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- Author or Editor: Sharon Morley x
Within the domains of criminal justice and mental health care, critical debate concerning ‘care’ versus ‘control’ and ‘therapy’ versus ‘security’ is now commonplace. Indeed, the ‘hybridisation’ of these areas is now a familiar theme.
This unique and topical text provides an array of expert analyses from key contributors in the field that explore the interface between criminal justice and mental health. Using concise yet robust definitions of key terms and concepts, it consolidates scholarly analysis of theory, policy and practice. Readers are provided with practical debates, in addition to the theoretical and ideological concerns surrounding the risk assessment, treatment, control and risk management in a cross-disciplinary context.
Included in this book is recommended further reading and an index of legislation, making it an ideal resource for students at undergraduate and postgraduate level, together with researchers and practitioners in the field.
The history of crime and punishment is an important, yet under-resourced area of criminology and criminal justice.
This valuable book provides concise but robust definitions of key terms and concepts, going well beyond a simple explanation of the word or theme. Offering a succinct approach to the vocabulary and terminology of historical and contemporary approaches to crime and punishment, it includes entries from expert contributors in a user-friendly A-Z format with clear direction to related entries and further reading. Including explanations of terms ranging from 'garrotting' to The Bow Street Runners, baby farming to juvenile delinquency, this easily accessible text will be ideal for the reader to draw on across the variety of modules and studies relating to the topic.
This is the first accessible, succinct text to provide definitions and explanations of key terms and concepts relating to the expanding field of crime, harm and victimisation. Written by a wide range of experts, it includes theories, ideas and case studies relating to victims of conventional crime and victims outside the remit of criminal law. It encapsulates the domestic and international nature, extent and measurement of victims of crime and harm, together with responses to victims and victimisation as a result of conventional, corporate and state crimes and harms.
As part of the Companion series, entries are presented in a user-friendly A-Z format with clear links to related entries and further reading, allowing easy navigation for both students and practitioners. Filling a gap in the market, this is a good source and quick reference point for undergraduates studying a variety of courses in criminology, criminal justice, victimology and other related disciplines.
Interest in the study of state power, civil liberties, human rights, and state sponsored crime is growing and there is a need for a book which brings these topics together. This book, part of the Companions series, provides succinct yet robust definitions and explanations of core concepts and themes in relation to state power, liberties and human rights. The entries are bound by their inter-relatedness and relevance to the study of crime and harm and the volume draws upon established and emerging commentaries from other social and political disciplines.
Laid out in a user-friendly A-Z format, it includes entries from expert contributors with clear direction to related entries and further reading. The contributors critically engage with the topics in an accessible yet challenging way, ensuring that the definitions go beyond a simple explanation of the word or theme.
It will be suitable for undergraduate and postgraduate students on a variety of courses such as Criminology, Criminal Justice, International Relations, Politics, Social Policy, Policing Studies, and Law as well as other researchers in these areas.
The structured pains of imprisonment have long been identified in the penological literature, though the analysis by Gresham Sykes (1958, pp 63–83) in his book Society of captives is perhaps most well-known. For Sykes, the ‘pains of imprisonment’ are the deprivations of liberty, goods and services, heterosexual relationships, autonomy, and security. Thomas Mathiesen (1986) explains that the deprivations of liberty and autonomy are the most significant pains of confinement as they are impossible to overcome in the prison place. These structured pains cannot be removed through improving prison conditions – the environment could be very pleasant but the deprivations of liberty and freedom remain unaltered.
The structured ‘pains of imprisonment’ are, then, not to be found in the given quality of living conditions, relationships with staff or levels of crowding. At times, prisons are places of frantic activities; yet, paradoxically, at others, they are empty, dull and motionless (Cope, 2003). It is the dreadful emptiness of prison life that is the real terror (Medlicott, 2001). This conscious wasting of life, the enforced passivity and the emptiness of time are sources of ‘acute suffering’ (Medlicott, 2001). The negation of the ability to control time and space is something that affects the well-being of everyone. Prisons hurt, therefore, because of the denial of personal autonomy, feelings of time consciousness and the lack of an effective vocabulary to express the hardship of watching life slip away.
For penal abolitionists, the prison place should be conceived as a highly toxic environment, undermining constructions of the self for all prisoners.
Those identified as experiencing ‘mental impairment’ have long been the subject of inquiry, and, broadly speaking, the data produced on this population can be classified as quantitative and/or qualitative in nature. Research has contributed to the ever-increasing body of knowledge about mental health and has often created competing and contested theories about those deemed mentally ill.
Quantitative inquiry typically involves the measurement of mental health/illness or its perceived impact and results in the construction of statistics that describe the incidence of mental illness and its effects (eg the National Confidential Inquiry into Suicide and Homicide by People with Mental Illness) or measure or assess the population’s limitations or ‘capacity to perform’ (Fujiura and Rutkowski-Kmitta, 2001). Although such measurements may help agencies make decisions in terms of forming/reforming services (eg the use of Atos to carry out health assessments that determine a person’s capability to work – and, hence, assess their entitlement to welfare support), there is much criticism about the use of quantitative measurement within disability research. Quantitative inquiry relies on objective measurement of phenomena and tends to treat mental illness as static and unchangeable, often separating the environment from the ‘biophysical’. Other influential examples of quantitative inquiry include the proliferation of quality of life (QoL) measures, which seek to measure the psychosocial impact of a variety of illnesses. In part, QoL measures assist in reminding health-care professionals (HCPs) that the social context of illness is important. Also, such measures may help HCPs arrive at clinical decisions best suited to the individual’s life.
