The Death of Offenders in England and Wales

Crisis ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 17-23 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ghazala Sattar
Keyword(s):  
Policy Implications ◽  
Death Certificates ◽  
Accidental Death ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Drugs And Alcohol ◽  
Probation Service ◽  
Mode Of Death

Summary: The death of offenders in the community has received considerably less attention than the death of prisoners, although limited research suggests that community offenders may be even more vulnerable to death than prisoners. This study compared the nature and extent of death among prisoners (n = 236) and offenders serving community sentences or ex-prisoners receiving postcustodial supervision by the Probation Service (n = 1,267) in England and Wales in 1996 and 1997. Information contained in death certificates was used to code for mode of death. Prisoners and community offenders were found to be reasonably similar in vulnerability to suicide/self-inflicted death; however, the risk of accidental death and homicide was greater for community offenders, and drugs and alcohol played a bigger part in their deaths. The policy implications of the findings are discussed.

Some Practical Implications for Policy and Practice

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Henham
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Working Relationship ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Community Based ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
National Regulation ◽  
Probation Service ◽  
Practical Implications

This chapter explains the practical consequences of what has been proposed. It begins by evaluating current models and suggested approaches for incorporating public opinion into sentencing, explaining how the proposed changes would differ. It then sets out some practical reforms to sentencing in England and Wales, including greater coordination between the national regulation of sentencing discretion through the Sentencing Council and regional or community-based sentencing practices. Regional branches of the Sentencing Council are also advocated. In addition to further practical reforms, a greater role for the Sentencing Council in the ethical surveillance of sentencing, the development of new procedural rules, and enhanced training for judges and magistrates are proposed. Finally, a closer working relationship between the Sentencing Council, the courts, the CPS, defence lawyers, and the Probation Service is advocated to develop guidance clarifying their role within the new sentencing framework.

Is There a Regional Subculture of Firearm Violence in Canada?

1998 ◽  
Vol 38 (4) ◽  
pp. 317-320 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Lester ◽  
Antoon A Leenaars
Keyword(s):  
Social Policy ◽  
Death Rate ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Accidental Death ◽  
Homicide Rates ◽  
Firearm Violence ◽  
The Social

A study in Canada of the accidental death rate from firearms, and of suicide and homicide rates by firearms and by all other methods, for the period 1975–85, indicated that the rates were positively associated with one another. The results were interpreted using a subcultural theory of violence, and the social policy implications of the results were discussed.

Surviving the revolution? The voluntary sector under Transforming Rehabilitation in England and Wales

2020 ◽  
pp. 221-238
Author(s):  
Kevin Wong ◽  
Rob Macmillan
Keyword(s):  
Turning Point ◽  
Voluntary Sector ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Future ◽  
Probation Service ◽  
Open Question ◽  
The Revolution

Regarded by commentators as an emollient to soothe critics of the part privatisation of the public probation service, the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) reforms in England and Wales promised an enlarged role for the voluntary sector in the resettlement and rehabilitation of offenders. Whether such changes mark a decisive turning point or in the fullness of time represent just another twist in the long and messy narrative of voluntary sector provision of offender services remains an open question. This chapter will examine the role and fortunes of the sector during the tumultuous period between 2014 and 2019 and identify what lessons can be learnt for the future.

scholarly journals Transforming Rehabilitation: The micro-physics of (market) power

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (1) ◽  
pp. 108-126
Author(s):  
Matt Tidmarsh
Keyword(s):  
Market Power ◽  
Unintended Consequences ◽  
Disciplinary Power ◽  
Market Mechanisms ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Probation Service ◽  
The Impact

This paper explores the impact of the introduction of competition and profit to the probation service in England and Wales following the implementation of the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms. The paper adapts the ideas advanced in Foucault’s Discipline and Punish to draw similarities between the characteristics of ‘disciplinary institutions’ and a micro-physics of (market) power in probation under Transforming Rehabilitation. It utilises Foucault’s ‘instruments’ of disciplinary power – hierarchical observation, normalising judgement, and the examination – as lenses through which to highlight the unintended consequences of the installation of market techniques within the service. The paper argues that the constraints peculiar to instilling decentralising market mechanisms that were presented as a means to liberate practitioners and reduce reoffending have entrenched further the centralising tendencies associated with managerialism.

scholarly journals When access is denied: Conducting an interview through letter writing

2020 ◽  
pp. 146879412093612
Author(s):  
Emma Burtt
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Data ◽  
Qualitative Interview ◽  
Letter Writing ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Valuable Alternative ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Probation Service

Access to prisons in England and Wales is becoming ever more restricted to researchers and all projects must have sufficient links to Her Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service (HMPPS) priorities to be considered. What are the alternatives when there is no such link or when access has otherwise been denied? This article focuses on one possible solution – conducting a qualitative interview via letter. Drawing on my own experience of conducting such interviews with prisoners maintaining innocence, I document how the method can work in practice. Although not without difficulty, written interviews are capable of producing rich, qualitative data and provide benefits to both the researcher and researched when compared to traditional face-to-face interviews. I ultimately demonstrate how interviews via letter offer a valuable alternative when interacting with people, not only in prison but across all secure estates.

Trends in Suicide Rate for England and Wales 1975–80

1984 ◽  
Vol 144 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-126 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. M. G. McClure
Keyword(s):  
Suicide Rate ◽  
Common Method ◽  
Exhaust Gas ◽  
Accidental Death ◽  
Vehicle Exhaust ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Real Increase

SummaryThe suicide rate in England and Wales has increased annually in the period 1975 to 1980. The increase has occurred in both sexes, but has been greater for males. There has been a decrease in suicide by poisoning with solid or liquid substances (including overdoses) and a marked increase in poisoning by vehicle exhaust gas. The rate of hanging, strangulation and suffocation has also increased substantially: taken together (ICD E953) these now form the most common method of suicide in males. Statistics for ‘undetermined’ and ‘accidental’ death have been examined, and indicate that the increase in the official suicide rate represents a real increase in suicides during this period.

scholarly journals The probation service in England and Wales: A decade of radical change or more of the same?

