Professor Paul SeniorDirector,

Hallam Centre for Community Justice,Sheffield Hallam University,

Sheffield, UK.

Consider the question ‘what is criminology’?

The relationship between research, policy and practice

Understanding the ‘crowded’ arena of policy making

Explore the case example of ‘reducing re-offending’ as a core goal of modern crime policy

Lessons for policy and practice - policy-based evidence or evidence-based policy?

What is criminology? ‘criminology seeks to generalise on the basis of evidence. It is

therefore neither purely deductive nor purely descriptive; theorisation needs both to guide the collection of data and to be grounded in evidence. Similarly, interpretation of data has to be guided by theorisation’ Subject benchmark statements Criminology 2007 QAA 171 03/07

The vitality of the discipline also requires a continuous interchange between theory and analytic and evaluative research, and attention to increasingly salient ethical debates about crime, security, and human rights at international, national, regional and local levels. (ibid 3.5)

Booming yet divided and fragmented? Criminology can be seen as a rendezvous discipline, a site at

which social scientific disciplines interact. (ibid Appendix C)

Differing types of division Disciplinary Theoretical Methodological Subject matter

•Geography•History•Health/forensic•Environmental•media

contested and often contentious discipline which is very likely to reflect current social, political and public disputes (ibid 6.2)

•Control theories•Social disorganization•Conflict•Labelling•feminist

bodies of evidence are often consistent with alternative interpretations embodied in rival theoretical perspectives. (ibid 6.2)

range of different strategies and methods and use appropriate research tools in relation to criminological problems, including quantitative, qualitative and evaluative techniques (ibid 7.3)

Adapted from Subject benchmarks for Criminology

‘In addition, and increasingly, professional criminologists and graduates are being called upon to advise and inform the work of crime control agencies: from preventing youth offending to advising the prison service about deaths in custody; from the role of the police in community safety teams to the structure and functioning of the people trade; from how to count family violence to how to prevent it; from institutional racism to the management of diversity. Criminology must develop in its own way to meet these challenges of the twenty-first century’ (ibid Appendix C)

Resea

rch

and

Theo

ry

Resea

rch

and

Theo

ry

•Penal reform groups•Unions•Professional associations

•Civil servants•Govt research depts.•Select Committees

•European Community Sanctions network•Legislative changes•Key stakeholder groups

•‘Law and order’•‘tough on crime….’•‘Big Society’

•Media•Public enquiries•Infamous cases

Defining the Problem

Finding Alternatives/ Solutions

Evaluating Alternatives

Selecting from Alternatives

Impact of Policy

Feedback

Problem

Issue

Trigger Event

Placement on Agenda

The varied foci, complexity and heterogeneity of criminological research and theory makes simplistic solutions problematic

Research and theory is only one element of the decision making process

In recent periods in neo-liberal societies in particular public opinion, has had a distinct sway

The policy cycle occurs in real time Each element of the cycle overlaps The limitations of policy transfer between

differing jurisdictions often underplayed Financial tsunami has begun to dictate policy

responses

The ‘rational comprehensive’ v ‘bureau-incrementalist’ model ‘rational decision-making involves the selection of the

alternative which will maximise the decision-maker’s values, the selection being made following a comprehensive analysis of alternatives and their consequences’

YET incrementalists argue: lack of correspondence between what is intended and the

actual outcome Powerful, sometimes unknown, contradictory and conflicting

forces intervene Policy makers inherit a given situation which they change

incrementally Policy process is ‘serial in nature’ - multiple gradual changes Problem 'shifting’ rather than ‘problem solving’ Small-scale institutional adaptations based on pragmatism,

accommodation of interests, money Essentially conservative and dedicated to maintaining the

status quo

Implementation of policy may bring change and policy drift – the impact of the ‘street level bureaucrat’ (Lipsky, 1980)

Discretionary relationships between legislation and regulation

Policy can be top-down or bottom-up E.g. What Works drive in UK

Impact of non-decision making “power is … exercised when A devotes his energies to creating

or reinforcing social and political values and institutional practices that limit the scope of the political process to public consideration of only those issues which are comparatively innocuous” (Bachrach and Baratz, 1963)

