This book contributes conceptually, theoretically and morally to a deeper understanding of the distinctive Asian perceptions of punishment, justice and human rights. Researched and prepared by scholars who have not only been conducting studies on the death penalty in the region but have also been advocating for legal reforms, this edited book touches upon the different justifications for the use of capital punishment in the ASEAN region, exposing the secrecy, sensitivities and dilemmas that mask violations of international human rights laws. The chapters bring in numerous new perspectives which have been overlooked in the traditional discourse surrounding the use of the death penalty, such as that around crimes that do not meet the threshold of “most serious�; the dignity of death row inmates and their families; contradictions within religion and capital punishment; and the way in which growing authoritarianism and the media are adversely influencing the public’s perception and support for capital punishment in the region. In examining how public opinion shapes state policies towards the death penalty and how it varies according to different offences and different states, the authors critically analyse how the international human rights mechanisms have specifically called for ASEAN member states to refrain from extending the application of the death penalty and to limit it to the “most serious crimes.� Relevant to socio-legal scholars focused on crime and punishment in Southeast Asia, and in the Global South more broadly, this is a landmark collection in criminology and human rights scholarship.  Chapter "ASEAN and the Death Penalty: Theoretical and Legal Views and a Pathway to Abolition" is available open access under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License via link.springer.com.

In a world defined by and lived through media spectacle, nearly every part of human existence can now be documented, watched, and scrutinised. When mass media has the power to make the mundane not only visible but also entertaining, how have issues surrounding criminal justice, crime, and death taken centre stage in this media-saturated social world? Presenting for the first time in a published work the concept of Spectacular Justice, which was developed during the author's doctoral research, Smith delves into how institutions of justice, such as criminal trials, as well as public expressions of justice, such as rage and grief, are played out in the media. Using media archival data, this book examines four murder case studies to develop a conceptual toolkit, designed to help the reader make sense of the complex position of justice in the spotlight. Taking the cases of Charles Lindbergh Jr, James Bulger, Jodi Arias, and Anders Breivik, Smith examines each through the lens of three key characters (Victim, Perpetrator, and Expert), and explores how human stories contribute both to the visibility of the case, and the thriving of justice spectacle. Highlighting the value of bridging the disciplinary divide between criminology and death studies, this book also demonstrates how spectacular justice is often most conspicuous at the intersection between crime and death. It is appealing reading for scholars interested in Criminology, Sociology, Death studies, and Media.

The UN Global Study on Children Deprived of Liberty detailed many children's poor experiences in detention, highlighting the urgent need for reform. Applying a child-centred model of detention that fulfils the rights of the child under the five themes of provision, protection, participation, preparation and partnership, this original book illustrates how reform can happen. Drawing on Ireland's experience of transforming law, policy and practice, and combining theory with real-life experiences, this compelling book demonstrates how children's rights can be implemented in detention. This important case study of reform presents a powerful argument for a progressive, rights-based approach to child detention. Worthy of international application, the book shares practical insights into how theory can be translated into practice.

For many Europeans, the persistence of America's death penalty is a stark reminder of American otherness. The practice of state killing is an archaic relic, a hollow symbol that accomplishes nothing but reflects a puritanical, punitive culture - bloodthirsty in its pursuit of retribution. In debating capital punishment, the usual rhetoric points to America's deviance from the western norm: civilized abolition and barbaric retention; 'us' and 'them'. This remarkable new study by a leading social thinker sweeps aside the familiar story and offers a compelling interpretation of the culture of American punishment. It shows that the same forces that led to the death penalty's abolition in Europe once made America a pioneer of reform. That democracy and civilization are not the enemies of capital punishment, though liberalism and humanitarianism are. Making sense of today's differences requires a better understanding of American society and its punishments than the standard rhetoric allows. Taking us deep inside the world of capital punishment, the book offers a detailed picture of a peculiar institution - its cultural meaning and symbolic force for supporters and abolitionists, its place in the landscape of American politics and attitudes to crime, its constitutional status and the legal struggles that define it. Understanding the death penalty requires that we understand how American society is put together - the legacy of racial violence, the structures of social power, and the commitment to radical, local majority rule. Shattering current stereotypes, the book forces us to rethink our understanding of the politics of death and of punishment in America and beyond.

