37. Sentencing

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Ashworth ◽  
Julian V. Roberts
Keyword(s):  
Media Coverage ◽  
Sentencing Guidelines ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Political Criticism ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

Sentencing represents the apex of the criminal process and is the most public stage of the criminal justice system. Controversial sentences attract widespread media coverage, intense public interest, and much public and political criticism. This chapter explores sentencing in the United Kingdom, and draws some conclusions with relevance to other common law jurisdictions. Sentencing has changed greatly in recent years, notably through the introduction of sentencing guidelines in England and Wales, and more recently, Scotland. However, there are still doubts about the fairness and consistency of sentencing practice, not least in the use of imprisonment. Among the key issues to be examined in this chapter are the tendency towards net-widening, the effects of race and gender, the impact of pleading guilty, the use of indeterminate sentences, the rise of mandatory sentences, and the role of the victim in the sentencing process. The chapter begins by outlining the methods by which cases come before the courts for sentencing. It then summarizes the specific sentences available to courts and examines current sentencing patterns, before turning to a more detailed exploration of sentencing guidelines, and of the key issues identified above. The chapter addresses two critical questions: What is sentencing (namely who exerts the power to punish)? Does sentencing in the UK measure up to appropriate standards of fairness and consistency?

The Rise, the Fall, and the Reinvention of the Prison Ethnography

2021 ◽  
pp. 529-552
Author(s):  
Jill A. McCorkel
Keyword(s):  
Mass Incarceration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Treatment Programs ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Ethnographic Studies ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Key Issues ◽  
And Gender ◽  
And Control ◽  
The Impact

This chapter traces the emergence, maturation, and subsequent decline of ethnographic studies of prisons and jails in the United States. It provides a summary and overview of classic and contemporary prison ethnographies and identifies key issues and themes that animate qualitative research on prisons and carceral facilities. These include questions about the forms that punishment, surveillance, and control take, the ways that incarcerated men and women experience, resist, and make sense of the conditions of confinement, and the impact incarceration has for their relationships with families, communities, and one another. The chapter considers the dramatic reduction in the number of ethnographic studies of prisons and jails at century’s end and identifies how punitive policies associated with mass incarceration made it all but impossible for ethnographers to gain entry to carceral institutions. Contemporary ethnographers have reinvented the form by documenting practices and ideologies of control in alternate carceral spaces including visiting rooms, drug treatment programs, and group homes. A summary of recent work is included, along with a review of the ways that contemporary ethnographers foreground issues related to race and gender inequality. The chapter concludes with a discussion of prison ethnography in Europe where ethnographers enjoy greater access to carceral facilities and have considerable influence over public policy. For comparative purposes, I include a summary of ethnographic research from Ireland, the United Kingdom, and France.

scholarly journals Migration infrastructures and the production of migrants’ irregularity in Japan and the United Kingdom

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Nando Sigona ◽  
Jotaro Kato ◽  
Irina Kuznetsova
Keyword(s):  
Legal Status ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Legal Violence ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Social ◽  
Access And Quality ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

AbstractThe article examines the migration infrastructures and pathways through which migrants move into, through and out of irregular status in Japan and the UK and how these infrastructures uniquely shape their migrant experiences of irregularity at key stages of their migration projects.Our analysis brings together two bodies of migration scholarship, namely critical work on the social and legal production of illegality and the impact of legal violence on the lives of immigrants with precarious legal status, and on the role of migration infrastructures in shaping mobility pathways.Drawing upon in-depth qualitative interviews with irregular and precarious migrants in Japan and the UK collected over a ten-year period, this article develops a three-pronged analysis of the infrastructures of irregularity, focusing on infrastructures of entry, settlement and exit, casting a comparative light on the mechanisms that produce precarious and expendable migrant lives in relation to access to labour and labour conditions, access and quality of housing and law enforcement, and how migrants adapt, cope, resist or eventually are overpowered by them.

scholarly journals Are citizen juries and assemblies on climate change driving democratic climate policymaking? An exploration of two case studies in the United Kingdom

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Wells ◽  
Candice Howarth ◽  
Lina I. Brand-Correa
Keyword(s):  
Climate Change ◽  
Climate Policy ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Climate Action ◽  
The Uk ◽  
Elected Representatives ◽  
The Impact

Abstract In light of increasing pressure to deliver climate action targets, and the growing role of citizens in raising the importance of the issue, deliberative democratic processes (e.g. Citizen Juries and Citizen Assemblies) on climate change are increasingly being used to provide a voice to citizens in climate change decision-making. Through a comparative case study of two processes that ran in the UK in 2019 (the Leeds Climate Change Citizens’ Jury and the Oxford Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change), this paper investigates how far Citizen Assemblies and Juries on climate change are increasing citizen engagement on climate change and creating more citizen-centred climate policy-making. Interviews were conducted with policy-makers, councillors, professional facilitators and others involved in running these processes to assess motivations for conducting these, their structure and the impact and influence they had. The findings suggest the impact of these processes is not uniform: they have an indirect impact on policymaking by creating momentum around climate action and supporting the introduction of pre-planned or pre-existing policies rather than a direct impact by being truly being citizen-centred policymaking processes or conducive to new climate policy. We conclude with reflections on how these processes give elected representatives a public mandate on climate change, that they help to identify more nuanced and in-depth public opinions in a fair and informed way, yet it can be challenging to embed citizen juries and assemblies in wider democratic processes.