Hierarchy of evidence ‘the privileging of particular bodies of ‘evidence’ and,

conversely, the negation of ‘inconvenient evidence’ (Goldson, 2010)

Reducing re-offending is a theme of international interest and concern Big focus in last 20 years on identifying ‘What Works’ - identifying and

accrediting CBT programmes and their impact Context of Public Safety – assessment and management of risk and

public protection Recognition too that there are key dynamic risk factors family,

accommodation, education, employment, drug and alcohol counseling, mental health support, debt advice impacting on re-offending (SEU, 2002)

Dominated by psychological and quantitative research analyses

Policy implementation inevitably finds gaps/questions concerning effective offender rehabilitation

Less focus on the way programmes of intervention might fit into an integrated, holistic solution which reintegrates offenders back into society –

Driven more by social policy context and qualitative analysis The policy context thus is complex…………

OffenderOffender DesisterDesisterInterventio

nsInterventio

ns

Social Context

Motivatio

n

Organisational Context

Relationships and Staff

Skills

Acknowledge the work of Fergus McNeill

3 discernible ‘schools’ or perspectives in the literature: Those that focus on the significance of aging and/or maturation in

desistance (e.g. Gluecks 1940; 1943; 1950; 1968; 1974; Gottfredson and Hirschi, 1990: 136)

Those that focus on the significance of social bonds and informal social control (social capital) across the life course in desistance (e.g. Laub, Sampson and Nagin, 1998; Sampson and Laub, 1993)

Those that focus on the significance of subjectivities in desistance including how individuals’ interpret life events and changes in an individual’s narratively constructed self-identity (e.g. Giordano et al.,2002; Liebrich, 1993; Maruna, 2001)

Most scholars now stress the interplay of these three dimensions ; “the ‘objective’ and ‘subjective’ aspects of pathways to desistance interact in complex ways” (McNeill and Weaver, 2010: 18)

‘desistance resides somewhere in the interfaces between developing personal maturity, changing social bonds associated with certain life transitions, and the individual subjective narrative constructions which offenders build around these key events and changes. It is not just the events and changes that matter; it is what these events and changes mean to the people involved’ 18

Complex processes, not events, characterised by ambivalence and vacillation

Involves re-biography, re-storying, telling the story of yourself differently, changing narrative identity so that's more than simply learning new skills.

Prompted by life events, depending on the meaning of those events for the offender; inherently subjective, hence individualised, sensitive to difference/diversity

No homogenous theory of change here, there's no simple answer or recipe for desistance because it's inherently subjective and individual.

The process, the journey can be solicited or sustained by somebody ‘believing in’ the offender or prevented maybe by someone giving up.

Adapted from McNeill (2010)19

the discovery of agency is a significant and necessary aspect of the journey

Requires social capital (opportunities) as well as human capital (capacities/skills)

Certified through ‘redemption’ or restoration; finding purpose in generative activities [constructive reparation ] (Maruna, 2011)

Construct a network of reciprocity around the offender

Need to maintain focus and have a clear agenda and a clear plan for the journey

you can desist by default or by accident – stuff just happens and in the course of a life the stuff that happens sets you on a journey which just takes you in a different direction

20

Adapted from McNeill (2010)

21

Adapted from McNeill (2010)

Eight Principles for Supporting Desistance in Criminal Justice (Weaver and McNeill, 2007)

Be realistic Lapses and relapses will occur

Favour informal approaches Intervene only when necessary particularly with young people

Use prisons sparingly Lose social ties and contamination influences

Build positive relationships Recognize the huge significance of good relational practices

Respect individuality One-size-fits-all interventions run the risk of fitting no-one

Recognise the significance of social contexts New attitudes towards offender reintegration

Mind our language Negative labeling reduces reintegration – practice ‘reintegrative shaming’

(Braithwaite) Promote ‘redemption’

Signal redemption and reinclusion into wider society

Tonry (2003) raises the key challenge for policy makers: ‘the important question ... is whether policy making gives

good-faith consideration to the credible systematic evidence that is available, or whether it disregards it entirely for reasons of ideology or political self-interest’.