Accounts of female offenders' journeys into the criminal justice system are often silenced or marginalized. Featuring a Foreword from Pat Carlen and inspired by her seminal book 'Criminal Women', this collection uses participatory, inclusive and narrative methodologies to highlight the lived experiences of women involved with the criminal justice system. It presents studies focused on drug use and supply, sex work, sexual exploitation and experiences of imprisonment. Bringing together cutting-edge feminist research, this book exposes the intersecting oppressions and social control often central to women's experiences of the justice system and offers invaluable insights for developing penal policies that account for the needs of women.

When the British took control of the Indian Ocean island of Mauritius soon after the abolition of the slave trade, they were faced with a labour-hungry and potentially hostile Franco-Mauritian plantocracy. This book explores the context in which Indian convicts were transported to the island and put to work building the infrastructure necessary to fuel the expansion of the sugar industry. Drawing on hitherto unexplored archival material, it is shown how convicts experienced transportation and integrated into the Mauritian social and economic fabric.

Crime, Critique and Utopia examines the relationship between Utopia and the political through an analysis of utopian conceptualisations around crime and justice. It addresses the relevance of utopian principles in relation to a range of issues of direct and contemporary relevance to criminology, investigating theoretical possibilities, the use of utopian methods, and the application of utopian principles, in the quest for a transformative agenda within criminology and beyond.This book refines important social and historical themes of utopian construct from a criminological perspective, examining the interconnections between theoretical work on Utopia and political doctrines such as abolitionism and anarchism. It provides a critical analysis of criminal law and state policy on crime, considering various aspects of the utopian 'impulse' as it shapes criminological and abolitionist thinking.This edited collection includes contributions from Sarah Armstrong (Glasgow University, UK), Lynne Copson (University of Edinburgh, UK), Michael Lowy (CNRS, France), Mike Nellis (University of Strathclyde, UK), Vincenzo Ruggiero (Middlesex University, UK), David Scott (University of Central Lancashire, UK) and Loic Wacquant (University of California at Berkeley, USA).

This volume explores the role that European institutions have come to play in regulating national prisons systems. The authors introduce and contribute to advancing a new research agenda in international penology ('Europe in prisons') which complements the conventional comparative approach ('prisons in Europe'). The chapters examine the impact - if any - that institutions such as the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture and Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment and the European Court of Human Rights have had on prison policy throughout Europe. With contributions from a wide range of countries such as Albania, Austria, Belgium, Ireland, Norway and Spain, this edited collection offers a wide-ranging and authoritative guide to the effects of European institutions on prison policy.

While the use of imprisonment continues to rise in developed nations, we have little sociological knowledge of the prison's inner world. Based on extensive fieldwork in a medium-security prison in the UK, HMP Wellingborough, The Prisoner Society: Power, Adaptation and Social Life in an EnglishPrison provides an in-depth analysis of the prison's social anatomy. It explains how power is exercised by the institution, individualizing the prisoner community and demanding particular forms of compliance and engagement. Drawing on prisoners' life stories, it shows how different prisoners experience and respond to the new range of penal practices and frustrations. It then explains how the prisoner society - its norms, hierarchy and social relationships - is shaped both by these conditions of confinement and by the different backgrounds, values and identities that prisoners bring into the prison environment.
Individual chapters in the book examine the flow of power, social order and governance, social relations and hierarchy, everyday prison culture, politics and economics, and the effects of imprisonment on prisoners. The book also looks at the recent accounts of transformations in penal management and changes in prison policy, and offers comparative content on the quality of prison life by drawing upon quantitative evaluations based on standard UK prison surveys and visits to three other category C prisons.

This book explores the dramatic evolution of a feminist movement that mobilised to challenge a women's prison system in crisis. Through in-depth historical research conducted in the Australian state of Victoria that spans the 1980s and 1990s, the authors uncover how incarcerated women have worked productively with feminist activists and community coalitions to expose, critique and resist the conditions and harms of their confinement. Resisting Carceral Violence tells the story of how activists-through a combination of creative direct actions, reformist lobbying and legal challenges-forged an anti-carceral feminist movement that traversed the prison walls. This powerful history provides vital lessons for service providers, social justice advocates and campaigners, academics and students concerned with the violence of incarceration. It calls for a willingness to look beyond the prison and instead embrace creative solutions to broader structural inequalities and social harm.