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 129-146
Author(s):  
Matt Tidmarsh
Keyword(s):  
Radical Change ◽  
State Intervention ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Public ◽  
Performance Targets ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
General Decline ◽  
Medium Risk ◽  
Probation Service ◽  
Privately Owned

This article reviews developments in probation in England and Wales since 2010, a decade in which services were exposed to the logic of competition and profit. In 2014, the Conservative-Liberal Democrat Coalition government’s Transforming Rehabilitation ( TR) reforms promised an end to a top-down, target-centric culture of state intervention by outsourcing services for low-to-medium risk offenders to 21 privately-owned Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). And yet, just four years after the reforms were implemented, the Conservative government announced that CRCs’ contracts would be terminated, with all offender management services returned to the public sector. With a focus on the private sector, the article argues that radical change to the probation service’s structure has entrenched a focus on centrally-administered performance targets and audit. In other words, contrary to the decentralising rhetoric at the core of TR, the decade has in many ways produced more of the same managerialism that the reforms were presented as a means to displace. The result has been a general decline in the quality of probation services.

scholarly journals Does ethnic diversity explain intra-UK variation in mortality? A longitudinal cohort study

BMJ Open ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. e024563
Author(s):  
Lauren Schofield ◽  
David Walsh ◽  
Zhiqiang Feng ◽  
Duncan Buchanan ◽  
Chris Dibben ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Longitudinal Study ◽  
Ethnic Diversity ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Country Of Birth ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
All Cause Mortality ◽  
Mortality Incidence ◽  
And Migration ◽  
The Uk

ObjectivesIt has been proposed that part of the explanation for higher mortality in Scotland compared with England and Wales, and Glasgow compared with other UK cities, relates to greater ethnic diversity in England and Wales. We sought to assess the extent to which this excess was attenuated by adjusting for ethnicity. We additionally explored the role of country of birth in any observed differences.SettingScotland and England and Wales; Glasgow and Manchester.ParticipantsWe used the Scottish Longitudinal Study and the Office for National Statistics Longitudinal Study of England and Wales (2001–2010). Participants (362 491 in total) were aged 35–74 years at baseline.Primary outcome measuresRisk of all-cause mortality between 35 and 74 years old in Scotland and England and Wales, and in Glasgow and Manchester, adjusting for age, gender, socioeconomic position (SEP), ethnicity and country of birth.Results18% of the Manchester sample was non-White compared with 3% in Glasgow (England and Wales: 10.4%; Scotland: 1.2%). The mortality incidence rate ratio was 1.33 (95% CI 1.13 to 1.56) in Glasgow compared with Manchester. This reduced to 1.25 (1.07 to 1.47) adjusting for SEP, and to 1.20 (1.02 to 1.42) adjusting for ethnicity and country of birth. For Scotland versus England and Wales, the corresponding figures were 18% higher mortality, reducing to 10%, and then 7%. Non-Whites born outside the UK had lower mortality. In the Scottish samples only, non-Whites born in the UK had significantly higher mortality than Whites born in the UK.ConclusionsThe research supports the hypothesis that ethnic diversity and migration from outside UK play a role in explaining Scottish excess mortality. In Glasgow especially, however, a large excess remains: thus, previously articulated policy implications (addressing poverty, vulnerability and inequality) still apply.

Suicide by burning as an epidemic phenomenon: an analysis of 82 deaths and inquests in England and Wales in 1978–9

1981 ◽  
Vol 11 (4) ◽  
pp. 735-739 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R. Ashton ◽  
Stuart Donnan
Keyword(s):  
Index Case ◽  
Married Women ◽  
Death Certificates ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Code Of Practice ◽  
The Past ◽  
The Media ◽  
One Year ◽  
The One ◽  
The Uk

SynopsisAn epidemic of suicide by burning in England and Wales occurred during the one-year period October 1978 to October 1979, following a widely publicized political suicide. For the 82 cases, death certificates were obtained and coroners' inquest reports sought. The victims were predominantly young single men or older married women; both groups had strong psychiatric histories; and there were no suicides which had political overtones, apart from the index case. Compared with suicides by this method in the past, a higher proportion of victims were born in the UK. It is proposed that a code of practice for the reporting of suicides by the media is required.

scholarly journals Life-Cycle Consumption and the Age-Adjusted Value of Life

2006 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas J Kniesner ◽  
W. Kip Viscusi ◽  
James P Ziliak
Keyword(s):  
Life Cycle ◽  
A Priori ◽  
The Elderly ◽  
Value Of Life ◽  
Policy Implications ◽  
Accidental Death ◽  
Important Health ◽  
Job Safety ◽  
New Evidence ◽  
Statistical Lives

AbstractOur research presents new evidence on the age pattern of the implicit value of life revealed from workers' differential wages and job safety pairings. Although aging reduces the number of years of life expectancy, aging can affect the value of life through an effect on planned life-cycle consumption. The elderly could, a priori, have the highest implicit value of life if there is a life-cycle plan to defer consumption until old age. We find that largely due to the age pattern of consumption, which is non-constant, the implicit value of life rises and falls over the lifetime in a way that the value for the elderly is higher than the average over all ages or for the young. There are important health policy implications of our empirical results. Because there may be age-specific benefits of programs to save statistical lives, instead of valuing the lives of the elderly at less than the young, health policymakers should more correctly value the lives of the elderly at as much as twice the young because of relatively greater consumption lost when accidental death occurs.

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