Royer examines the changing ritual of execution across five centuries and discovers a shift both in practice and in the message that was sent to the population at large. She argues that what began as a show of retribution and revenge became a ceremonial portrayal of redemption as the political, religious and cultural landscape of England evolved.

First published in 1983, Women's Imprisonment explores the meanings of women's imprisonment and, in particular, the wider meanings of the 'moment' of prison. Based on officially sponsored research in Cornton Vale, Scotland's only women's prison, the book makes extensive use of interviews with sheriffs, policemen, and social workers, as well as observation in the prisons, the courts, and the lodging-houses. The author quotes from interviews with women recidivist prisoners, the judges who send them to prison, and the agencies which assist them in between their periods of imprisonment. In doing so, questions are raised about the meanings of imprisonment and the penal disciplining of women at the time of original publication. The book also examines the changing and various meanings of imprisonment in general and the invisible nature of the social control of women in particular.

In the aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008, Western societies entered a climate of austerity which has limited the penal expansion experienced in the US, UK and elsewhere over recent decades. These altered conditions have led to introspection and new thinking on punishment even among those on the political right who were previously champions of the punitive turn. This volume brings together a group of international leading scholars with a shared interest in using this opportunity to encourage new avenues of reform in the penal sphere. Justice is a famously contested concept and this book takes a deliberately capacious approach to the question of how justice can be mobilised to inform new reform agendas. Some of the contributors revisit an antique question in penal theory and reconsider the question of what fair or just punishment should look like today. Others seek to make gender central to understanding of crime and punishment, or actively reflect on the part that related concepts such as human rights, legitimacy and trust can and should play in thinking about the creation of more just crime control arrangements. Faced with the expansive penal developments of recent decades, much research and commentary about crime control has been gloom-laden and dystopian. By contrast, this volume seeks to contribute to a more constructive sensibility in the social analysis of penality: one that is worldly, hopeful and actively engaged in thinking about how to create more just penal arrangements. Justice and Penal Reform is a key resource for academics and as a supplementary text for students undertaking courses on punishment, penology, prisons, criminal justice and public policy. This book approaches penal reform from an international perspective and offers a fresh and diverse approach within an established field.

This volume specifically examines current concerns about imprisoned fathers and highlights best practices with a group of children and parents who present significant vulnerabilities. It brings together contemporary works in this area, to share and consolidate knowledge, to encourage comparisons and collaborations across jurisdictions, and to stimulate debate, all with the aim of furthering knowledge and improving practice in this area. Although there is considerable focus on imprisoned mothers, there is limited knowledge or understanding of the needs, experiences, or effective responses to imprisoned fathers and their children, despite men making up the vast majority of the prison population. The ongoing and negative impact of parental incarceration on children is well documented, and includes emotional and behavioural consequences, marginalisation, and stigma, as well as financial and social stresses. However, understanding of these processes, and, importantly, what can assist children and families, is poor. This book seeks to add to the understanding of paternal imprisonment by providing an in-depth exploration of how the arrest, detention, and experiences of fathers during imprisonment can affect their ability to parent and meet the needs of their children. This book was originally published as a special issue of Child Care in Practice.

This title was first published in 2000: Between 1900 and 1950 130 women were sentenced to death for murder in England and Wales. Only 12 of these women were actually executed. Thus, 91 per cent of women murderers had their sentence commuted, whereas if we examine the corresponding figures for men, only 39 per cent had their sentence commuted. It would appear that state servants working within the criminal justice system were far more reluctant to hang women than men. However, this text argues that a closer examination of this apparent discrepancy reveals it to be a misconception which has come about as a result of the statistics regarding infanticide. That is to say - unlike men - the vast majority of women murderers have killed their own child or children. Once this is taken into account we find that women who had murdered an adult had less hope of a reprieve than men. Thus, the author shows that the large proportion of women murderers as killers of their own children has created a false impression of how female murderers fared inside the criminal justice system.

Policing Child Sexual Abuse provides a historical overview of the evolution of policing child sexual abuse in Queensland, tracing a legacy of failure (even corruption) in the decades leading up to the foundation of Taskforce Argos, a branch of the Queensland Police Service created in part as a response to criticisms of police shortcomings in this area. -uses a combination of archival and open-source material to trace the shifting approach to policing child sexual abuse -acts as a case study of how a police force with such a negative track record in policing this area was able to correct its path and reform its practices, to the point that it could emerge as a world-leader in policing CSA Demonstrating how, even in contexts where police responses to CSA have been met with significant criticism, an opportunity still exists to reject historical failures in favour of a renewed commitment to proactive policing of CSA, this book will be of great interest to scholars of policing, historical criminology and child sexual abuse.

