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Recent Publications
December 2011 - Phillips, C. and Earle,
R. (2011) – ‘Cultural Diversity, Ethnicity and Race Relations’, in
B. Crewe and J. Bennett (eds.) The Prisoner. London:
Routledge.
January 2012 - Phillips, C. (2012) ‘It
Ain’t Nothing Like America with the Bloods and the Crips: Gangs
Inside Two English Prisons in Punishment and Society 14(1):
51-68.
Robert Reiner has a
chapter on the causes of crime in a Fabian pamphlet entitled Reform
and Punishment and a forthcoming paper What's Left? The prospects
for Social Democratic Criminology to be published in Crime Media
Culture.
Book
Launch Event
16th May 2012: Global Policing 
Ben Bowling and James Sheptycki
presented an overview of their new book discussing a model looking
at global policing organisations such as Interpol, national policing
bodies and local provision of policing. They make important
distinctions between private and public policing, people and places
and notions of high and low policing, with the latter matters of
national concern such as terrorism and the latter localised policing
of neighbourhoods. They introduced the term "iatrogenesis" borrowed
from medicine and means adverse effects introduced by treatments to
try and explain the security control paradox: the greater the
promise of security the less secure we feel.
Robert Reiner acted as a discussant and presented his view of this
"massively impressive " book as accentuating the negative. He
touched on the use of power rather than authority, making the
observations that global policing does not seem to reach tax havens,
the Southern hemisphere generally appears over policed and under
protected and those agencies which seem to be barely touched by the
law or democratic accountabilities.
Mannheim/BSC Wednesday Seminar 14 March
2012 14th March
 Rachel Condry talked about her work
on adolescent to parent violence which she explained was work in
progress. Previous research on this topic is patchy and prevalence
estimates vary between 7 and 29%. A further problem is difficulties
over terminology, youth violence, parent abuse. Furthermore data on
this for of violence does not appear in domestic violence statistics
as often the perpetrators are too young. This is a complex form of
violence and it requires nuanced understanding.
Rachel described her ESRC funded
research that she is conducting with Caroline Miles. They have
undertaken 100 interviews with police, parents, adolescents and
social workers as well as looking at case files.
She explained that this topic has not
been on the criminological research agenda and that it falls between
the different service provision dealing with anti social behaviour
and youth justice. There is also the problem of stigma and the shame
parents feel as well as parents not wishing to report their
children’s violence. Thus this is another under reported crime.
The characteristics on invisible
crime (identified by Davies, Francis and Jupp) suggest it is where
there is little knowledge or theorising, few statistics, and a degree
of panic about both the problem and its implications. Rather like
child abuse their is a collective denial. And like child abuse,
adolescent committed domestic violence is seen as a private family
problem and victims are blamed for the abuse. Child abuse came to
light through grass roots campaigning and there is the emergence of
some campaigning about adolescent abase of parents which represents
a start in breaking the silence about this problem.
BEYOND PENTONVILLE: The Lives of an
Incarcerating Institution and a Criminological Classic
Robert Reiner organised
a special seminar to celebrate the work of Terry
Morris. Robert assembled a stellar cast, to reflect on Terry's
contribution to criminology.
Terry has written a
wonderful piece about this seminal work, and you can also
read Sir Louis Blom
Cooper's speech given at the event.
Included in the event were some wonderful photographs. especially
evocative were pictures of post war Croydon which serve to remind us how bleak things were then.
Professor Emeritus
of Criminology and Criminal Justice in the University of London,
Terence Morris was the first director of the Mannheim Centre and
taught at LSE from 1955-95. He has been a visiting academic in the
University of the West Indies, Jamaica, the University of
California, Berkeley and the University of Manitoba.
Alison Liebling gave the first of three talks.
She listed a few facts about Pentonville: it is 170 years old,
and is the oldest purpose built prison in Europe. It has the biggest
and longest wing. There have been 39 escapes. Prison employment
rates are half today compared to when the Morris’ undertook their study.
The study of Pentonville co-incided with the high point of penal
optimism and was the first sociological study of its kind. The study found a
confused and cynical staff and a rampant drugs problem. Alison
remarked that she had re-read Pentonville after a number of years
and was not disappointed by the re-discovery of the book.
Alison’s paper will be published in the next
issue of the Prison Journal.
Sir Louis Blom Cooper then talked about his
professional association and friendship with Terry and described
their involvement in the abolition of capital punishment. An article
by them appeared in The Sunday Observer in 1961
In this edition, which incidentally covered the
Eichmann trial in Israel, presented some data showing interesting
similarities and difference when compared to more recent figures. During
the 1930s to 1950s homicide rate as measured per million population
fluctuated between 3.4 and 4.4. In 2008/9 the equivalent risk is 12
per million population. The rate certainly rose after the abolition
of the death penalty in 1964 but the U.K’s murder rate compared to
the US is still very low. More males are murder victims now than pre
abolition. In 2008/9 83% of homicide victims are male compared to
45% in 1960, although there was a difference between capital and non
capital offences then. For the former 60% were male and the latter it was
42%.