This collection considers human rights and incarceration in relation to the liberal-democratic states of Australia, New Zealand and the UK. It presents original case-study material on groups that are disproportionately affected by incarceration, including indigenous populations, children, women, those with disabilities, and refugees or 'non-citizens'. The book considers how and why human rights are eroded, but also how they can be built and sustained through social, creative, cultural, legal, political and personal acts. It establishes the need for pragmatic reforms as well as the abolition of incarceration. Contributors consider what has, or might, work to secure rights for incarcerated populations, and they critically analyse human rights in their legal, socio-cultural, economic and political contexts. In covering this ground, the book presents a re-invigorated vision of human rights in relation to incarceration. After all, human rights are not static principles; they have to be developed, fought over and engaged with.

This book analyses the impact of Integrated Offender Management (IOM) on contemporary policing and separates the rhetoric from the reality. Drawing on a qualitative study within an English police force over two years, this book examines the experiences of prolific offenders, subject to IOM, and sheds light on the culture and practice of the police and staff from other criminal justice agencies, working within the scheme. While IOM has been judged to have had initial successes in reducing the criminal activities of prolific offenders, this book tests the validity of such claims, and considers the apparent disjuncture between policy statements made about the workings of IOM and how IOM policing operations are realized on the ground. It makes a unique contribution to research on police culture and practice, and multi-agency working in the criminal justice system. An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to policy makers, as well as students and scholars of criminology, sociology policing, and politics.

This book examines our contemporary preoccupation with risk and how criminal law and punishment have been transformed as a result of these anxieties. It adopts an historical approach to examine the development of risk control measures used across the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia and Canada - particularly since the 1980's - with the rise of the "security sanction". It also takes a criminological and sociological approach to analysing shifts in criminal law and punishment and its implications for contemporary society and criminal justice systems. Law, Insecurity and Risk Control analyses the range and scope of the 'security sanction' and its immobilizing measures, ranging from control over minor incivilities to the most serious crimes. Despite these innovations, though, it argues that our anxieties about risk have become so extensive that the "security sanction" is no longer sufficient to provide social stability and cohesion. As a consequence, people have been attracted to the 'magic' of populism in a revolt against mainstream politics and organisations of government, as with the EU referendum in the UK and the US presidential election of Donald Trump in 2016. While there have been political manoeuvrings to rein back risk and place new controls on it, these have only brought further disillusionment, insecurity and anxiety. This book argues that the "security sanction" is likely to become more deeply embedded in the criminal justice systems of these societies, as new risks to both the well-being of individuals and the nation state are identified.

This book offers a unique look into prisons in Iran and the lives of the prisoners and their families. It provides an overview of the history of Iranian prisons, depicts the sub-culture in contemporary Iranian prisons, and highlights the forms that gender discrimination takes behind the prison walls. The book draws on the voices of 90 men and women who have been imprisoned in Iran, interviewed in 2012 and 2017 across various parts of the Islamic Republic of Iran. It presents a different approach to the one proposed by Michel Foucault in Discipline and Punish because the author argues that Iran never experienced "the age of sobriety in punishment" and "a slackening of the hold on the body". Whilst penal severity in Iran has reduced, its scope has now extended beyond prisoners to their families, regardless of their age and gender. In Iran, penalties still target the body but now also affect the bodies of the entire prisoner's family. It is not just prisoners who suffer from the lack of food, clothes, spaces for sleeping, health services, legal services, safety, and threats of physical violence and abuse but also their families. The book highlights the costs of mothers' incarceration for their children. It argues that as long as punishment remains the dominant discourse of the penal system, the minds and bodies of anyone related to incarcerated offenders will remain under tremendous strain. This unique book explores the nature of these systems in a deeply under-covered nation to expand understandings of prisons in the non-Western world.

