Research
You will find a complete range of our monographs, muti-authored and edited works including peer-reviewed, original scholarly research across the social sciences and aligned disciplines. We publish long and short form research and you can browse the complete Bristol University Press and Policy Press archive of over 1500 titles.
Policy Press also publishes policy reviews and polemic work which aim to challenge policy and practice in certain fields. These books have a practitioner in mind and are practical, accessible in style, as well as being academically sound and referenced.
Books: Research
The use of a rape victim’s sexual history as evidence attracted intense public attention after the acquittal of footballer Ched Evans in 2017. Set within the context of a criminal justice system widely perceived to be failing rape victims, the use of sexual history evidence remains a flashpoint of contention around rape law reform.
This accessible book mounts an important interrogation into the use of a victim’s sexual history as evidence in rape trials. Adopting a critical multidisciplinary perspective underpinned by feminist theory, the authors explore the role and significance of sexual history evidence in criminal justice responses to rape.
This edited collection offers the first system-wide account of the impact of COVID-19 on crime and justice in England and Wales. It provides a critical discussion of the challenges faced by criminal justice agencies (prison, probation, youth justice, courts, police), professionals and service users in adapting to the extraordinary pressures of the pandemic on policy, practice and lived experience.
The text integrates first-hand narrative and artistic accounts from a variety of key stakeholders experiencing the Criminal Justice System (CJS). The editors recommend a range of evidence-based policy and practice improvements, not only in terms of planning for future pandemics, but also those that will benefit the CJS and its stakeholders in the longer term.
Understanding prisons and the policies surrounding them is of fundamental importance to students and practitioners of criminology and related fields. This concise and accessible guide offers a compendium of key information, theories, concepts, research and policy, presenting a rounded and critical overview of the prison system in England and Wales.
Covering the historical and contemporary context of prisons, the text guides the reader through prison life as experienced by different groups such as women, the work of prison officers and a tour of international prisons.
Each chapter features key learning items:
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an overview and summary;
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learning outcomes;
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end of chapter questions;
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definitions of key terms and concepts;
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examples and illustrative case studies;
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summary boxes of key research studies and further reading.
Focusing on the experiences of stakeholder groups and the themes of power, legitimacy and rehabilitation, the book concludes with an overview of the future challenges for prisons.
In western liberal democracies the police are viewed as guardians of public safety and enforcers of the law. How accurate is this? Given police violence and the failure of many attempts at reform, attention has turned to other models of managing criminality, including defunding the police and instead funding alternatives to criminalization and incarceration.
This book is the first comprehensive overview of police divestment, using international examples and case studies to reimagine community safety beyond policing and imprisonment.
Showcasing a range of practical examples, this topical book will be relevant for academics, policy makers, activists and all those interested in the Black Lives Matter movement, protest movements and the renewed interest in policing and abolitionism more generally.
Women and families within the criminal justice system (CJS) are increasingly the focus of research and this book considers the timely issues of intersectionality, violence and gender. With insights from frontline practice and from the lived experiences of women, the collection examines prison experiences in a post-COVID-19 world, domestic violence and the successes and failures of family support.
A companion to the first edited collection, Critical Reflections on Women, Family, Crime and Justice, the book sheds new light on the challenges and experiences of women and families who encounter the CJS.
Accessible to both academics and practitioners and with real-world policy recommendations, this collection demonstrates how positive change can be achieved.
There is growing recognition that torture is too narrowly defined in law, and that psychological and/or sexualised violence against women is not adequately recognised as torture.
Clearly defining torturous violence, this book offers scholars and practitioners critical reflections on how torture is defined, and the implications that narrow definitions may have on survivors. Drawing on over a decade of research and interviews with psychologists, practitioners, and women seeking asylum, it sets out the implications of the social silencing of torture, and torturous violence specifically. It invites us to consider alternative ways to understand and address the impacts of physical, sexualised and psychological abuses.
From the denial of abortion rights in Ireland to sexual violence against British South Asian women in England, the state and its institutions continue to fail women. This book offers a counter narrative to contemporary injustices and a persistent culture of victim-blaming.
The academic and activist contributions to this collection explore contemporary research areas and pursue new discursive directions in order to present a feminist criminology, built on feminist praxis, for the twenty-first century.
Providing a direct challenge to regressive and ineffective theory, policy and practice, this book resists the politics of gendered victimisation through extending feminist analyses of the state and documenting interventions into contemporary injustices.
Austerity continues to impact the criminal justice process in England and Wales: police numbers are down, the Crown Prosecution Service is in disarray, legal aid has been reduced, courts are closing and magistrates are leaving.
Research into the criminal process usually focuses on England, however this book offers a rare insight into South Wales. Drawing on first-hand accounts of lawyers, police, suspects, and the convicted and their families, it uncovers how these affected individuals navigate the challenges caused by austerity, what has changed and what can be done to improve the system.
This book is a reliable and evocative account of the reality of criminal justice in Wales.
The Black Lives Matter movement has exposed the state violence and social devaluation that Black populations continue to suffer. Police shootings and incarceration inequalities in the US and UK are just two examples of the legacy of slavery today.
This book offers a criminological exploration of the case for slavery and anti-Black racism reparations in the context of the enduring harms and differential treatment of Black citizens. Through critical analysis of legal arguments and reviewing recent court actions, it refutes the policy perspectives that argue against reparations.
Highlighting the human rights abuses inherent to and arising from slavery and ongoing racism, this book calls for governments to take responsibility for the impact of ongoing racialized injustice.
How do governments and societies use prison to respond to underlying and fundamental social, economic and political issues?
Using data on world imprisonment and numerous international examples from his personal experience, Coyle, a prison practitioner, academic and international expert, discusses the failings of prison around the world.
Acknowledging the influence of external agencies, such as the Committee for the Prevention of Torture, the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and court interventions in the use of solitary confinement, he offers some positive pointers for the future and how there might be a better distribution of resources between criminal justice and social justice by an application of the principles of Justice Reinvestment.