Race equality within the context of mental health policy refers to the equal treatment, both morally and legally, of citizens regardless of their racial background. Discriminatory treatment that disadvantages one racial group over another is prohibited by law. In addition, there is guidance within mental health services outlining the need for race equality and some practice guidance on how this is to be achieved.
However, research has found that people of black African and Caribbean background are disproportionately more likely to be admitted to mental health institutions, such as psychiatric hospitals (Nacro, 2007). This has resulted in accusations of ‘institutional racism’ (see Sashidharan, 2003). Mental health service providers have acknowledged their own problematic practice in relation to particular racial groups – although the role of institutionally based ‘witting’ or ‘unwitting’ racial prejudice (in the 1999 Macpherson Report sense of the term) has been downplayed. Mental health services have also responded to claims of racial bias by making reference to their use of a ‘colour-blind’ approach (Bhavnani, et al, 2005). However, such an approach has been criticised for its essentially based assumptions, which continue to view particular racial categories as genetically or culturally ‘deficient’ (Ahmad, 1996).
More recently, mental health services have sought to improve race equality via more formal means, such as race equality policy (see Department of Health, 2005). The Mental Health Act 1983 (as amended 2007), which was produced in accordance with the duties arising from section 71 of the Race Relations Act 1976 and the Race Relations (Amendment) Act 2000, includes a number of measures that seek to ensure that people from black and minority ethnic backgrounds are not adversely affected or racially discriminated against when using mental health services.
The UK government has made it clear that safeguarding is everyone’s responsibility (Department for Children, Schools and Families, 2007) in the context of both adults and children. In the increasing number of serious case reviews of child deaths and serious injuries in England and Wales, the correlation of parental mental health problems is reflected in childcare social workers’ caseloads, where 50–90% of parents had either a mental health, alcohol or substance misuse problem (Social Exclusion Unit, 2004). There is widespread evidence of the missed opportunities to protect children, which includes adult mental health professionals not considering it to be their role to take into account the children’s welfare (Slack and Webber, 2008). Despite joint protocols providing procedures and guidance about practice in both routine and complex cases, and health and social care professionals being encouraged to share information, a culture of ‘fear’ in relation to accountability may be evoked. Thus, such a situation may result in poor decision-making and a hindering of the rights of parents with mental health issues (Webber et al, 2013). Such circumstances highlight how interagency collaboration is a complex process that cannot simply be fostered by protocols alone (Hudson et al, 1999). This may be further complicated by the fact that the evidence base for the effectiveness of interagency working in safeguarding children is limited (Taylor and Daniel, 2006).
Taking this complexity into account, effective communication and an understanding of how mental health issues can impact upon the child’s welfare in the context of neglect and emotional development are imperative. Notwithstanding, it is equally important for the professional to consider the human rights of those with mental health problems in the context of a ‘right to respect for private and family life’ (Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights) in a non-stigmatising way and not to be ‘overprotective’ in the context of the child’s welfare.
The Third Way emerged during the 1990s as an attempt to reconcile the equality goals of social democracy with the techniques of neoliberalism. The term suggests that capitalism is the first way, and communism the second.
After the Second World War, most developed nations accepted that economic progress and social cohesion required a large suite of government services in health, education and benefit payments. This would ensure a strong, well-educated and socially connected workforce, fit for industrial progress. Crime was seen largely as the result of structural factors such as poverty, inequality, poor health and education. It was social exclusion that fostered a criminal environment. Social-democratic parties, in particular, sought to alleviate crime by removing the structural factors that were supposed to be its cause.
During the 1980s, conservative parties adopted neoliberal ideas, which situate responsibility at the point of the individual. Crime was not caused by society, but by the criminal’s failure to embrace legal norms. Social programmes did not solve crime; they worsened it by encouraging sloth-like behaviour rather than entrepreneurial creativity. Neoliberals set about removing public services to force all individuals to rely upon the free market to achieve their aims.
The spread of neoliberalism caused social democrats to reconsider past ideas, which led to ‘the Third Way’. It was identified early by sociologist Anthony Giddens (1998), and practised openly by Britain’s Tony Blair and Germany’s Gerhard Schroeder. In short, the Third Way adopted neoliberalism’s individual focus, but sought to utilise rather than destroy government services to foster ‘freedom and potential’ (Blair, 1998, p 3).
In 2004, Richard Garside launched a critique of the view that there was a statistically identifiable group of people that could be singled out as a problem population. Garside (2004) remarks that the idea that a significant proportion of all crime is committed by a relatively small number of persistent offenders is not new, but the then government placed it at the centre of its criminal justice policy. His attack on New Labour’s fascination with a small hard-core of criminal offenders and problem families was the continuation of a debate that originated 200 years or so earlier.
In 1814, Patrick Colquhoun wrote with some confidence that about one in 10 of the population were indigent or criminal (like many others at that time, and since, he conflated poverty, crime, immorality and laziness). Henry Mayhew, who set out to find London’s criminal poor in the 1850s and 1860s, similarly chose to associate those ‘that will not work’ with criminality. Indeed, around this time, the idea of the criminal class arose. This class of people, wholly mythical, were said to make their living not through honest toil, but through crime, having their own languages, moral code and ways of behaving that set them apart from honest and respectable society. By the 1880s, the idea of a criminal class had ebbed away to be replaced by the notion of the residuum – those people who were incapable of coping with the demands of industrial capitalism, and were cast aside to the workhouse, the prison, homelessness and lives of dissolute drunkenness.