In 1960 23% of suspects committed suicide
whilst latterly it is less that 3%. In 1960s infanticide and
concealment of births were negligible and are still so today. Murder
associated with theft remains stable with 9% of offences
associated with this in 1960 compared to 7% more
recently but that associated
with quarrelling or fighting has tripled in percentage terms.
Professor Dick Hobbs provided an affection
reflection of Terry and described the latter’s route to the Pentonville study : Croydon via Chicago. He described Terry as a
wonderful story teller, charismatic teacher with a mighty turn of
phrase. Descriptions of the “topping shed” in Pentonville and the
silence that descend on the prison when there was an execution are
masterful. Rod Morgan in the panel discussion described the
accoutrements necessary to conduct a hanging listed in the Morris’
book: pinioning apparatus, cap, bag and weight, chalk, copper wire,
pack thread, tackle, chair and tackle pin. Chilling stuff.
The panel comprising Philip Bean,
Elaine Player, Barry Mitchell, John Carrier and Rod Morgan gave
testament to Terry’s significant contribution as a teacher, as
director of the Mannheim Centre, his role in the abolition debate
and his clear, colourful and jargon free writing style. He was pivotally
involved in the development of British criminology. Elaine remarked
on Terry’s love of dogs and Rod Terry’s sailing prowess both
interests marking him out as a special human being.
People
There was a wonderful event organised for Robert on the occasion of
the presentation of his festschrift volume to be reported fully in
the next edition of the Newsletter.
Congratulations to
Kevin Stenson
who has been awarded a visiting
professorship here at LSE.
Professor
Jennifer Brown
participated in a seminar organised by Baroness Stern (19th June) as
a follow up to the Stern report on the investigation and prosecution of
rape. Jennifer discussed some research she and Nicole Westmarland
are currently undertaking on the efficacy of specialist rape
investigation teams.
Jennifer
also gave a keynote presentation to the Policing 2012
Conference on delivering accountabilities and results (12th
June)
providing an account of the work of the Independent Commission into the Future of Policing.
This described the working method of the Commission and present some
preliminary issues for the Commissioners to consider.
These she represented as
a number of dichotomies:
-
Single focus crime
control or multi purpose
mission
-
Election versus
appointment modes of accountability
-
Creating a
profession or becoming more professional
-
Centralism versus
localism
-
To privatise or not
to privatise
You can access the
Commission's
web site for more information about work in progress.
Jennifer also went to Lisbon to a conference organised by the
Institute of Social Sciences of the University
of Lisbon where she talked about some restorative justice approaches
in cases of rape.
Poder e Autoridade Policiais; o lugar das vítimas.
Police power and authority; the place of
victims.
Lisbon, Portugal – 23rd and 24th of
February, 2012
For a full copy of the Specialist rape investigation presentation,
Policing paper or Lisbon conference powerpoint please contact
Jennifer atJ.Brown5@lse.ac.uk
 Mike Shiner
was the executive producer of this production which was about Black
people's experience of Stop and Search. Written by Dominic Taylor
with a cast including Renée Castle, Valentine Hanson, Jelissa
Campbell and Jerome Holder as members of a family caught up in the
consequences of stop and search. Mike was
quoted in the Guardian about the play
and young people's experiences "We have interviewed parents who talk
of having to prepare their children for being stopped and searched.
What can be more perverse than a parent having to protect a child
against the agent who should be there to protect them? When we were
doing the research for the play we were struck by how early this
stuff is starting. Young people tell us that they start to get
stopped and searched as soon as they start secondary school."
According to
Stopwatch, black people are seven times more likely to be
stopped and searched than white people and Asian people twice as
likely. The arrest rate following stop and search is 12 per cent and
has stayed between 10-13 per cent for the last ten years. The play
caught the frustration and deep feelings of unfairness felt by
people caught up in stop and search and a sense of shock in the
audience of how many times a young person might be subjected to
this.
Sharon Shalev
participated in and presented her work on Supermax prisons in a
seminar entitled "Held in the Body of the State" organised by the
Centre for the Study of Human Rights at the London School of
Economics and Political Science on May 8th.
Cor Coretta Phillips was a panellist of a Parliamentary event
on reducing reoffending for ethnic minority offenders, attended by
Prisons Minister Crispin Blunt, organised by the Runnymede Trust and
Black Training & Enterprise Group
(BTEG) on 17 January 2012.
· She was also a presenter at a British Society of Criminology
organised event with the Home Office and Ministry of Justice
examining ‘big picture’ questions from academic research, on 20
March 2012. My presentation looked at continuities in the patterns
of racial/ethnic disproportionality in the criminal justice process,
and issues arising from the complexity of late modern identities for
social relations in men’s prisons. |
I’ve
been at the LSE for more than 14 years. During this time I’ve seen
colleagues and School Directors come and go, buildings and bridges
and cafés pop up, and other buildings (well, two!) come down in a
cloud of dust. In short, I am virtually part of the furniture now.