In Community Punishment: European perspectives, the authors place punishment in the community under the spotlight by exploring the origins, evolution and adaptations of supervision in 11 European jurisdictions. For most people, punishment in the criminal justice system is synonymous with imprisonment. Yet, both in Europe and in the USA, the numbers of people under some form of penal supervision in the community far exceeds the numbers in prison, and many prisoners are released under supervision. Written and edited by leading scholars in the field, this collection advances the sociology of punishment by illuminating the neglected but crucial phenomenon of 'mass supervision'. As well as putting criminological and penological theories to the test in an examination of their ability to explain the evolution of punishment beyond the prison, and across diverse states, the contributors to this volume also assess the appropriateness of the term 'community punishment' in different parts of Europe. Engaging in a serious exploration of common themes and differences in the jurisdictions included in the collection, the authors go on to examine how 'community punishment' came into being in their jurisdiction and how its institutional forms and practices have been legitimated and re-legitimated in response to shifting social, cultural and political contexts. This book is essential reading for academics and students involved in the study of both community punishment and comparative penology, but will also be of great interest to criminal justice policymakers, managers and practitioners.

In Community Punishment: European perspectives, the authors place punishment in the community under the spotlight by exploring the origins, evolution and adaptations of supervision in 11 European jurisdictions. For most people, punishment in the criminal justice system is synonymous with imprisonment. Yet, both in Europe and in the USA, the numbers of people under some form of penal supervision in the community far exceeds the numbers in prison, and many prisoners are released under supervision. Written and edited by leading scholars in the field, this collection advances the sociology of punishment by illuminating the neglected but crucial phenomenon of 'mass supervision'. As well as putting criminological and penological theories to the test in an examination of their ability to explain the evolution of punishment beyond the prison, and across diverse states, the contributors to this volume also assess the appropriateness of the term 'community punishment' in different parts of Europe. Engaging in a serious exploration of common themes and differences in the jurisdictions included in the collection, the authors go on to examine how 'community punishment' came into being in their jurisdiction and how its institutional forms and practices have been legitimated and re-legitimated in response to shifting social, cultural and political contexts. This book is essential reading for academics and students involved in the study of both community punishment and comparative penology, but will also be of great interest to criminal justice policymakers, managers and practitioners.

This short text, ideal for Social Problems and Criminal Justice courses, examines the American prison system, its conditions, and its impact on society. Wehr and Aseltine define the prison industrial complex and explain how the current prison system is a contemporary social problem. They conclude by using California as a case study, and propose alternatives and alterations to the prison system.

Drawing on qualitative and quantitative research from around the world, this book brings together renowned international scholars to explore life-course perspectives on women's imprisonment. Instead of covering only one aspect of women's carceral experiences, this book offers a broader perspective that encompasses women's pathways to prison, their prison experiences and the effects of these experiences on their children's well-being, as well as their subsequent chances of desisting from crime.Encompassing perspectives from the Netherlands, Belgium, Denmark, Scotland, the United States, Ukraine and Sri Lanka, this book uncovers the similarities across time and space in women offenders' life histories and those of their children and examines the differences in women's experiences and trajectories by shedding light on the moderating effects of particular cultural contexts. Lives of Incarcerated Women will be of interest to academics and students engaged in the study of punishment, penology, life-course criminology, women and crime and gender studies. It will also be of great interest to practitioners.

This book showcases innovative justice initiatives from around the world which engage offenders, practitioners and communities to reduce reoffending and support desistance and positive change. It is groundbreaking in bringing together inspiring ideas and pioneering practices to analyse how 'justice done differently' is making a difference. The voices and experiences of the people at the forefront of these innovative initiatives are presented throughout the book, including offenders, corrections staff and directors, the judiciary, scientists and academics, volunteers and community organisations. Strengths-based research methods are used to investigate and celebrate best practices and 'good news stories' from the field. The authors raise critical questions about what is considered innovative and effective, for whom and in what context, presenting their own conceptual approach for analysing innovation. With initiatives drawn from diverse jurisdictions and cultures - including the UK, Europe, Australia, Asia, the US and South America - this book showcases original ideas and refreshing developments that have the potential to transform rehabilitation and reintegration practices. The book's substance and style will resonate with practitioners, students and academics across the interdisciplinary fields of criminology and criminal justice.

