Fascinating crime and media story

Taiwan fines newspaper for motion crime news

Crime science criticised by scientist.

I'm no big fan of crime science but do have science A levels so was hugely amused by Ben Goldacre's attack on the latest from the Jill Dando Institute for the HO.

Top Criminologist for 2008 announced

David Wilson of Birmingham City University came top in a survey of criminologists cited in newspapers in the UK in 2008.

Fergus McNeill came second and Marian Fitzgerald third. Full details here.

Media Wise

The Centre for Crime and Justice Studies do a piece of research. It is reported in the Times as supporting a crackdown on knife crime. They beg to differ.

Play Ethic bigs up my videogames work

On the Play Ethic blog I’ve been done the enormous honour of a full engagement with my work on (video)games and criminology. This is by way of a response.

I came to criminology late having first gone to teacher training college then getting stuck in the Home Office for nearly 20 years as an administrator/policy person. I might cite the emphasis on play in child development that the Froebel College gave as an inspiration. I did some sociology there but couldn’t see my future teaching primary children – though I did help at my son’s primary school.

My parents were a fraction off conventional and whilst I loved learning, still do, hated school with its petty rules. The Head said I grew a beard I said it grew, secondary sexual characteristic, I just not good at or inclined to cut it. Still have beard or stumble as can’t often be bothered to shave and no good at it – curly follicles.

Through education, thank you OU, I now find myself teaching criminology and media at Uni. As part-timer in non-research intensive college I can research whatever access to computer permits or serendipity prompts. My son is interested in computer games, we discuss them and I’ve tried them but not over keen – my vice is writing.

I was aware from both criminology and media that games were that latest thing – from a translated Bible, US horror comics to women attending University – to have been blamed by sections of the media and the moralistas for the end of the known Universe being trundled of to Hell in a cliché. Much of this was poorly conducted politically motivated psycho bollocks but clearly some effects were evident – if only their attraction.

Sometimes the shocked commentator would allude to the amount of sex or crime (and indeed sex crime) in the games as if that enough to condemn them. Some criminologists had started to look at internet crime and even in communities in cyberspace, but none at the actual criminal content or even the rule-based nature of these games and third spaces. My paper attempts to kick start the process but does so ludicly. The lack of ‘academic’ rigour meant a rewrite before it could be published but two versions are online to compare at my site (closer to the first draft called JPlod after our constables and Douglas Coupland’s novel) and on BSC website.

The paper and response also talk about joyriding – the subject of my PhD – and I’m going to return to it for a conference presentation this year. It seems that the practice still continues, the media still use the term but seems less exercised by it now but little has been written theoretically about it. There is, though, a developing sociology of mobility which takes in auto(mobility) so I shall enjoy playing with that.

Obviously as a car driver of nearly 40 years I am ambivalent about cars but the green and safety arguments usually keep my joydriving (as the ads promise) in check.

I also see some playfulness in the battles against CCTV, the avoidance or accommodation strategies of those under its gaze and even in the joystick heaven that is a full 40 screen digital colour tilt, pan and zoom system. We’ll leave side that the money might be spent better.

Public Criminology in Ireland

On Tuesday 17 Feb I gave a seminar at the Institute of Criminology at University College Dublin on Public Criminology. The Power Point presentation can be found on my website here. In the Q&A and in discussion with the Faculty afterwards I felt some specific points about public criminology in Ireland might be made.

My presentation mentions Burawoy's idea of an interdependent set of sociologies: professional, policy, critical and public. But basically I transmute 'public' into 'engage with the media' and 'bring your work to the attention of the greatest numbers; even if that means ignoring the 'professional' route. But that does presume a healthy professional, critical and policy 'ology to be in place. That may not be the case in Ireland so whilst i still argue for the importance of criminology being done in and for the public the institutions of criminlogy in the case of Ireland those aspects need developing. Indeed given the small academic base and close knit nature of the elites - even contending ones - many of the criminologists i met had higher public profiles than most Brits or Americans but longed to do more sustained professional, policy or critical work.