Policing Belonging

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alpa Parmar
Keyword(s):  
Migration Policy ◽  
Economic Resources ◽  
Police Custody ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Minority Ethnic Groups ◽  
The Everyday ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Minority Ethnic

This chapter considers the impact of the police’s increased involvement in migration control. How (and with what consequences) do criminalization, migration, race, and gender intersect when the police are asked to respond to migration and fears about migrants? Drawing on empirical research on police custody suites, the piece discusses how the policing of migration questions the presence of minority ethnic groups in the UK, the wider implications for those who cannot belong, and how procedures are racialized. It also highlights the widening reach of the police, whose work is increasingly carried out in conjunction with other actors including those who have been enlisted to surveil, report, and help enforce migration policy. The chapter brings to light the everyday forms of racism renewed through the policing of migrants while exploring how those who are deemed risky, not belonging, criminal, or a threat to social and economic resources are racialized.

Changing faces of modern migration

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
A. James Hammerton
Keyword(s):  
Strategic Management ◽  
Life Writing ◽  
Migrant Women ◽  
Marriage And Family ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
Migration History ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Underlying Theme

This chapter uses some striking migrant stories from ‘new faces’ of modern migration to scrutinise the underlying theme of change and continuity in modern migration history. The stories range across return migration, the heightened place of Europe in British migration practice, women’s turn to life-writing to make sense of their mobile experiences, the phenomenon and role of British goods shops in migrant destinations, and a British-Indian professional woman’s ambivalent responses to her further migration history. They illustrate the impact of migrant experience on shifting patterns of identity, global, national and local, on the diminishing hold of ‘associational’ culture among the British, on the changing profiles of migrant women who navigated their strategic management of career, marriage and family, and on the interplay of race and gender in migrant lives. All these themes illustrate deep changes which characterised the migrant experience of the modern British diaspora, but alongside enduring continuities.

Misconceptions and Misrepresentation: Challenging UK Media Reports of Recent Visits of UN Special Procedures

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rhona Smith
Keyword(s):  
United Kingdom ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Press Coverage ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Special Procedure ◽  
Media Reports ◽  
The Uk

Abstract With headlines referencing ‘U.N.ACCEPTABLE Clueless UN official’, ‘“loopy” UN inspector’ and ‘UN meddler’, it is clear that UN special procedure mandate holders can be subjected to negative national press coverage when visiting the United Kingdom. Indeed, some media outlets border on vitriolic in their coverage of mandate holders’ visits and reports. This paper argues that a number of misconceptions and misunderstandings explain some of this media coverage. UN special procedure mandate holders are not employed by the UN, nor are they dispatched by the UN to investigate the UK. Rather they are independent and receive no payment for their time or work. Actual visits are funded from the UN general budget and the UK is not alone being examined and critiqued. In explaining some of the misconceptions and misunderstandings, the paper clarifies the role of special rapporteurs and the contribution they make to the UN.

scholarly journals Fraud in small charities: evidence from England and Wales

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 211-222 ◽  
Author(s):  
Paschal Ohalehi
Keyword(s):  
Control Systems ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Governance Structure ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Raising Awareness ◽  
Potential Benefits ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

Purpose Despite the increasing awareness of fraud in organisations and the potential benefits of strong fraud management through deterrence and prevention in the UK, there remains limited research on fraud in small charities. This paper aims to examine astonishing cases of fraud in small charities whilst raising awareness of the impact of fraud and its wider implication in the charity sector. Design/methodology/approach This research used a qualitative approach amongst randomly selected 24 charity trustees with income of £0-250,000 and over £250,000. Recent statistics from fraud survey published in Annual Fraud Indicator by the National Fraud Authority and the United Kingdom Fraud Costs Measurement Committee were presented and the theory of why people commit fraud is described. Findings This paper summarises evidence that shows the frequency and severity of fraud in charities, which remains increasingly high. Furthermore, smaller charities are not immune from fraud and suffer losses due to lack of segregation of duties and weak control systems when compared to larger charities with stronger control systems and better governance structure. This paper addresses a very important topic in the charity sector. Whilst fraud and fund misappropriation receive significant media coverage in large charities, smaller charities also suffer losses occasioned by fraud even in large proportion albeit with less reporting in the media. Practical implications Charity managers and trustees will benefit from having sufficient knowledge in deterrence and prevention of charity fraud. Originality/value This is a novel research as it looks into the nature of fraud in small charities of which there is limited research both in the voluntary and fraud literature.