Goldson (2010) reviewing youth justice policy in UK sees the relationship in this way:

There is now a huge body of evidence concerning reducing re-offending can it avoid the rupture Goldson attests is happening in youth justice………………

Criminological insights should help produce a more informed policy agenda

Its own inherent complexity and internal fragmentation by discipline, method, theory and subject matter will produce disputed solutions and directions for change

The policy arena is crowded and contested and other players have as much right to be heard as criminologists

The policy arena is multi-layered – policy drift occurs producing incremental change at different levels/times in the real-life process

Do not be surprised if the outcomes are contradictory and lead to unintended outcomes (maybe good or not so good!)

It is arguable to assume we have policy-based evidence rather than evidence-based policy

But to ignore growing research evidence would be folly you need to make it work for you in a world where public expenditure is often threatened and cut and use evidence where it works in for particular policy situations

Bachrach and Baratz (1963) ‘Decisions and Nondecisions: An Analytical Framework’ in The American Political Science Review   Vol. 57, No. 3, Sep.,

Farrall, S. (2002) Rethinking What Works with Offenders. Probation, social context

and desistance from crime. Cullompton: Willan.

Giordano, P.C., Cernokovich, S.A, Rudolph, J. L (2002) ‘Gender, Crime and

Desistance: Toward a Theory of Cognitive Transformation’, American Journal of

Sociology, 107: 990-1064

Glueck, S. and Glueck. E. (1940) Juvenile delinquents grow up. New York:

Commonwealth Fund.

Glueck, S. and Glueck, E. (1943) Criminal Careers in Retrospect. New York:

Commonwealth Fund.

Glueck, S. and Glueck E. (1950) Unravelling Juvenile Delinquency. New York:

Commonwealth Fund.

Glueck, S. and Glueck, E. (1968) Delinquents and Nondelinquents in Perspective.

Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Glueck, S. and Glueck, E. (1974) Of Delinquency and Crime. Springfield, Ill.:

Charles C. Thomas.

Gottfredson, M. and Hirschi, T. (1990) A general theory of crime. Stanford, CA:

Stanford University Press.

Goldson B (2010) The sleep of (criminological) reason: Knowledge–policy rupture and New Labour’s youth justice legacy in Criminology & Criminal Justice 10(1) 155–178

Liebrich, J. (1993) Straight to the Point: Angles On Giving Up Crime. Otago, New

Zealand: University of Otago Press.

Lipsky, M., (1980) Street-level Bureaucracy; Dilemmas of the Individual in Public Services,

McNeill, F and Weaver, B. (2010) ‘Changing Lives? Desistance Research and

Offender Management’, Report NO. 03/2010, The Scottish Centre for Crime and

Justice Research, Glasgow School of Social Work.

Maruna, S. (2001) Making Good. How Ex-Convicts Reform and Rebuild Their Lives.

Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Maruna S (2011) ‘Judicial Rehabilitation and the ‘Clean Bill of Health’ in Criminal

Justice’ European Journal of Probation, Vol. 3, No.1, 2011, pp 97 – 117

Sampson, R.J. and Laub, J. (1993) Crime in the making: Pathways and turning points

through life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Social Exclusion Unit (2002) Reducing Re-Offending SEU

Subject benchmark statements Criminology 2007 QAA 171 03/07 http://www.qaa.ac.uk/academicinfrastructure/benchmark/statements/Criminology07.asp

Tonry M (2003) ‘Evidence, Elections and Ideology in the Making of Criminal Justice Policy’, in M. Tonry (ed.) Confronting Crime: Crime Control Policy under New Labour. Cullompton: Willan.

Ward, T and Maruna, S. (2007) Rehabilitation. London: Routledge.

Weaver B and McNeill F (2007) Giving Up Crime: Directions For Policy SCCCJ