In recent years there has been massively increased demand for the services of the private security industry, which has now assumed a far greater role in policing areas that were once the sphere of the police --for example, shopping malls, leisure parks and transportation terminals. This book provides a detailed account of the developments in urban planning, public policy and the commercial world which have promoted the development of private security, and provides a unique examination of security teams in operation in three very different environments --a shopping mall, a retail and leisure complex, and an arts centre. The study is set within a broader context that considers changes in retail and leisure patterns that have promoted the development of large, multi-purpose developments, shifts in town centre planning to create more secure high street retail and leisure facilities, and the promotion of CCTV and security patrols. Finally, the book considers the ethical issues that arise with the massively increased use of private security, and the broader policy issues which arise.

Ten years ago there were no faith-based units in prisons outside South America. Today, they are spreading all over the world, including the United States, Europe and the Commonwealth. My Brother's Keeper is the first major study of a global phenomenon. Exploring the roots of faith-based units in South America, it explains why the Prison Service of England and Wales set up the first Christian-based unit in the western world in 1997 - and its rapid expansion. It also explains how, at exactly the same time, the United States introduced Christian-based units - and why they were complimented by interfaith and multifaith initiatives. At the heart of My Brother's Keeper is an interior account of life inside four Christian-based prison units in England. It draws on the findings of a detailed evaluation conducted by the authors for the Home Office, Prison Service and Kainos Community between 2000 and 2001, including an updated reconviction study. It is an authoritative account of an innovative programme. Its analysis of what works and what doesn't in faith-based units around the world makes My Brother's Keeper a valuable roadmap for all who care about improving prison conditions. It presents a vision of justice that is not just concerned with building more prisons but with rebuilding more prisoners. It argues that by making prisons more human and punishment more humane, faith-based units can be of value - and keep faith in prisons.

The broad aim of this book is to provide a general basis for comparatively analysing and understanding the French riots of October/November 2005 and the corresponding Bristish disorders which occurred in the spring/summer of 2001. The first of the French riots broke out on 27 October in the north Parisian banlieue (suburb) of Clichy-sous-Bois when two teenage youths of Muslim heritage were electrocuted in a substation while fleeing from the police. The two youths had apparently become unwittingly involved, together with their friends, in a police investigation of a break-in. It is not clear whether they had actually been chased by police officers. Nevertheless, a rumor to this effect quickly circulated the locality, provoking violent confrontation between youths and police. Three more weeks of rioting then ensued in neighbouring Parisian suburbs and other major French cities with similar concentrations of ethnic minorities. The riots invariably involved thousands of youths from poorer areas who confronted the police, set fire to local buildings and ignited hundreds of motor vehicles. Further rioting - though not on the same scale as in 2005 - occurred subsequently in 2006 and 2007. England and Wales have had their own counterparts to the French riots. In the early and mid 1980s, there were a number of clashes between police and African-Caribbean youths in inner-city areas. Further, in 2001 rioting broke out in the northern mill towns and cities of Bradford, Burnley, Leeds and Oldham. All of these later instances involved youths from Pakistani or Bangladeshi descent. In contrast to the riots that occurred in France though, a contributing factor to 2001 riots was the activities of white neo-Fascists. Many official reports and academic studies followed each wave of disorder, each questioning the effectiveness of Britain's 'multicultural' society, in addition to other possible factors such as the marginalisation and 'criminalisation' of minority ethnic youth, and their relations with the police. Such issues were again on the agenda after more rioting occurred in the Lozells area of Birmingham in 2005. Unlike the previous disorders, this entailed conflict between South Asian and African-Caribbean youths, following a rumor that a young African girl had been gang-raped by South Asians. British attempts to analyse and remedy the underlying causes of the riots constitute a potentially valuable resource to French academics, practitioners and policy makers. In turn, the French experience provides a fertile basis for re-applying, testing and enhancing existing British theory and policy. The book consists of a highly coherent, theoretically rich and thematically comprehensive collection of papers which provide an unparalleled description and comparative analysis of the French and British riots, along with social policy recommendations to help to address the underlying issues.