I had a good time and wish them well in it.

Still can't get enough of the Krays?

Guardian article on forthcoming auction of Kraymebilia. I know I'm supposed to love them and I won't rant about them either but can't we move on?

Sad to see death of John Mortimer

I became aware of him first defending in the Oz obscenity trial. I read the Mag; and had even thought of applying to be an editor of that now notorious edition. I next came across him as President of the Howard League for Penal Reform whose conferences i attended. He seemed at home in Oxford College's and we forgave him his 'Penal League for Howard Reform' jokes (twice). Only later did i discover that with so few male staff at the League i was a reserve to do up his flies after the dinner.

The Telegraph has a decent obit here.

I am the very junior co-author of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies report `Criminal justice resources staffing and workload'. The full press release reads:

Embargo: 00.01 Hours, Monday, 8 December 2008

Government approach to criminal justice ‘contradictory’, new report from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies suggests

The criminal justice system faces major pressures in the coming years, with contradictory government policy placing staff under enormous strain, suggests a new report from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College London. The report, Criminal justice resources staffing and workloads, argues that workload and staffing pressures have grown alongside the increases in criminal justice budgets (1). As the government seeks to cut costs in the coming years, the report suggests, the key criminal justice agencies face a grim future of staffing cuts, wage freezes and increased work for those that remain. The report will be formally launched at the Palace of Westminster on Monday, 8 December 2008 (2).

Since 2001 the police, courts and Probation Service have benefited from above inflation budget growth. The Courts Service budget has grown by six per cent in real terms. The police budget has grown by 18 per cent and the Probation Service budget by 21 per cent. However, the report argues that once increases in staff levels and workloads are taken into account, as well as structural upheaval, these real terms budget increases are far less generous than they appear. In some cases the costs of structural change and increased workloads have outstripped budget growth.

The Prison Service has experienced a real terms fall of seven per cent in its budgets since 2001. This has placed the Service under huge strain, the report argues, given the rapidly rising prison population and the additional demands that have been placed on prison officers. As a result, government policy on prison is ‘mired in contradiction’, the report argues. It is difficult to see how such an approach can be sustained in the long term, it suggests.

The report concludes that the pressure on criminal justice budgets in the coming years offers the government an opportunity to take stock and reflect on what the criminal justice agencies can realistically achieve, and what their size and reach should be, given the likely resources that will be available.

Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London and co-author of the report said:

'The government looks set to pursue the contradictory policy objective of placing ever greater demands on the criminal justice system while cutting budgets and shedding experienced staff. It is difficult to see how this amounts to a coherent policy framework. The opportunity now exists for the government to rethink the demands it is placing on the criminal justice system and the staff working in it, bringing this more into line with the likely resources that will be available in the coming years.'

Dr Nic Groombridge, a criminologist, former Home Office civil servant and co-author of the report said:

'Neither as a criminologist nor as a former civil servant would I recommend simply increasing expenditure. However, the strains placed upon society by the current economic events and the stress placed upon criminal justice workers mean that the criminal justice system should not be overloaded and must receive adequate resources. Nothing to date or in the current plans gives me confidence that this will be the case.'

The Press Association picked it up and said:

'Fewer frontline police officers'

The number of frontline police officers is falling, according to new research.

Academics found there were nearly 1,500 fewer police constables in England and Wales last year compared with 2006 - a fall of more than 1%.

In the same year, the number of Police and Community Support Officers (PCSOs) doubled.

Researchers at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College, London, said cheaper staff were being recruited to give the impression there were more police.

They said the figures showed "the way in which the Home Office has relied on the recruitment of less qualified and lower paid auxiliary staff to boost the visible policing presence".

Until last year, Pc numbers grew every year from 2002. But the growth in beat officers was far outstripped by the number of higher-ranking officers. In the last five years the number of superintendents grew by 16% and chief inspectors by nearly 20%.

