Harmful, Expensive and Criminogenic: The Case for Abolishing Detention and Training Orders in England and WalesHampson, Kathy; Day, Anne-Marie
doi: 10.1093/bjc/azae097pmid: N/A
Children who offend generally receive community sentences, to help them overcome difficulties whilst naturally addressing offending behaviour; however, children can also receive custody, which has a plethora of known harms. Children’s rights instruments call for custody to be reserved as a ‘last resort’ response to extremely serious offending. However, in England and Wales this is demonstrably not the case, meaning that children still receive short custody orders (in the form of a Detention and Training Order [DTO]) for relatively minor offences. We argue that legislative change should abolish the DTO because of the harms custody wreaks, from several different perspectives (their rights, moral treatment of children, sentencing guidelines, practical and financial considerations), to leave the use of custody only possible for very serious offending, and thus reaching the goal of ‘last resort’.
Misidentified Victim-Survivors as Domestic and Family Violence Perpetrators: Plea Negotiations as a Tool for Justice?Moffa, Monique; Flynn, Asher; Burns, Kate Hutton
doi: 10.1093/bjc/azae098pmid: N/A
The misidentification of primary perpetrators in domestic and family violence (DFV) incidents has received increased attention in academic, practitioner and policy contexts. Yet limited research has explored the implications of misidentification for women in criminal proceedings, specifically how misidentification and subsequent criminalisation of women are linked to both erroneous or forced guilty pleas, and a reliance on plea negotiations to correct misidentification errors. Drawing on interviews with 21 legal defence practitioners, we document the strategies practitioners use in the plea negotiation process to advocate for women defendants who have been misidentified in DFV contexts. We also explore the barriers that women defendants face in accessing justice in a discretionary and managerialist criminal justice system.
Narrating the Consequences of Conflict: Death, Survival and the ‘Autobiographical Turn’ in the Criminology of WarHearty, Kevin
doi: 10.1093/bjc/azae099pmid: N/A
Locating itself within narrative criminological scholarship and the criminology of war literature, this article critically examines how the themes of death and survival are understood and represented in the memoirs of former Irish Republican Army (IRA) members. Building on the recent ‘autobiographical turn’ in the criminology of war, it identifies how death is storied from perspectives that reflect the nature of armed conflict, capture human loss, and criticize the leadership. Similarly, it shows how survival is storied as having outlived the conflict, living a meaningful post-conflict life, and addressing the legacy of conflict. It is concluded that these memoirs are a valuable dataset that amplify counter-discourses based on the lived experience of former combatants from non-state armed groups.
Criminology, Conspiracy Theories and Theorizing ConspiracyKindynis, Theo
doi: 10.1093/bjc/azae100pmid: N/A
This article challenges criminologists to adopt a more critical orientation to conspiracy theories. The first part of the article suggests that a moral panic over conspiracy theories has given rise to a conspiracy theory research agenda that has pathologized and criminalized conspiracy theories. The second part of the article argues that although conspiracies are important sociological and political phenomena, the term ‘conspiracy theory’ functions to stigmatize certain narratives. The article traces the origins of conspiracy denial in the social sciences. The final part of the article argues that criminologists should take conspiracy theories seriously and seek to investigate conspiracies. If popular conspiracy theories about elite wrongdoing are invalid, criminologists should develop better explanations of how and why conspiracies take place, as well as who conspires and to what ends. The article outlines some existing concepts and approaches that criminologists might utilize to this end.
Conceptualizing the Nepalese ‘Gang’Atkinson-Sheppard, S; Subedi, G; Jha, V; Ghimire, N C
doi: 10.1093/bjc/azaf001pmid: N/A
This article discusses the ‘gang’ in Nepal. Drawing on a two-year case study conducted in Kathmandu, involving a survey and interviews with criminal justice practitioners, government officials, NGO workers, social activists as well as interviews and focus groups with ex-street children, the article argues that gangs in Nepal are a complex social phenomenon. The term ‘gang’ is used to describe a multitude of criminal groups, many of which operate in alliance with the state. Gangs are also closely associated with organized crime and in many instances, street children become involved in these criminal groups. The article illustrates how street children develop their own groups to assist their survival. For these young people gangs provide solidarity, support, friendship and are vehicles for income generation. Thus, there is no one ‘gang’, rather many gangs, who change and evolve, the implications of which are discussed.
Humanitarianism From Below: Border Police, Professional Identities and Moral DilemmasAliverti, Ana; Dufraix Tapia, Roberto; Ramos Rodríguez, Romina; Tapia Ladino, Marcela; García España, Elisa
doi: 10.1093/bjc/azaf005pmid: N/A
In this article, we empirically document the changing dynamics of border controls in the context of the COVID pandemic, and its consequences for border control workers, particularly police, border agents and the military. We focus on three areas: the Anglo-French (Dover-Calais) maritime border, the Euro-African border (Ceuta-Tetuán) and the South American border of Tarapacá-Oruro between Chile and Bolivia. We explore how sovereign strategies of containment and closure, and the diplomatic tensions that arise from them, sometimes operate uneasily with on-the-ground attempts to save lives and provide care in the most precarious situations. These competing institutional demands and moral and professional tensions and dilemmas, we argue, shape an emerging form of management of social precarity that we conceptualize as ‘humanitarianism from below’.