Criminological and penological scholarship has in recent years explored how and why institutions and systems of punishment change - and how and why these changes differ in different contexts. Important though these analyses are, this book focuses not so much on the changing nature of institutions and systems, but rather the changing nature of penal practice and practitioners Bringing together leading researchers from around the world, this collection unites studies that aim to describe and critically analyse penal practice with studies that investigate its effectiveness and prescribe its future development. Reversing penology's usual preoccupation with the prison, the book focuses mainly on penal practice in the community (i.e. on probation, parole, offender supervision and 'community corrections'). The first part of the book focuses on understanding practice and practitioners, exploring how changing social, cultural, political, and organisational contexts influence practice, and how training, development, professional socialisation and other factors influence practitioners. The second part is concerned with how practitioners can be best supported to develop the skills and approaches that seem most likely to generate positive impacts. It contains accounts of new practice models and approaches, as well as reports of research projects seeking both to discover and to encourage effective practices. This book explores internationally significant and cutting-edge theoretical and empirical work on the cultures, practices, roles and impacts of frontline practitioners in delivering penal sanctions. As such, it will be of interest to researchers in criminology, social work and social policy as well as correctional policy makers and those involved in community supervision.

The most punitive era in American history reached its apex in the 1990s, but the trend has reversed in recent years. Smart on Crime: The Struggle to Build a Better American Penal System examines the factors causing this dramatic turnaround. It relates and echoes the increasing need and desire on the part of actors in the American government system to construct a penal system that is more rational and humane. Author Garrick L. Percival points out that the prison boom did not naturally emerge as a governmental response to increasing crime rates. Instead, political forces actively built and shaped the growth of a more aggressive and populated penal system. He is optimistic that the shifting political forces surrounding crime and punishment can now reform the system, explaining how current political actors can craft more constructive and just policies and programs. The book shows how rationality and humanitarianism lead to a penal system that imprisons fewer people, does less harm to the lives of individual offenders and those close to them, and is less expensive to maintain. The book presents empirical data to concretely demonstrate what is working and what is not in today's penal system. It closely examines policies and practices in Texas, Ohio, and California as comparative illustrations on what progress has been made or needs to be made in penal systems across the United States. The book includes a comprehensive discussion of highlighted issues, and relates more than two dozen interviews with pivotal political actors who clarify why there is a major shift underway in the American penal system. Their insights reveal paths that can be taken to improve the current penal system.

In 1777 John Howard wrote The State of the Prisons in England and Wales, with Preliminary Observations and an Account of Some Foreign Prisons. Two centuries later, this extraordinary document commemorates his achievements in campaigning for reform. In the spirit of Howard himself, the Howard League for Penal Reform have compiled detailed observations of prisons from Sweden to South Africa, and from India to Nicaragua. The result is a valuable resource which includes unique insights into previously undocumented prison regimes.

This volume in the series Sociology of Crime, Law, and Deviance deals with aspects of punishment, including sentencing, incarceration, and prison conditions, in a variety of settings at local, national, and/or regional levels. The book brings together some 14 scholars to contribute their respective chapters, each of the authors drawn from various parts of the world, thus ensuring a global perspective. The chapters in this volume address specific aspects of punishment, prisons, and incarceration based on the author's unique specialty and setting. The focus is explicitly comparative, analyzing punishment in different national and regional settings, and thus seeks to offer a global orientation. Both thematically and regionally diverse within the province of social and behavioral studies devoted to the study of punishment and incarceration, the chapters in this volume are also diverse in terms of theoretical approach and methodological orientation.

This book explores how restorative justice is used and what its potential benefits are in situations where the state has been either explicitly or implicitly involved in human rights abuses. Restorative justice is increasingly becoming a popular mechanism to respond to crime in democratic settings and while there is a burgeoning literature on these contexts, there is less information that focuses explicitly on its use in nations that have experienced protracted periods of conflict and oppression. This book interrogates both macro and micro utilisations of restorative justice, including truth commissions, criminal justice reform and the development of initiatives by communities and other non-state actors. The central premise is that the primary potential of restorative justice in responding to international crime should be viewed in terms of the lessons that it provides for problem-solving, rather than its traditional role as a mechanism or process to respond to conflict. Four values are put forward that should frame any restorative approach - engagement, empowerment, reintegration and transformation. It is thought that these values provide enough space for local actors to devise their own culturally relevant processes to achieve longstanding peace. This book will be of interest to those conducting research in the fields of restorative justice, transitional justice as well as criminology in general.

Incarceration Without Conviction addresses an understudied fairness flaw in the criminal justice system. On any given day, approximately 500,000 Americans are in pretrial detention in the US, held in local jails not because they are considered a flight or public safety risk, but because they are poor and cannot afford bail or a bail bond. Over the course of a year, millions of Americans cycle through local jails, most there for anywhere from a few days to a few weeks. These individuals are disproportionately Black and poor. This book draws on extensive legal data to highlight the ways in which pretrial detention drives guilty pleas and thus fuels mass incarceration--and the disproportionate impact on Black Americans. It shows the myriad harms that being detained wreaks on people's lives and well-being, regardless of whether or not those who are detained are ever convicted. Rabinowitz argues that pretrial detention undermines the presumption of innocence in the American criminal justice system and, in so doing, erodes the very meaning of innocence.