The report's authors examined funding and workload in the police, prisons, probation and courts systems. They found total spending on the criminal justice system was one third higher last year than in 1997. Police funding was up nearly 20% in real terms in the last five years, they said. But tighter budgets in the future were likely to mean future staff cuts, they warned.

The report found the number of administrative staff in the prison service had risen 20% in five years, despite budget cuts.

Co-author Richard Garside said Government policy was "mired in contradiction" with cuts coming despite an increase in the prison population. "The Prison Service is probably facing the greatest pressures of the criminal justice agencies examined in this report," he wrote.

"If the Government continues to increase the demands it places on the criminal justice system, and the staff working in it, the coming period of budget cuts will be an exceedingly challenging one. It is difficult to see how service quality will not decline in such circumstances. In particular, reductions in staffing seem almost inevitable if budgets are to be balanced."

This lead to a variety of stories, few of which do justice to the many facts and opinions in the report. The DailyExpress page7 takes the PA line. The Sun page 7 says `Blue line is thinner’ giving an even shorter précis. Readers of Nick Davies’s Flat Earth News won’t be surprised at such ‘churnalism’. However, nothing in these reports is false just does scant justice to our work. It is clearly the ‘police’ issue that has legs.

The Daily Mail page 30 goes with `More police funding but fewer frontline officers' and appears to write own article backed up with quotes from all political sides as follows:

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: 'This undermines all Labour's rhetoric about record police numbers.

The fact is that because of Labour's target culture our police spend just 14 per cent of their time where the public want them, which is on the streets.'

Liberal Democrat justice spokesman David Howarth said: 'The report rightly points out how incoherent policy from a Government obsessed with looking tough has left staff at the sharp end of the criminal justice system confused and overworked.'

But the Home Office insisted that spending on additional staff has meant fully-qualified officers can spend more time combating crime.

A spokesman said: 'Time spent by officers on frontline duties has increased each year since 2003 - equivalent to 5,340 more police officers. ‘

The Daily Telegraph page 2 `Police shortfall "hidden" by use of support officers' gives a similar story to the Mail. The use though of “hidden”, even with the quotes is clever since we don’t say this, indeed all the figures we use come from official sources and would be available to an assiduous journalist. Ironically the picture editor has chosen a picture of many officers to talk about the growth of PCSOs.

Only two online sources were truer to the report’s intentions. Thus Public Servant Online headlined a short piece highlighting the issues for the Prison Service “Criminal justice system 'under strain'”. InTheNews website called the, ‘Govt's approach to criminal justice 'contradictory'. They were the only one to run the quote I had provided for the press release.

However, I did have a number of press contacts in the days before and on the day of launch. On the Friday Sky News contacted me and set up a pre-record for the Sunday at there studios. BBC Wales also said they wanted a live interview from Millbank Studios for the Monday morning but, like the BBC’s Breakfast show, who’d phoned on Saturday night, they never came back to me. Later Sky Radio – they have no station but provide news for local commercial stations – also contacted me so visited them after doing Sky News.

I have had limited media contact but teach Crime and Media and have an MA in Journalism Studies. Richard and I had not thought our ‘findings’ that interesting and wondered if the fact that I had worked for the Home Office had piqued some interest so were surprised when all the questioning centred on the police numbers question. I don’t think I did that well and have not seen or heard the output. Indeed I don’t currently know if any of it was used.

However, after the launch – and before I got home – BBC Radio Five Live asked for a live interview at 4:20 on the Drive Time programme. I declined the offer to go into the studios at Millbank but elected to go home where I readied myself at my computer with a sort of script to move on from police figures – the researcher had mentioned them – to get back to the report and the problems faced by all the criminal justice workers even where they appeared to have done well and speculated a little on the future in the light of the credit crunch.

