A green session at BSC2011

Transnational Context of Local Environmental Crimes Professor Nigel South
WATER AS A LOCAL AND GLOBAL RESOURCE: ISSUES FROM THE PERSPECTIVES OF GREEN AND CULTURAL CRIMINOLOGIES

Our locally bought water bottles unnecessary, potentially unhealthy and end up in pacific

Professor Rob White LOCALISM AND TRANSNATIONALISATION OF ENVIRONMENTAL
HARM

Toxic Towns in Tasmania

Dr Tanya Wyatt
TRANSNATIONAL WILDLIFE TRAFFICKING IN OUR BACK GARDEN: A PHOTOGRAPHIC EXPLORATION OF THE HEATHROW ANIMAL RECEPTION CENTRE

Heathrow a hub for legal and illegal animal trade and some animals end up imprisoned there without parole.

Obviously presented my own paper

MATTER ALL OVER THE PLACE: LITTER, CRIMINOLOGY AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE

a contribution to green criminology that i hope will see the light of day in Routledge International Handbook of Green Criminology

I argue criminology, including green criminology, fails to take litter seriously and that the 'litterature' is too punitive or unknowing of criminological issues etc.

And another session.

Arts, Sex Work and Sexual Exploitation: Visualising Sex Work
Professor Maggie O’Neill, Ms Rosie Campbell and Mr Michael
Atkins
SEX WORK, VISUAL ETHNOGRAPHY AND PARTICIPATORY
METHODS: TOWARDS A RADICAL DEMOCRATIC IMAGINARY
Presentation of Dr Nick Mai’s film
NORMAL: FILM, ETHNOGRAPHY AND SEX WORK
Dr Teela Sanders
SEEING IS BELIEVING: LAP DANCING UNCOVERED

Another session attended at BSC2011.

Dr Jo Buckle and Professor Hazel Croall
CRIME AND THE ARCHERS: FROM POST‐WAR TO ‘FARM NOIR’ (But also see my work on this here)

Dr Angus Nurse
POLICING WILDLIFE: PERSPECTIVES ON CRIMINALITY IN WILDLIFE
CRIME (Glad to see this, I was his external examiner for PhD)

Sessions I attended included:

Creativity in the Criminal Justice System
Ms Laura Caulfield and Mr Dean Wilkinson
THE USE OF THE ARTS IN A THERAPEUTIC COMMUNITY PRISON

Ms Charlotte Bilby and Ms Louise Ridley
IN/OUTSIDER ART: CRIMINOLOGISTS CURATING A PRISONER ART EXHIBITION

Here are some pictures.

Have just been at British Society of Criminology Conference at Northumbria Uni. Tweeted extensively as @criminology4u under hashtags #BSC2011 and #criminology. Over next few posts/days will post more reflective highlights.

Rio de Janeiro appoints first female police chief

Guardian report here.

A hard job - not least the gender stereotypes - which she embraces: "I will be a severe mother. I will punish when necessary and distribute hugs when they are deserved," Very Gene Hunt! But we are reassured, 'Rocha told the newspaper, which described her as a fan of Issey Miyake perfume, high heels and cooking.'

Guessing from this quote most of her officers are men, 'In an interview with O Globo she said she wanted her officers to be "polite, clean-shaven, good-humoured and kind".'

Perp Walk Staged

There are diplomatic and legal issues surrounding the case of Florence Cassez. My concern here is with the suggestion that her arrest was staged for the cameras a day after her arrest.

See this report from Time mag.

UK cyber crime costs £27bn a year - government report

So says BBC report here.
But not only is this figure often self -reported (so some under-reporting as report acknowledges) but also self-evaluating. So we discover late in the piece that the headline figure is made up thuswise.

'Intellectual property theft cost £9.2bn, industrial espionage £7.6bn, this was followed by extortion, which cost £2.2bn, and direct online theft, which cost business £1.3bn. Some £1bn was lost through theft of customer data.'

They mention old-fashioned bank robbery but in those you knew exactly how much you had lost - or said you did.

So the lowest figures likely to be more accurate with the higher figures plucked from the counter-factual air.

Hollyoaks rape trial to use viewers' 'jury'

Outcome of Channel 4 soap's ongoing storyline to be decided off-screen by members of the public

see Guardian article here

Alcohol and Media

"In reality, we see a fairly deep-rooted decline in alcohol consumption which dates back to 2004. That's not something you see acknowledged in the media."

"With newspapers, the headline is always the same: 'Shock rise in binge drinking'. But you look at the figures, and you see alcohol sales are declining.