Focusing on three key stages of the criminal justice process - discipline, punishment, and desistance - and incorporating case studies from Asia, the Americas, Europe, Africa, and Australia, the thirteen essays in this collection are based on exciting new research that explores the evolution and adaptation of criminal justice and penal systems, largely from the early-nineteenth century to the present. They range across the disciplinary boundaries of History, Criminology, Law and Penology.

Journeying into and unlocking different national and international penal archives, and drawing on diverse analytical approaches, the essays forge new connections between historical and contemporary issues in crime, prisons, policing, and penal cultures, and challenge traditional western democratic historiographies of crime and punishment and categorisations of offenders, police and ex-offenders.

The individual essays provide new perspectives on race, gender, class, urban space, surveillance, policing, prisonisation and defiance and will be essential reading for academics and students engaged in the study of criminal justice, law, police, transportation, slavery, offenders and desistance from crime.

The words we use to talk about justice have an enormous impact on our everyday lives. As the first in-depth, ethnographic study of language, "Talking Criminal Justice" examines the speech of moral entrepreneurs to illustrate how our justice language encourages social control and punishment.

This book highlights how public discourse leaders (from both conservative and liberal sides) guide us toward justice solutions that do not align with our collectively professed value of "equal justice for all" through their language habits. This contextualized study of our justice language demonstrates the concealment of intentions with clever language use which mask justice ideologies that differ greatly from our widely espoused justice values.

By the evidence of our own words "Talking Criminal Justice "shows that we consistently permit and encourage the construction of people in ways which attribute motives that elicit and empower social control and punishment responses, and that make punitive public policy options acceptable.This book will be of interest to academics, students and professionals concerned with social and criminal justice, language, rhetoric and critical criminology.

Concerns over insecurity and questions of safety have become central issues in social and political debates across Europe and the western world. Crucial changes have followed as a result, such as a redefinition of the role of the state in relation to policing - a central theme of this book - and an explosion in the growth of private policing. These developments have, in their turn, heightened feelings of insecurity and safety, particularly where populations have become increasingly mobile and societies more socially fragmented, culturally diverse and economically fragmented. Responses to insecurity now increasingly inform decisions made by governments, organisations and ordinary people in their social interactions. This book makes a key contribution to an understanding of these developments, approaching the subject from a range of perspectives, across several different disciplines. The three parts of the book look at broader theoretical and thematic issues, then at cross-national and pan-European developments and debates in European governance, and finally explore specific examples of local issues of community safety and the broader implications these have. Leading figures in the field draw upon criminological, legal, social, and political theory to shed new light on what has become one of the most intractable problems facing western societies.

In 1791, the French femme de lettres Olympe de Gouges wrote that 'as women have the right to take their places on the scaffold, they must also have the right to take their seats in government'. This book explores the issues of female emancipation through the history of female execution, from the burning of Joan of Arc in 1431 to the events of the French revolution.

Concentrating on individual victims, the author addresses the sexual attitudes and prejudices encountered by women condemned to death. She examines the horrific treatment of those denounced as witches and reveals the gruesome reality of death by hanging, burning or the guillotine. In an attempt to uncover the historical truth behind such figures as Joan of Arc, Anne Boleyn, Manon Roland and Charlotte Corday, she goes beyond biography to consider their deaths in symbolic terms. She also considers writers such as Genet, Yourcenar and Brecht and their treatment of the tragic, sacrificial and erotic aspects of female execution.

Historically, at English common law, the death penalty was mandatory for the crime of murder and other violent felonies. Over the last three decades, however, many former British colonies have reformed their capital punishment regimes to permit judicial sentencing discretion, including consideration of mitigating factors. Applying a comparative analysis to the law of capital punishment, Novak examines the constitutional jurisprudence and resulting legislative reform in the Caribbean, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South and Southeast Asia, focusing on the rapid retreat of the mandatory death penalty in the Commonwealth over the last thirty years. The coordinated mandatory death penalty challenges - which have had the consequence of greatly reducing the world's death row population - represent a case study of how a small group of lawyers can sponsor human rights litigation that incorporates international human rights law into domestic constitutional jurisprudence, ultimately harmonizing criminal justice regimes across borders. This book is essential reading for anyone interested in the study and development of human rights and capital punishment, as well as those exploring the contours of comparative criminal justice.