Gang Member: Who Says? Definitional and Structural Issues

Owing to a number of high profile shootings in the UK over the past decade, there has been a significant amount of media and political interest in youth gangs. This chapter reports on a study conducted in 2009 in a large city in the North of England. It discusses the structure and formation of gangs in this city from the view of the young people identified as gang members and those responsible for this identification, i.e. police officers. Findings demonstrated that few of the young people viewed themselves as belonging to a gang, indeed many were scathing of such an attribution, contesting its applicability. A more accurate description of these young people is of a rather loose and fluid interlinked but informal social network of friends and associates. There was evidence that the authorities’ labeling of some young people as gang members and adoption and use of gang names attributed coherence and identity to what was often only fluid and transitional youth group formations. This may have created the very circumstances it sought to challenge

Mental health care for foreign national prisoners in England and Wales

Background: The foreign national prisoner (FNP) population in England and Wales has disproportionately increased in size, but mental health research in this group has been limited. Aims: Define the FNP group, review their understood characteristics, identify service challenges and make onward recommendations. Methods: A literature search of Pubmed and Google Scholar was undertaken. Relevant articles/reports were identified and reviewed. Results: Many FNPs face challenges: isolation (with limited family contacts); language barriers; difficulties accessing services; prejudice and discrimination; active legal issues regarding immigration. These are compounded by poor quality interpreting services, institutional barriers including racial assumptions propagated by forces of legislation, the disrupted local care pathways and common mental health problems (including post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety). Pre-detention trauma, self-harm and suicide are over-represented. Conclusions: Further prevalence and unmet needs research is urgently required. A validated screening tool could assist identification and service access for FNPs with mental health problems. Services providing relatively inexpensive interventions specific to the needs of FNPs (e.g. narrative exposure therapy) should be piloted

Independently verified reductionism: prison privatization in Scotland

The Scottish Parliament recently considered proposals, which, if implemented, would lead to a considerable expansion of prison privatization. Both the Scottish Prison Service and the Scottish Executive used what they claimed to be an independently verified cost saving of £700 million as the major justification for these proposals. The way this figure was constructed and used provides an example of the increasing tendency on the part of government to quantify what cannot be quantified, to 'make the invisible visible'. This article uses several methods to interrogate this figure of £700 million, particularly the role played by 'net present value' in its construction. Its fuller significance emerges from an understanding of the contexts of the Private Finance Initiative and Public Private Partnership, the experience of prison privatization and the foreclosure of alternatives to privatization. This article is based upon an analysis of government documentation, interview evidence with key players and testimony given by them to a cross-party committee charged with investigating these proposals