knife or 'wife' crime?

Media coverage of knife crime against and between teenagers to date ensured that the case of Arsema Dawit was framed as 'knife' crime - which is bad but not completely out of control - rather than the more prosaic crimes against women -rape, 'honour' killing, stalking, domestic violence etc.

CCTV fiasco

Det Ch Insp Mike Neville has called CCTV usage in UK a fiasco. In 1994 I warned against the unthinking application of CCTV to all crime (letalone social) problems instead of being part of a strategy. Home Office research appears to confirm this and I wrote again about it recently on the money that has been wasted.

David Cameron runs lights on bike

Some are treating this as a political story or a cycling story. It is a surveillance story. One day we will all have someone following us. Celebrities already do.

Broadcasting UK courts

As the Government is such a fan of CCTV cameras it comes as a surprise that they are not to be allowed in Court rooms ('TV cameras to be kept out of court as Straw kills of Falconer initiative' 10 March). It is also a shame that broadcasting the courts comes down to TV. Radio would have been the ideal medium to test the idea as it was with parliament - the home of 'grandstanding'.

Nick Clegg's contention at PMQ that we are most spied on.

I've just published in Surveillance and Society on the value for money of CCTV (though i have written on other elements of this and can claim to be one the earliest publishers on the topic, 1994) and indeed have just spent this afternoon standing outside the Home Office - my one-time employer - being interviewed for the Politics Show on this.

I actually can't answer the question and i don't think any one can in truth since the total amount of 'spying' is unknown given that much of it will be covert or by-the-by. Even the overt element - CCTV cameras - are the subject of a number of claims. When our life is in danger we may well want to be spied on but might call it intensive care. Worse we may give up our civil liberties yet still get beaten up only to be memorialised months later on Crimewatch and not aided one jot by the impassive eye of the camera. Remember too that like contestants on Big Brother we often want to be watched and that Facebook can be seen in this light. When i joined it i did so knowing that it could be open to spying - indeed that is one of its pleasures - but find it the best way to communicate with students.

So rhetorically fine for Clegg to make such claim, many others do, and he should be safe from point by point rebuttal as a i guess Home Office don't know and MI5/6 won't say.

CCTV - Home Office wastes money

In this rant I examine the effectiveness and value for money of CCTV using the Home Office's own research and find it wanting.

CSI - Georgian London.

No that's not what they call it. It's really called City of Vice and its on Channel 4 at moment. As a criminologist i'm not able to comment on the historical accuracy and many would take issues with whether the work of the Fielding brothers amounted to a police force. From one episode though I like the apparently very modern nature of the crimes and lifestyles depicted. This sits well with my belief there was no 'golden age' that was crime free. In the week the Ipswich murders of prostitutes coming to trial it is a sad coincidence that the first episode ws about just that.

nearly panicking about murder rate in london

A recent article in the Times concentrated in its headline and trail on the claim that the Met now believed that the majority of murders in London were committed by foreigners. The text was less panicky though yet only in the final par and closing sentence does it reveal:

'Nor do the figures suggest any migrant-fuelled wave of killings.

Murders in the capital had fallen from 176 in 2003-04 to 127 in 2006-07.'

ex offender does well

i wish jonathan aitken well in his new job

'Criminologists Say' Howard Journal of Criminal Justice


An article of mine appears in December issue of HJCJ arguing for criminology to be more public. I may get my wish as the journal is to press release it.

Watch this space.

british criminology conference

some pictures of this can be found on facebook

CCTV

just been interviewed for a documentary on Surveillance by some Italian guys whose website is visitor@visitorq.net.

So I'll probably never see it.

british criminology conference

I'm giving a paper today at the British Criminology Conference at the LSE. The paper is on why some criminology is ambivalent, too close to its subject etc.

Crime and Media Students at St Mary's University College

I've just created a group on Facebook for my crime and media students this year. Let's see if this is better than trying to use the College's own VLE.

Woman Home Secretary

Jacqui Smith is to be the new Home Sec. Once upon a time I had hoped this might have gone to Clare Short. She looks set to be as 'tough' as recent Labour Home Secs i.e. painting herself further into a corner where only the 'naughty' step is.

Crime. What can I tell you about crime? Not a lot obviously as I’m only a criminologist. I’ve worked in the Home Office, I’ve lectured on criminology for over 13 years and researched and published yet am rarely asked about crime.

Yet plenty of other people do get asked about crime. Some of them are criminologists. There are a few ‘celebrity’ criminologists but the number of times they get asked to comment on crime is still small compared to who else does get to comment on crime. Obviously police officers have something to say about crime as should Home Office Ministers. You might expect them to have sound criminological advice, though their utterances often fly in the face of criminological knowledge or hopelessly mangle it. My research into the use of criminologists in the media shows they are rarely quoted on crime and often in ‘sound bites’.

Not that I’m professionally prissy. Clearly in a democratic country everyone is entitled to an opinion about crime and few now have escaped its effects. Criminology is booming in Universities at the moment. There are arguments about the extent of media influence on crime but many agree that ‘crime shows’ like CSI have encouraged students to see that crime fighting might pay.

Much of the debate about crime – and the media have some responsibility here – is carried on at the level of the immediate and common-sensical in which the brilliant politics of Labour’s, ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ glosses over the criminological contradictions. If crime has fallen – and it might have – during their time in office it will not be down to ‘toughness’.

So here is what a criminologist does say about one current crime story. Some of the British media are scandalised that the German media had the insensitivity to raise with the McCann’s the possibility that they had a hand in Madeleine’s abduction. Yet parents and carers are the most likely person to harm a child of that age as they have the opportunity and the motive. We may never find out who did kidnap their daughter but they are responsible, in part, for the media storm. This may not restore their daughter to them but continues to frighten parents when other research shows children need to get out more.

Policing Northern Ireland

Police Ombudsman publishes report showing collusion between the old RUC and Loyalist killers.

racist police?

I usually delete emails that go the rounds with amusing jokes and videos. Seemingly 300 out of 400 officers and staff and Hertfordshire Police (no mention on their website) did too when they received an emailed video of a police chase in America ending in the decapitation of the suspect. Those who forwarded it on have been disciplined. Further details here.

not buy-to-let but buy and throw away the key

Obviously I'm rushing to buy shares in 'I'm a thoughtless bastard happy to make money out of the new prison buy-to-let scheme' Incorporated. See details in Guardian.