual communication which is inscribed in everyday involuntary interactions between the police and ethnic minority youth and which, over time, can develop an almost ritualized character. Consequently, minority youth are more likely to hold shared experiences that influence their perceptions of procedural justice, notions of legitimacy and the extent to which they comply with law enforcement representatives.

Though pardons (record suspensions) have existed in Canada for over four decades, most reform to the pardon programme has occurred in the last decade. An experimental survey was conducted to understand whether providing basic information pertaining to crime and criminal behaviour would affect support for pardons in Canada. Generally, there was no relationship between responses to pardon-related questions and demographics (i.e. gender, age or education) or most other standard criminal justice-related questions. Responses to questions on three aspects of pardons (eligibility waiting times; submission fees; and automatic pardons) were not affected by whether or not the information condition was received. However, providing respondents with a small amount of information about sex offence recidivism did increase the acceptability of allowing those convicted of sex offences to receive pardons. These findings suggest that certain concerns regarding pardon accessibility could potentially be alleviated by presenting existing government data to the public.

The literature on the English model of community safety describes it as being centrally directed, situational in nature, focused on anti-social behaviour and incivilities and not concerned with measures of social crime prevention. Based on an analysis of the community safety plans issued by English and Welsh local authorities between 2010 and 2014, this article argues that such a characterization is no longer accurate. Partnerships in England and Wales are now free from central oversight, and increasingly focused on safeguarding. In light of the work they do in support of vulnerable populations, and their role within the changing governance of England, more attention should be paid to them.

This article explores the question of how to expand restorative justice as a national policy in a country underrepresented by the literature. We maintain that considering legal culture is essential. We identify restorative justice traditions that are characteristic of civil law and common law legal systems, respectively, and compare them with a case study belonging to the former system. We argue that restorative justice practices are shaped by the legal culture, political tradition and criminal justice identity of the system where they develop. We suggest an approach to transferring restorative justice practices based on comparative criminology, restorative justice traditions and legal culture, making a theoretical contribution to the field, as well as having practical implications at the level of public policy design.

This article makes the case for greater use of systematic archival research as a methodological tool of criminology. Drawing upon insights from the author’s 2018 historical study of ‘early release’ in England and Wales, it reviews the legal framework underpinning the current ‘right of access’ to official records and demonstrates how greater engagement with this underused public resource can reveal a richer understanding of penal policy making and the continuities and dislocations within contemporary criminal justice. It goes on to consider the methodological challenges of gaining access to historical sources in criminological settings and concludes with a number of reflections upon the evolution of the discipline at a time of digital abundance and significant changes in government record keeping.

Police stop and search practices have been subject to voluminous debate for over 40 years in the United Kingdom. Yet critical debate related to the use of ‘everyday’ stop and search powers by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has, despite the hyper-accountable policing system of Northern Ireland, been marked by its absence. This article presents the first ever analysis of PSNI’s use of PACE-type powers (Police and Criminal Evidence (NI) Order 1989) – currently used at a higher rate and with poorer outcomes compared to the rest of the UK. While it can only be considered as an elusive power, about which detailed research evidence is markedly lacking, stop and search in Northern Ireland seems to serve as a classificatory tool for PSNI to control mainly young, socio-economically marginal male populations. The article provides new theoretical insight into stop and search as a simultaneous overt and covert practice, and speaks to wider issues of mundane police power – and practice – within highly contested and politically fractured contexts.

The position of rehabilitation in prisons in England and Wales has long been debated. Yet studies which consider how prisoners experience rehabilitative practices and processes are rare. Drawing on prisoners’ accounts, this article considers their perceptions and lived experiences of the ways in which rehabilitation is influenced by the nature of organizational support for rehabilitation; the characteristics of interventions implemented to support rehabilitation; and the complexion of the prison climate. We find the perception of an institutional failure to take responsibility for rehabilitation. Rehabilitative interventions – notably Offender Management Programmes (OMPS) and work placements – are perceived to be self-serving in rationale. They are experienced as ill-resourced, superficial in approach and unlikely to engender change. The prison climate, characterized by a lack of interest among correctional staff, lack of empathy and concern, and mixed – but often impersonal and sometimes antagonistic – relationships between prison staff and prisoners, further disrupts any ethos of rehabilitation. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.