“Tough on Crime”: Penal Policy in England and Wales

2007 ◽  
Vol 36 (1) ◽  
pp. 425-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tim Newburn
Keyword(s):  
Penal Policy ◽  
England And Wales

Bridging the Gap between Political and Penal Legitimacy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ralph Henham
Keyword(s):  
Political Economy ◽  
Social Exclusion ◽  
Social Value ◽  
The Political ◽  
Institutional Reforms ◽  
Social Morality ◽  
Penal Policy ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Sentencing Policy ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter argues that the relationship between penal policy and the political economy provides important insights into the political and institutional reforms required to minimize harsh and discriminatory penal policies. However, the capacity of sentencing policy to engage with this social reality in a meaningful way necessitates a recasting of penal ideology. To realize this objective requires a profound understanding of sentencing’s social value and significance for citizens. The greatest challenge then lies in establishing coherent links between penal ideology and practice to encourage forms of sentencing that are sensitive to changes in social value. The chapter concludes by explaining how the present approach taken by the courts of England and Wales to the sentencing of women exacerbates social exclusion and reinforces existing divisions in social morality. It urges fundamental changes in ideology and practice so that policy reflects a socially valued rationale for the criminalization and punishment of women.

Penal Policies and Institutional Sociologies

2020 ◽  
pp. 97-131
Author(s):  
Gabrielle Watson
Keyword(s):  
Current Approach ◽  
Recent History ◽  
Penal Policy ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
What Matters

Given that respect is, almost without exception, one of the first values to emerge in conversations with inmates about ‘what matters’ in prison, one could be forgiven for assuming that scholars had given the issue thorough attention. This is not the case. This chapter—the first of two on prisons—situates a number of institutional sociologies of the prison in relation to the key trends in penal policy with which they coincided. In so doing, it offers a critique of the current approach to respect in prisons in England and Wales and identifies moments in recent history when respect—however reductively understood—was especially pronounced.

Postscript

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Thomas C. Guiney
Keyword(s):  
New Labour ◽  
Early Years ◽  
Differential Treatment ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Penal Policy ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Early Release ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Serious Offenders

The Postscript traces the evolution of early release since the events described in this book. It examines the growing influence of a ‘strategy of bifurcation’ within penal policy and considers how the differential treatment of low-level and serious offenders has transformed the policy and practice of early release in England and Wales. Given the space available, this involves painting with broad brush strokes and this postscript is loosely divided into three political interludes: the early years of New Labour, 1997 to 2003; the later stages of the New Labour project, 2004 to 2010; and the Coalition and Conservative governments that have followed since 2010.

scholarly journals The role of storylines in penal policy change

2021 ◽  
pp. 146247452198953
Author(s):  
Harry Annison
Keyword(s):  
Policy Change ◽  
Policy Reform ◽  
Internal Dynamics ◽  
Policy Studies ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Penal Policy ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Reform Project

Bringing policy reform to fruition is an enterprise fraught with difficulty; penal policy is no different. This paper argues that the concept of ‘storylines’, developed within policy studies, is capable of generating valuable insights into the internal dynamics of penal policy change and particularly the ‘commmunicative miracle’ whereby policy participants sufficiently align to achieve reform. I utilize the part-privatization and part-marketization of probation services in England and Wales (‘Transforming Rehabilitation’) as a pertinent case study: a policy disaster foretold, but nonetheless inaugurated at breakneck speed. Drawing on interviews with policy makers, I demonstrate the means by which the ‘rehabilitation revolution’ storyline resolved (at least temporarily) the tensions and problems inherent in the reform project; without which it would have struggled to succeed. We see that storylines play at least three important roles for policy makers: they enable specific policies to ‘make sense’, to ‘fit’ in line with their pre-existing beliefs. They provide a sense of meaning, moral mission and self-legitimacy. And they deflect contestation. In closing, I consider the implications for scholars of penal policy change.

scholarly journals No longer a ‘collateral consequence’: Imprisonment and the reframing of citizenship

2020 ◽  
pp. 147737082096106
Author(s):  
Cormac Behan
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Social Rights ◽  
Penal Policy ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Collateral Consequence ◽  
Recent Developments ◽  
The Impact

This article examines the impact of imprisonment on citizenship. It identifies how civil, political and social rights are circumscribed with a sentence of imprisonment, and scrutinizes to what extent citizenship is limited for prisoners. Drawing on recent developments in England and Wales, it contends that citizenship has been eroded, not as a ‘collateral consequence’ of imprisonment, but rather as a determined penal policy. The boundaries of punishment have become blurred, moving from criminal justice institutions, and extending towards what is termed civil and political penality. Finally, it argues that, because citizenship in prison is inevitably framed around the differences between freedom and captivity, prisoners respond to the constraints of imprisonment through alternative ways of expressing their citizenship.

scholarly journals Marginal gains or diminishing returns? Penal bifurcation, policy change and the administration of prisoner release in England and Wales

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 139-152
Author(s):  
Thomas Guiney
Keyword(s):  
Policy Change ◽  
Crime Control ◽  
Public Confidence ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Penal Policy ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Penal Reform ◽  
Diminishing Returns ◽  
Parole System ◽  
Current Concerns

Prisoner release has emerged as a key site of penal policy contestation in England and Wales. A series of crises have undermined public confidence in the parole system and reopened longstanding debates over the confused normative basis of prisoner release policy and practice. This article attempts to locate current concerns within an ideational interpretation of penal policy change. It will argue that prisoner release has been fundamentally re-shaped by a bifurcated penal strategy that emerged as one possible response to the unique challenges of late-modern crime-control. Over time this strategy has provided an enduring guide to collective action and a political template for successive penal reform programmes. However, there are signs that we may now be reaching the conceptual limits of this strategy. While the logic(s) of bifurcation will continue to yield marginal political gains in the short-term, this article concludes that the long-term prognosis is one of diminishing returns with significant implications for the legitimacy, effectiveness and administrative coherence of prisoner release in this jurisdiction.

Gendered prisons, relationships and resettlement policies; three reasons for caution for imprisoned mothers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Natalie Booth
Keyword(s):  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Penal Policy ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
Social Controls ◽  
Imprisoned Mothers ◽  
Drug Free

Abstract Drawing on the lived experiences and perceptions of five imprisoned mothers, this article critically explores female prisons, relationships and resettlement policies in England and Wales. The findings indicate how the infusing of gendered, informal social controls into penal interventions and penal policy has the potential to harm mothers. This is why three reasons for caution are proposed in relation to ‘structural obstacles’, ‘continued exposure to abuse’ and ‘ascribed reputations’. With these challenges, the mother’s aspirations for a crime- and drug-free future may be thwarted. Therefore, by showing the complex and dynamic set of circumstances that mothers in prison must navigate, more clearly, the need for a nuanced approach for working with women can be appreciated.

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