Female prisoners, aftercare and release : residential provision and support in late nineteenth century England

This article examines the release and aftercare of female prisoners in England during the late nineteenth century. Primarily it seeks to illuminate the use of residential provision for women who had been released from both convict and local prisons, contrasting the two systems and suggesting how such institutions may have affected the women's subsequent offending. The research presented here draws on two sets of data, the material on local prisons uses a case study of female prisoners at Stafford prison (Turner, 2009; 2011) and the convict prison data draws on the licensing and release of female convicts collated for a recent ESRC funding project on the costs of imprisonment (Johnston & Godfrey, 2013a). This article outlines and reflects upon aftercare and residential provision for women leaving prison, during a period when a woman released from prison was regarded as 'the most hopeless creature in the world' (Reverend William Morrison cited in Gladstone Committee Report, 1895). Aftercare and support was variable for those leaving local prisons, but for convict women released on conditional licence to a refuge, this could offer them the opportunity to build a new life after release

Our Criminal Past: Educating Historians of Crime: Classroom, Archive, and Community

This enlightening and well-attended day was the second of three research networking events, each organised by Dr Heather Shore (Leeds Metropolitan University) and Dr Helen Johnston (University of Hull ), and supported by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. As such, it was the second opportunity for scholars, archivists and those engaged in an educational and heritage capacity in museums and prisons who are interested professionally and academically in Our Criminal Past and its future, to meet, discuss, hear excellent papers, and discuss further. Held at Broadcasting Place, Leeds Metropolitan University, the event was attended by over fifty established and newer members of the network all interested and involved, in particular for this event, in educating crime historians - academically in schools, and in further and higher educational establishments, as well as in local history heritage site

Summary Justice for Women: Stafford Borough, 1880-1905

Serious female offenders and prostitutes were marginal individuals in their own time, yet both have received a disproportionate amount of scholarly research. Although still overshadowed by male offenders of any type, the female petty offender was more prevalent. Yet such common- place female offenders have been largely ignored by historians and criminologists, particularly those living and offending outside the Metropolis. By using a largely working-class market town as a case study, this article aims to redress that imbalance by establishing the participation of women in mundane and less overtly gendered crime in late nineteenth century Stafford. In so doing, the article will show that there were comparatively few juvenile offenders and a host of middleaged women mainly convicted for drunken and anti-social behaviour, common assault, and breaching the increasing regulatory legislatio

E-learning at University of the Arts London

This report is a systematic exploration of staff relationships with e-learning. It presents a renewed evidence base from which e-learning provision and related support can be planned particularly in a rapidly changing HE terrain and an institutional context where e-learning and academic structures are emerging from large change programmes. The research is based on 25 interviews with programme directors (PD) evenly distributed across the 4 colleges, with representatives from all discipline groups, and levels of study. The interviewees provided rich insights into attitudes to, practices in and aspirations for e-learning, but in some instances, were also limited by the newness of the PD role. While some PDs had an intimate understanding of their programme areas, others, understandably, given the newness of posts, were in the process of familiarising themselves with the work of their teams

Qualitative Research and Information Systems Design – Critical reflections from an eHealth Case study

Academic and business environments increasingly accept the utility of diverse qualitative research approaches for informing the design, implementation and evaluation of information systems. However, there are concerns that inherent techno-centrism within the IS discipline distorts criteria for choosing and adapting approaches and, significantly, works to marginalise the opportunities qualitative insights provide to open up human-centered dialogue on new ways of thinking and designing (Gasson 2003). This paper presents a qualitative research approach designed to facilitate critical reflection and sensitise researchers’ to implicit assumptions that technology will be the end-point of their activities and when judgments about criteria for successful designs are technologically and/or economically over-determined. The method endpoint is a conceptual framework constructed for the research domain which is the basis for translating sociological insights into implications for information systems and work practice in a public health service organisation