The death penalty is one of the country's most controversial issues. The fairness of its application is debated in coffeehouses, classrooms, political arenas, and the media. However, despite its representation in the media, most death penalty cases receive surprisingly little national media attention. In fact, of the 1,000 people executed in the United States since 1977, and the 3,500 inmates currently awaiting execution, only a handful of cases can be recalled by the public. Those that are memorable are so because they are among the few dramatically represented in the media. Why is it that those that receive the most serious penalty are virtually nameless, while the death penalty in general is one of the most discussed aspects of the criminal justice system? What makes some executions more newsworthy than others? What are the implications of media coverage for the public's understanding of this significant issue? This book looks at those death row cases that received the most intensive media coverage from the 1970s through the present, and why. At the same time, it focuses on changes in public opinion about the death penalty and how newspaper coverage and evolving mass sentiment relate to one another. Kudlac covers such celebrated cases as Karla Faye Tucker, Timothy McVeigh, Aileen Wuornos, John Wayne Gacy, and others that captured the attention of the American public and affected public opinion about the death penalty through the help of the media. He considers issues such as religion, politics, race, gender, and class as he reveals the reasons for our attention to certain cases above others. The book concludes with a consideration of where we go from here. With new investigativetechniques that have helped to exonerate some death row inmates, and various other considerations that have come into play in recent cases, the future of the death penalty will continue to be shaped by the media and the public.

Originally published in 1994, this work examines the different models of police accountability that were implemented in the 1980s. Based on research carried out in Manchester, the work discusses local government efforts to construct a new social contract between the police and the community. The research is considered within the wider theoretical debates about the nature of participatory democracy. The conclusion argues that there is an urgent need to confront the complexities of constructing satisfactory police-community relations in Britain's inner cities. It evaluates whether the reorganization of policing at the time would lead to a more accountable police service. It was one of the first books in this country to argue for an abolitionist position that is now central to BLM debates. Today it can be read against the backdrop of ongoing debates of police accountability and police race relations.

This book examines the role of religion and spirituality in desistance from crime and disengagement from gangs. Drawing upon in-depth interviews with male gang members and offenders as well as insights gathered from pastors, chaplains, coaches and personal mentors, the testimonials span three continents, focusing on the USA, Scotland, Denmark and Hong Kong. This volume offers unique empirical findings about the role that religion and spirituality can play in enabling some male gang members and offenders to transition into a new social sphere characterised by the presence of substitute forms of brotherhood and trust, and alternative forms of masculine status. The author presents critical insights into the potential relationship between religious and spiritual participation and the emergence of coping strategies to deal with the 'stigmata' that gang masculinity leaves behind. With its wide-ranging and multi-perspective approach, this book will be essential reading for students and scholars of gang culture, masculinity and spirituality, as well as policy makers and practitioners.

This handbook brings together the knowledge on juvenile imprisonment to develop a global, synthesized view of the impact of imprisonment on children and young people. There are a growing number of scholars around the world who have conducted in-depth, qualitative research inside of youth prisons, and about young people incarcerated in adult prisons, and yet this research has never been synthesized or compiled. This book is organized around several core themes including: conditions of confinement, relationships in confinement, gender/sexuality and identity, perspectives on juvenile facility staff, reentry from youth prisons, young people's experiences in adult prisons, and new models and perspectives on juvenile imprisonment. This handbook seeks to educate students, scholars, and policymakers about the role of incarceration in young people's lives, from an empirically-informed, critical, and global perspective.

This edited volume presents research about life in prison for women, discussing both incarcerated women and those working in prisons. It addresses women's paths through the criminal justice system from sentencing through post-incarceration and reintegration into society, highlighting the differences in women's experience of prison compared to their male counterparts and noting both the positive and negative changes implemented for women behind bars. Covering research on stigma, pop culture, motherhood, sexuality and gender, access to healthcare, vocational training, and educational opportunities, this text takes both a local and international view. Women and Prison is a comprehensive volume suitable for criminal justice researchers, mental health professionals, students of criminology, women's studies, sociology and those seeking a career in corrections.

How do governments and societies use prison to respond to underlying and fundamental social, economic and political issues? Using data on world imprisonment and numerous international examples from his personal experience, Coyle, a prison practitioner, academic and international expert, discusses the failings of prison around the world. Acknowledging the influence of external agencies, such as the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and court interventions in the use of solitary confinement, he offers some positive pointers for the future and how there might be a better distribution of resources between criminal justice and social justice by an application of the principles of Justice Reinvestment.