Story of a story

I am the very junior co-author of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies report `Criminal justice resources staffing and workload'. The full press release reads:

Embargo: 00.01 Hours, Monday, 8 December 2008

Government approach to criminal justice ‘contradictory’, new report from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies suggests

The criminal justice system faces major pressures in the coming years, with contradictory government policy placing staff under enormous strain, suggests a new report from the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King’s College London. The report, Criminal justice resources staffing and workloads, argues that workload and staffing pressures have grown alongside the increases in criminal justice budgets (1). As the government seeks to cut costs in the coming years, the report suggests, the key criminal justice agencies face a grim future of staffing cuts, wage freezes and increased work for those that remain. The report will be formally launched at the Palace of Westminster on Monday, 8 December 2008 (2).

Since 2001 the police, courts and Probation Service have benefited from above inflation budget growth. The Courts Service budget has grown by six per cent in real terms. The police budget has grown by 18 per cent and the Probation Service budget by 21 per cent. However, the report argues that once increases in staff levels and workloads are taken into account, as well as structural upheaval, these real terms budget increases are far less generous than they appear. In some cases the costs of structural change and increased workloads have outstripped budget growth.

The Prison Service has experienced a real terms fall of seven per cent in its budgets since 2001. This has placed the Service under huge strain, the report argues, given the rapidly rising prison population and the additional demands that have been placed on prison officers. As a result, government policy on prison is ‘mired in contradiction’, the report argues. It is difficult to see how such an approach can be sustained in the long term, it suggests.

The report concludes that the pressure on criminal justice budgets in the coming years offers the government an opportunity to take stock and reflect on what the criminal justice agencies can realistically achieve, and what their size and reach should be, given the likely resources that will be available.

Richard Garside, director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College London and co-author of the report said:

'The government looks set to pursue the contradictory policy objective of placing ever greater demands on the criminal justice system while cutting budgets and shedding experienced staff. It is difficult to see how this amounts to a coherent policy framework. The opportunity now exists for the government to rethink the demands it is placing on the criminal justice system and the staff working in it, bringing this more into line with the likely resources that will be available in the coming years.'

Dr Nic Groombridge, a criminologist, former Home Office civil servant and co-author of the report said:

'Neither as a criminologist nor as a former civil servant would I recommend simply increasing expenditure. However, the strains placed upon society by the current economic events and the stress placed upon criminal justice workers mean that the criminal justice system should not be overloaded and must receive adequate resources. Nothing to date or in the current plans gives me confidence that this will be the case.'
The Press Association picked it up and said:

'Fewer frontline police officers'

The number of frontline police officers is falling, according to new research.

Academics found there were nearly 1,500 fewer police constables in England and Wales last year compared with 2006 - a fall of more than 1%.

In the same year, the number of Police and Community Support Officers (PCSOs) doubled.

Researchers at the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's College, London, said cheaper staff were being recruited to give the impression there were more police.

They said the figures showed "the way in which the Home Office has relied on the recruitment of less qualified and lower paid auxiliary staff to boost the visible policing presence".

Until last year, Pc numbers grew every year from 2002. But the growth in beat officers was far outstripped by the number of higher-ranking officers. In the last five years the number of superintendents grew by 16% and chief inspectors by nearly 20%.

The report's authors examined funding and workload in the police, prisons, probation and courts systems. They found total spending on the criminal justice system was one third higher last year than in 1997. Police funding was up nearly 20% in real terms in the last five years, they said. But tighter budgets in the future were likely to mean future staff cuts, they warned.

The report found the number of administrative staff in the prison service had risen 20% in five years, despite budget cuts.

Co-author Richard Garside said Government policy was "mired in contradiction" with cuts coming despite an increase in the prison population. "The Prison Service is probably facing the greatest pressures of the criminal justice agencies examined in this report," he wrote.

"If the Government continues to increase the demands it places on the criminal justice system, and the staff working in it, the coming period of budget cuts will be an exceedingly challenging one. It is difficult to see how service quality will not decline in such circumstances. In particular, reductions in staffing seem almost inevitable if budgets are to be balanced."

