Myopia and misrecognition : the impact of managerialism on the management of compliance

This article explores the construction of a particular form of compliance in probation practice during a period in which policy shifted from enforcement towards compliance. The article uses four concepts from Bourdieu's field theory (habitus, field, misrecognition and symbolic violence) to highlight the way in which the shift in policy was attuned to the subjective structure of probation practitioners' habitus but resulted in a form of compliance which was myopic in nature and thus did not adhere to what we know about habitus in probation from other research. The article explores this phenomenon through Bourdieu's notion of misrecognition suggesting that whilst the policy change was regarded generally positively, it is an example of 'symbolic violence'. In turn, this tells us about practitioners' position in the field which is useful in terms of future analyses of how changes to the delivery of community sanctions will manifest in the coming years

The Importance of Context and Cognitive Agency in Developing Police Knowledge: Going Beyond the Police Science Discourse

This paper argues the current exposition of police knowledge through the discourses of police science and evidenced based policing (EBP) leads to exaggerated claims about what is, and can be, known in policing. This new orthodoxy underestimates the challenges of applying knowledge within culturally-mediated police practice. The paper draws upon virtue epistemology highlighting the role cognitive agency plays in establishing knowledge claims. We challenge the assumption that it is possible to derive what works in all instances of certain aspects of policing and suggest it would be more apt to speak about what worked within a specific police context

The deprivation of certitude, legitimacy and hope: foreign national prisoners and the pains of imprisonment

At the end of March 2015 there were 10,481 foreign nationals (defined as non-UK passport holders) held in prisons in England and Wales, representing 12 per cent of the overall prison population. The latest published figures from December 2014 also indicated that there were a further 394 immigration detainees also being held in various prisons, rather than Immigration Removal Centres, across England and Wales. Although Sykes’s deprivation model with its associated ‘pains of imprisonment’ has been exhaustively explored by penologists, this article argues that there are a new range of ‘pains’ uniquely faced by foreign national prisoners in England and Wales who come under the scrutiny of the Home Office’s Immigration Service. Drawing on quasi-ethnographic fieldwork in a Specialist Foreign National Prison, this article discusses the new pains relating to a lack of certitude, legitimacy and hope with regard to both their carceral and post-carceral lives

“It ain’t (just) what you do, it’s (also) the way that you do it”: The role of Procedural Justice in the Implementation of Anti-social Behaviour Interventions with Young People

This paper provides an analysis of the introduction and implementation of hybrid powers to regulate anti-social behaviour, during a period of regulatory ‘hyperactivity’ in the UK. It explores the role of procedural justice by drawing on findings from a study conducted in England which investigated the implementation practices and experiences of young people and parents. These are considered against seven characteristics of procedural justice: voice; voluntariness; respectful treatment; parsimony; accuracy of information; fairness; and neutrality. The paper analyses the manner in which principles of voluntary cooperation can be corrupted by threats of punitive sanctions. It questions the extent to which the use of such hybrid orders fosters perceptions of legitimacy and supports the capacity of young people to avoid criminalisation

Transforming Women’s Rehabilitation? An Early Assessment of Gender-Specific Provision in Three Community Rehabilitation Companies

Following the implementation of the Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014, the Transforming Rehabilitation (TR) reforms expanded the offender management market to include several private providers, known as Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs). The TR reforms have been the subject of intense debate since the outset. Political, academic and campaign-group commentary has critiqued the rapid implementation of the new agenda and examined its likely impact on existing services (particularly those run by the charitable sector). A growing body of research has also questioned the likely impact of the legislation on community provision for women, a field already beset with precarious funding streams. Lamenting the ‘lack of strategic focus’ on women, a recent review by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation (HMIP) revealed that ‘dedicated funding for women’s community services has virtually disappeared, and provision is mixed and uncertain’ (2016a: 4). Drawing on 36 interviews conducted with probation officers and practitioners (keyworkers) working for women’s services, this paper validates such concerns. While the supposed subjects of an established government strategy, it is particularly regretful to report such findings in the tenth anniversary year of Baroness Corston’s seminal report

Diamonds, gold and crime displacement: Hatton Garden, and the evolution of organised crime in the UK

The 2015 Hatton Garden Heist was described as the ‘largest burglary in English legal history’. However, the global attention that this spectacular crime attracted to ‘The Garden’ tended to concentrate upon the value of the stolen goods and the vintage of the burglars. What has been ignored is how the burglary shone a spotlight into Hatton Garden itself, as an area with a unique ‘upperworld’ commercial profile and skills cluster that we identify as an incubator and facilitator for organised crime. The Garden is the UK’s foremost jewellery production and retail centre and this paper seeks to explore how Hatton Garden’s businesses integrated with a fluid criminal population to transition, through hosting lucrative (and bureaucratically complex) VAT gold frauds from 1980 to the early 1990s, to become a major base for sophisticated acquisitive criminal activities. Based on extensive interviews over a thirty year period, evidence from a personal research archive and public records, this paper details a cultural community with a unique criminal profile due to the particularities of its geographical location, ethnic composition, trading culture, skills base and international connections. The processes and structures that facilitate criminal markets are largely under-researched (Antonopoulos et al. 2015: 11), and this paper considers how elements of Hatton Garden’s ‘upperworld’ businesses integrated with project criminals, displaced by policing strategies, to effect this transition