This book examines how the prison environment, architecture and culture can affect mental health as well as determine both the type and delivery of mental health services. It also discusses how non-medical practices, such as peer support and prison education programs, offer the possibility of transformative practice and support. By drawing on international contributions, it furthermore demonstrates how mental health in prisons is affected by wider socio-economic and cultural factors, and how in recent years neo-liberalism has abandoned, criminalised and contained large numbers of the world's most marginalised and vulnerable populations. Overall, this collection challenges the dominant narrative of individualism by focusing instead on the relationship between structural inequalities, suffering, survival and punishment. Chapter 2 of this book is available open access under a CC BY 4.0 license via link.springer.com.

This book describes the complex process of desistance from sexual crime as told by 74 men incarcerated for sexual offenses and released back into the community. Unlike much of the research on this topic, Harris places strong emphasis on how men who have committed serious sexual offenses come to stop offending and end their 'criminal career'. Drawing on in-depth interviews, Harris outlines three main strategies that the men employ in order to pursue offense-free lives. The Retirement Strategy is divided into those who appear to simply 'resign' and those who go on to 'rebuild' their lives. The Regulation Strategy characterizes desistance as a product of one's ability to navigate increasingly restrictive legislation ('restricted,' 'rehearsed,' 'resistant,' and 'reclusive' desistance). The men who describe their desistance in terms of Recovery do so either through 'rehabilitation' or through 'resilience.' This original and engaging study will be of great interest not only to academics who study sexual aggression but also those who have survived sexual abuse themselves, and anyone working with survivors of sexual abuse, individuals convicted of sexual offenses, their families, and their communities.

This book explores the growing understanding and evidence base for the role of trauma in sexual offending. It represents a paradigm shift, in which trauma is becoming an important risk factor to be considered in the treatment of individuals convicted of sexual crime. The authors consider the theoretical and historical explanations and understandings of sexual offending and its relationship with early trauma, paving the way for a volume which considers client's treatment needs through a new, trauma-informed lens. The experiences and challenges of specific groups are also explored, including young people and women. Readable, yet firmly anchored in a sound evidence base, this book is relevant to psychologists, therapists, criminologists, psychiatrists, mental health nurses, social workers, students, and to practitioners and the general public with an interest in learning more about the topic.

What role should the police have in an industrial dispute? How were they led into a partisan role in assisting the defeat of the 1984-5 miners' strike? Widespread concern over police road-blocks, allegations of police and picket violence, and the huge numbers of police used to maintain order and access to work led the National Council for Civil Liberties to set up an inquiry into the policing. The Inquiry Panel produced an interim report - but the NCCL disowned it, because of its acknowledgement of the rights of working miners as well as striking ones. The members of the Panel - who included former Chief Constable John Alderson and NCCL General Secretary Larry Gostin - then resigned, but continued work as a group of private individuals. Originally published in 1988, this book is their final report. The report describes the policing of the strike in detail from a range of published, unpublished, and eyewitness sources. The strike is set in the context of developments in law and policing before and since. The authors are able to provide a unique and authoritative perspective, analysing both the events of 1984-5 and the longer-term trends and problems, based on a clear recognition of the basic issues and conflicts of civil liberties involved. In their conclusions and recommendations the authors present an informed view of the use of the police during the strike, the breakdown of the system of police accountability, and the policies developed since the strike. Their findings point to the need for a Bill of Rights to cover civil liberties during industrial conflict, and the need for a new picketing Code of Practice. The Police, Public Order, and Civil Liberties will be essential reading for all concerned with the police, industrial relations, and the political and constitutional system. It will also be of value to all who need a clear and unbiased view of one of the key events in British post-war history.

In the middle of the first decade of the twenty-first century, African Americans made up approximately twelve percent ofthe United States population but close to forty percent of the United States prison population. Now, in the latter half of the decade, the nation is in the midst of the largest multi-year discharge of prisoners in its history. In Releasing Prisoners, Redeeming Communities, Anthony C. Thompson discusses what is likely to happen to these ex-offenders and why.

For Thompson, any discussion of ex-offender reentry is, de facto, a question of race. After laying out the statistics, he identifies the ways in which media and politics have contributed to the problem, especially through stereotyping and racial bias. Well aware of the potential consequences if this country fails to act, Thompson offers concrete, realizable ideas of how our policies could, and should, change.