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.
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
This chapter summarises the arguments made throughout the book and provides some concluding thoughts in the context of police governance in Scotland. It also offers some forward-looking suggestions in relation to the role of knowledge and expertise in police and policing governance. The framework of epistocracy provides ways in which knowledge-based governance can be envisioned in various other governance contexts.
This chapter charts the historical developments in police governance in Britain and situates them within the broader context of networked governance. It then provides a conceptual and philosophical justification for epistocracy in police governance by drawing on the examples of expert regulatory and security organisations within the EU. The chapter argues that direct forms of democratic governance pose conceptual and practical challenges, such as the threat of majoritarianism and partisanship. In the context of these limitations, an epistocracy within a democratic order may not only be justifiable but it may be more desirable than the previously tried and tested methods of democratic governance, which often reduce democratic policing to elections, consultations, and surveys.
This chapter pulls together the conceptual and empirical themes examined in the previous chapters and proposes a framework for institutionalising epistocracy within the broader networked-governance landscape. The key characteristics of the framework include broad composition, delegated authority, autonomy, and deliberative proceduralism. The framework is informed by the rich empirical analysis of the Scottish Police Authority.
This chapter provides a summary of the research and underpinning methodology that informs key debates covered in the book. The chapter situates the discussions within the broader literature on police, policing, and security governance and places Scottish police reform in the wider context of police reform across central and northern Europe.
This chapter examines the status of the operational independence doctrine within Scottish policing. It charts the formative years of the Scottish Police Authority and Police Scotland, as they negotiated their respective roles, functions, and boundaries of influence. The reliance of the Scottish Police Authority on Police Scotland and the Scottish Government, and the recasting of its role as a collaborating partner, bears similarities to the established concept of regulatory capture in corporate governance. Recent reviews into controversies surrounding internal governance and complaints handling, led by Baroness Casey and Dame Angiolini, have highlighted the significance of external actors’ ability to hold policing to account, both for operational policing and decision making, but also for internal working practices – something that existing mechanisms of police governance have not been able to achieve.
Making a unique contribution to the scholarship on democratic policing, this book adapts the concept of epistocracy to explore the role of knowledge and expertise in police governance and accountability.
A rigorous empirical analysis of the Scottish police governance arrangements following reform in 2013 is complemented with examples from other liberal democracies, situating the Scottish context in wider debates on democratic policing, localism, and the operational independence doctrine. The book provides a framework for knowledge-based working practices, showing how principles of democratic policing, such as equity and responsiveness, may be achieved in practice.
This chapter examines the early development of modern police forces and the concomitant local police governance structures in Scotland. This analysis serves to demonstrate the strong appeals to localism in Scottish policing and governance discourse. This commitment to localism is embedded in Scotland’s approach to policing, emphasising community-oriented policing and a broad social welfare role. The chapter analyses Scottish police reform in the context of police reform, restructuring, and reorganisation across Central and Northern Europe. While austerity became the catalyst for change, Scottish police reform was driven by weaknesses in local governance structures and the need for a more harmonised national policing framework.
This book aims to make clear the interconnections between social policy and criminal justice practice, bringing together key social policy concepts within a framework for reducing reoffending rates. The book focuses on the key social policy issues of employment, health and mental health, low income and poverty, housing and family. It shows how understanding and treating these as issues interconnected to criminal justice outcomes can and does lead to improvements in criminal justice practice.
This book enables students and criminal justice practitioners to understand how a social policy focus can better inform practice with those involved in the criminal justice system. It features:
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A 10 point summary of key points for learning;
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Chapter heading questions to support independent learning;
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Tables and graphs to illustrate the text.
In this chapter, the CJS approach to children and families is analysed. First, the chapter outlines how children and families are defined both legally and socially, with key observations about the criminal age of responsibility in England and Wales and the historic importance of the nuclear family to policy. When considering how the CJS engages with children and families, it becomes evident that the emphasis is primarily negative, with a focus on their ‘delinquent’ and ‘troublesome’ nature, as expressed through the notion of intergenerational transmission, and this has led to a punitive approach to children and families. The chapter considers the evidence for and against this approach, together with the wider implications of this approach. The chapter concludes by suggesting what criminal justice practice can learn from the lessons of the punitive approach in social policy, as expressed through the TFP, to improve criminal justice practice for children and families.
A standard requirement of probation or parole is often involvement in employment, making evident employment’s importance to criminal justice practice as a route towards rehabilitation It is also relevant to note that rehabilitation through employment is one of the very few types of rehabilitation programmes for which there is definitive evidence that it works – for most type of rehabilitation programmes there is mixed or no evidence of evidence that it works (Ministry of Justice, 2013). The chapter begins with an outline of the evidence of a link between employment and positive criminal justice outcomes, with employment having been shown to increase desistance and reduce recidivism. The specific factors that limit the effectiveness of employment for criminal justice practice are then considered. The importance of employment to social policy outcomes is detailed, together with the changed context over the last 40 years that is impacting the nature of employment policies. Finally, what criminal justice practice can learn from this changed context is considered, in order to identify ways in which social policy can improve criminal justice practice.
