NCJ Number
204842
Date Published
2003
Length
25 pages
Annotation
After examining why criminal justice policies have become more repressive under Great Britain's Labour government, this chapter critiques criminal justice proposals in legislation and a policy paper, followed by an examination of the Labour government's claim that its criminal justice policies are evidence-based.
Abstract
England's repressive criminal justice policies under the Labour government have led to an increasing prison population in a period of generally declining crime rates. Criminal justice penal policies have become increasingly severe in both England and America for five major reasons. First, both countries have been influenced by the material and existential uncertainties of late modernity, which has resulted in "populist punitiveness" (Garland, 1995). Second, increased imprisonment is a cynical and deliberate effort to control disadvantaged racial minority populations. Third, the failure of the state to meet the needs of its citizens, including crime control, is addressed by the appearance of control of society through punitive responses to deviant behavior. Fourth, the public's mood of punitiveness toward deviant behaviors has molded the policies of politicians; and fifth, politicians have focused on crime to raise public fears and then offer proposals to assuage that fear. The second section of this chapter focuses on criminal justice policies promulgated in the White Paper, "Justice for All" (Home Office 2002a), which set out policy proposals partly based on two major government policy reports, and in the Criminal Justice Bill introduced into Parliament in November 2002. The policies discussed and critiqued are charging, community punishment orders, "custody plus" and "custody minus," sentencing guidelines, judge-dominated commissions, mandatory minimum sentences, extended sentences for dangerous offenders, and trial and procedural matters. This chapter concludes by proposing an answer to the following question: "What are the risks that led the government, after so many years of such extensive consideration of criminal justice reform, and so much money spent on research in the name of evidence-based policy, to submit so flawed a set of proposals to Parliament?" The answers pertain to the placation of the judiciary, the stalemating of the Tories, and an effort to minimize the political impact of outrageous crimes. Overall, the chapter concludes that, contrary to government claims, many of the criminal justice policies of the Labour government are not based in empirical evidence of their effectiveness, but rather in an ideology based on flawed beliefs and political expediency. Results will include the undermining of procedural protections and extended periods of imprisonment for people deemed "dangerous" according to idiosyncratic criteria. 34 references