This lead to a variety of stories, few of which do justice to the many facts and opinions in the report. The DailyExpress page7 takes the PA line. The Sun page 7 says `Blue line is thinner’ giving an even shorter précis. Readers of Nick Davies’s Flat Earth News won’t be surprised at such ‘churnalism’. However, nothing in these reports is false just does scant justice to our work. It is clearly the ‘police’ issue that has legs.

The Daily Mail page 30 goes with `More police funding but fewer frontline officers' and appears to write own article backed up with quotes from all political sides as follows:

Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve said: 'This undermines all Labour's rhetoric about record police numbers.
The fact is that because of Labour's target culture our police spend just 14 per cent of their time where the public want them, which is on the streets.'
Liberal Democrat justice spokesman David Howarth said: 'The report rightly points out how incoherent policy from a Government obsessed with looking tough has left staff at the sharp end of the criminal justice system confused and overworked.'
But the Home Office insisted that spending on additional staff has meant fully-qualified officers can spend more time combating crime.
A spokesman said: 'Time spent by officers on frontline duties has increased each year since 2003 - equivalent to 5,340 more police officers. ‘
The Daily Telegraph page 2 `Police shortfall "hidden" by use of support officers' gives a similar story to the Mail. The use though of “hidden”, even with the quotes is clever since we don’t say this, indeed all the figures we use come from official sources and would be available to an assiduous journalist. Ironically the picture editor has chosen a picture of many officers to talk about the growth of PCSOs.

Only two online sources were truer to the report’s intentions. Thus Public Servant Online headlined a short piece highlighting the issues for the Prison Service “Criminal justice system 'under strain'”. InTheNews website called the, ‘Govt's approach to criminal justice 'contradictory'. They were the only one to run the quote I had provided for the press release.

However, I did have a number of press contacts in the days before and on the day of launch. On the Friday Sky News contacted me and set up a pre-record for the Sunday at there studios. BBC Wales also said they wanted a live interview from Millbank Studios for the Monday morning but, like the BBC’s Breakfast show, who’d phoned on Saturday night, they never came back to me. Later Sky Radio – they have no station but provide news for local commercial stations – also contacted me so visited them after doing Sky News.

I have had limited media contact but teach Crime and Media and have an MA in Journalism Studies. Richard and I had not thought our ‘findings’ that interesting and wondered if the fact that I had worked for the Home Office had piqued some interest so were surprised when all the questioning centred on the police numbers question. I don’t think I did that well and have not seen or heard the output. Indeed I don’t currently know if any of it was used.

However, after the launch – and before I got home – BBC Radio Five Live asked for a live interview at 4:20 on the Drive Time programme. I declined the offer to go into the studios at Millbank but elected to go home where I readied myself at my computer with a sort of script to move on from police figures – the researcher had mentioned them – to get back to the report and the problems faced by all the criminal justice workers even where they appeared to have done well and speculated a little on the future in the light of the credit crunch.

What is Crime? Photo Competition

Very pleased to join the judging panel for this event organised by Centre for Crime and Justice Studies at King's.

Enter now!

Race, Crime and Media

I've only just come across this report. Well worth a look. I'll be using it in my teaching.

We may not like it but Myra Hindley has become a cultural icon and Marcus Harvey's portrait explores that. But no surprise that politicians and media seek to show their instincts are as repressive as the Chinese in their condemnations. See part of the offending video here.

Ben Goldacre continues to tell it like it is on science and media. Here he examines the good news of the reduction in murders by the mentally ill - already lower than many think - and the lack of interest by the media in that news.

'criminology' rubbished again

this article in Times Higher suggests return to medical model for crim

obviously i'm not convinced

Billy Bragg is the 'man in black' see this guardian article on music in prison

I'm participating in this inter-disciplinary discussion on Surveillance and CCTV etc on 18 July

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.