Marxism and Its Others

2007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Catherine Hall
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
British Government ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Political Citizenship ◽  
The Social ◽  
New Vision ◽  
And Gender ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Uk

This chapter is written from the perspective of a historian trying to comprehend the complexities of the nineteenth-century societies and to use those conceptual theories that would define the many layers of the social, cultural, and political world. In the absence of Marxism, there has been a tendency to lose interest in the large-scale changes and to resort to micro-histories. A return to Marx is therefore needed to understand how change occurs in the relation between key categories of difference. And while Marx may not have full answers to the questions on the logic of capital and class antagonisms, he nevertheless initiated questions on agency and change. The focus of the chapter is on the United Kingdom and its empire from 1828 to 1833. This was a period when political citizenship and forms of rule at home and across the empire were reassessed; when the forms of conservative aristocratic rule in Britain and the colonies were ruptured; and when the new vision of the nation and the empire was introduced. In all of the places ruled by the UK, emphasis is placed on Ireland, Britain, Jamaica, and India, including Westminster, which is the seat of the British government. Each of the cases is dealt with extensively, with stress on ethnicity, class, race, and gender. All of these cases are examined within the framework of Marxism, wherein the salience of the theory is measured on its capacity to address issues of differences.

scholarly journals Stay Home, Stay Safe, Save Lives? An Analysis of the Impact of COVID-19 on the Ability of Victims of Gender-based Violence to Access Justice

2020 ◽  
Vol 84 (6) ◽  
pp. 539-572
Author(s):  
Ana Speed ◽  
Callum Thomson ◽  
Kayliegh Richardson
Keyword(s):  
Critical Time ◽  
Gender Based Violence ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Humanitarian Crises ◽  
Seeking Help ◽  
The Media ◽  
Gender Based ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The Impact

On 23 March 2020, the United Kingdom (UK) government introduced new measures aimed at reducing the spread of coronavirus (Covid-19). These measures directed the closure of non-essential businesses and venues, prohibited all public gatherings of more than two people and required everyone to stay at home except for very limited purposes. The rationale behind the measures was clear: Stay Home, Stay Safe, Save Lives. Within days of the lockdown coming into force, reports emerged within the media that services supporting victims of gender-based violence (GBV) were facing an unprecedented increase in demand for assistance, indicating that cases of abuse were on the rise. Although GBV is not caused by lockdown measures, evidence indicates that they may increase the incidence rate and/or the severity of GBV in households where it is already being perpetrated. These findings are in line with existing research which demonstrates that natural disasters, disease and other forms of conflict leave citizens (particularly women and girls) vulnerable to GBV. Preventing and responding to GBV in times of humanitarian crises is a vital but challenging endeavour. Whilst support services struggle to secure adequate resources and capacity, restrictions on leaving the house mean that victims face barriers to reporting abuse and seeking help. Within this context, this article will analyse the impact of Covid-19 on the ability of victims of GBV to access justice. The first part of this article will explore the role of GBV organisations in the UK, the impact of humanitarian crises on reported rates of GBV, and how GBV can be mitigated during the Covid-19 outbreak. The second part of the article examines the effectiveness of the response to the crisis from government and public sector agencies including Her Majesty’s Courts and Tribunal Service (HMCTS), the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and the police. The third and final part of the article presents the findings of a UK wide study conducted by the authors into the impact of Covid-19 on GBV organisations and victims. Throughout the article, recommendations are made as to the ways in which GBV organisations could be more effectively supported to ensure justice for victims at this critical time.

scholarly journals Identifying a space for young Black Muslim women in contemporary Britain

Ethnicities ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 146879682110018
Author(s):  
Sheymaa Ali Nurein ◽  
Humera Iqbal
Keyword(s):  
Black Community ◽  
Muslim Women ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Race And Gender ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
And Gender ◽  
Black Muslim ◽  
And Coping

Young Black Muslim Women (BMW) have complex, intersectional identities and exist at the margins of various identity groupings. Given this, members of the community can face societal relegation across, not only race and gender lines, but across religious ones, too. This paper explores the lived experiences of intragroup discrimination, identity and belonging in 11 young Black Muslim Women in the United Kingdom. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were conducted with participants and thematically analysed through the lens of intersectionality. The use of an intersectional framework facilitated an understanding of the manner in which the sample was multiply marginalised. Two key themes emerged from the interviews: firstly, around experiences of intragroup and intersectional discrimination and, secondly, around the challenges of responding to and coping with the negative effects of such discrimination. Participants discussed the cross-cutting nature through which they faced discrimination: from within the Black community; from within the Muslim community; and as a result of their gender. The non-exclusivity of these three identities result in constant encounters of discrimination along different dimensions to their personal identity. They also developed diverse means of coping with this marginalisation including drawing from religious beliefs and mobile identifications, i.e. performing different aspects of their identities in different contexts. The present study contributes to existing knowledge in its focus on an under-researched group and emphasises the negative effects of intragroup discrimination. The paper importantly highlights the diversity within the Black community and considers the (in)visibility of Black Muslim Women within society.

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