This BBC report contrasts falling alcohol sales with continued shock reporting rightly seeing it as part of an anti-Labour (their then Licensing Bill) bias in some papers, particularly Daily Mail

John Lewis continues to be the metaphorce of choice. Police to be taught politeness by JL staff. See this article on police friendly site.

The Campaign for Plain English attack the waste of time and space of police slogans on websites and sides of cars etc. Read the Guardian report here.

These are described as meaningless and sometimes nonsensical:

"Some are just meaningless. Northumbria's slogan is 'Total Policing'. What does that mean? Do some police forces operate 'partial policing'?

They playfully suggest we chose who to report our crime to:

"Or is it being suggested that victims of crime should shop around? Is it better to be mugged in Suffolk because the police there are 'Taking Pride in Keeping Suffolk Safe' than in Northamptonshire, where they are 'Putting Communities First'?"

No criminologist, or indeed police source is quoted. So here goes.

It is just as likely that this 'marketing' comes in the wake of rampant 'managerialism' (see McLaughlin, E. and Murji, K. 2001. Lost connections and new directions: neo-liberalism, new public managerialism and the modernization of the British police).

And 'ordinary coppers' likely to be fairly dismissive of it too.

So have to agree with CPE so let's get some community servicers to rub slogans off for them. Sure some scallies might do it for free, if a little roughly.

Fascinating Post on Crime and Criminal Justice by right-wing commentator Peter Hitchens - brother of the more famous Christopher. The full text is below. He makes an interesting point about the force used by police against Mark Saunders (but might have mentioned others, like Jean Charles de Menezes) and points out that hanging - of which he is an ardent supporter - followed trial and appeal etc. I think he is right on the judge dredd/robocop developments (though he's not used nor would understand such popular cultural references) but wrong to think the corollary of his argument would be bring back hanging end police 'executions'. It seems as likely now that we'd end up with judicial and extra-judicial deaths.

A good example of nostalgic conservative 'criminology'.

So this is Liberal Britain: execution by masked gunmen

The masked avengers of the Metropolitan Police’s firearms squads scare the pants off me. It’s not just the street-fighting gear they sport, clothes designed to give the wearer a feeling of irresponsibility.

It’s not just the IRA-style facewear. It’s not just the huge numbers of them – enough to invade Sierra Leone once the Army’s been disbanded by George Osborne. It’s not even the anonymity most of them are granted, like something out of the Middle Ages.

It’s the fact that nobody notices. Liberal fanatics abolished hanging in this country nearly 50 years ago. Yet when we had the gallows, our police were unarmed. And if the state wanted to kill someone, it could only do so after a jury trial, an appeal and
the chance of clemency. This was called ‘obscene’ and ‘barbaric’.

Now we have a heavily-armed police force whose members, masked like Henry VIII’s headsmen, deal out death as helicopters thunder overhead – no jury, no judge, no appeal. And those who said capital punishment was wicked refuse to see the connection.

Oh, and please note the crazed, shotgun-wielding barrister Mark Saunders was taking ‘anti-depressants’ – another connection everyone refuses to see.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1317162/Why-bleating-sheep-decide-runs-Labour-Party.html#ixzz11Q10kw2C

CCTV - Police Brutality captured but not prevented

With the conviction of Custody Sergeant Mark Andrews for his assault on Pamela Somerville we might think that CCTV had worked. On the contrary it failed completely to prevent his crime.

This Daily Mail article has details. One suspects that had she not been older, small and a woman - or, perhaps more tellingly, 'middle class' - less fuss might have been made.

CCTV

I do love a CCTV advert me

Football Shirt Ban

A campaign appears to be building on Facebook (sometimes with a racist or at least anti-PC tinge) and in media (Daily Star). This gives a bit more detail. It seems no more than advice to pubs in Croydon. Many pubs already impose rules against soccer shirts anyway. Whilst it may be good advice. It may also be bad advice if many fans turn up in team colours - including those of other teams (Brazil favoured by many as a second stylish alternative to one's own) - then kick off when refused entry.

Let's see how this turns out.

Compare HO report on improving confidence in police with news coverage of it. The report does mention not overdoing gloomy crime talk but many other things too.

some interesting photos. Of the mafia?

see Guardian article here.

Open Circuit TV fuss

many years ago it became obvious we could not stop the spread of CCTV so opening the cameras up was a possible way forward that i could countenance but not in private hands. This company turns it into a game with prizes. Interestingly the plot in Ben Elton's Dead Famous (a pisstiche on Big Brother Reality TV show) has viewers watching the live feed spot the murder at the centre of things