The prisoner's right to vote and civic responsibility: Reaffirming the social contract?

Copyright © 2009 NAPOThis article considers the issue of the prisoner’s right to vote in the light of recent developments in law and policy. It critically reviews the purported justifications for disenfranchisement and argues that re-enfranchisement should be pursued on the grounds of both principle and policy

De-constructing Risk, Therapeutic Needs and the Dangerous Personality Disordered Subject

The focus of this article is on the Dangerous and Severe Personality Disorder (DSPD) programme and its successor, the Offender Personality Disorder Pathway: two initiatives in England and Wales with the aim of protecting the public from dangerous offenders through a combination of preventive detention and therapeutic intervention in prisons and psychiatric hospitals. In this article, I first explore how the dangerous yet potentially redeemable DSPD subject was constructed by policymakers before turning to examine how the risks this group posed were translated into therapeutic needs under the DSPD programme. In so doing, I contend that prisoners’ mental health needs are not only targeted for humane reasons but also as a means of facilitating the cost-effective management of difficult and disruptive individuals. Furthermore, meeting these needs can serve as an intermediate step towards drawing difficult prisoners into mainstream offending behaviour programmes explicitly targeting criminogenic risk factors. Ultimately, I conclude that, given that meeting prisoners’ mental health needs is contingent on the compatibility of therapeutic regimes with the priorities of the prison, treatment programmes will ultimately yield to the overriding concerns of security and control in the event of conflict

Custodial sentencing of children: prospects for reversing the tide

This article examines the extent of custodial sentencing of children in England and Wales and locates it within the context of Article 37 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child. Drawing on a recent survey, undertaken by NACRO on behalf of the Youth Justice Board for England and Wales, the evidence for the existence of ‘justice by geography’ in terms of the use of custody is reviewed, and factors which might account for variations in sentencing practice are explored. Finally, an assessment is given of the prospects for reversing the recent trend to deprive increasing numbers of children of their liberty, in the light of current developments in policy and practice