Crime is big news. From murder to theft to drug gangs, crime and criminal justice affect the lives of millions of people worldwide. Hardly surprisingly, crime has been pushed high up the public policy agenda across the world. But how can we measure crime, or evaluate the effectiveness of preventative measures? Does the threat of prison reduce someone's likelihood of reoffending, or would rehabilitation be more constructive? In this Very Short Introduction Tim Newburn considers how...

First published in 1992, Permission and Regulation examines the period known as “the permissive age”: the 1960s. Perhaps more than any other decade in history, the 1960s have generated seemingly imperishable myths. This book seeks to separate myth from reality by focusing on a series of legislative changes commonly held to illustrate the permissive or liberal character of the era. Through central case studies examining the law in relation to abortion, obscenity, homosexuality, and...

How do British pavements remain free of dog mess? Why are paths not littered with cigarette butts or roads not lined with abandoned cars? What does the decline of the public lavatory say about us and is the national reputation for queuing still deserved today?Orderly Britain takes a topical look at modern society, examining how it is governed and how it organises itself. It considers the rules of daily life, where they come from and why they exist. It asks whether citizens...

In recent years, the UK has seen the emergence of a new approach to violence reduction—the public health approach. This method prioritises early intervention and holistic support to prevent violence upstream. This movement, based in part on a perceived success story in Scotland, has led to the founding of more than twenty Violence Reduction Units in England and Wales, and more than £200m of funding to support evidence-based interventions. This book is based on a four-year, multi-method stu...

Crime is big news. From murder to theft to drug gangs, crime and criminal justice affect the lives of millions of people worldwide. Hardly surprisingly, crime has been pushed high up the public policy agenda across the world. But how can we measure crime, or evaluate the effectiveness of preventative measures? Does the threat of prison reduce someone's likelihood of reoffending, or would rehabilitation be more constructive? In this Very Short Introduction Tim Newburn considers how...

Policing is changing rapidly and radically. An increasingly complex array of public, private and municipal bodies - as well as public police forces - are engaged in the provision of regulation and security. Consequently, it is difficult to think of security provision primarily in terms of what the public police do, and so the terminology of 'fragmented' or 'plural' policing systems has become well-established within criminology and police science.'Plural policing' is now a central ...

Bringing together a range of leading social scientists and criminologists, this volume explores a number of key themes raised by the work of Robert Reiner. Arguably the leading policing scholar of his generation, Reiner's work over some 40 years has ranged broadly in this field, taking in the study of police history, culture, organisation, elites and relationships with the media. Always carefully situated within an analysis of the changing socio-political circumstances of policing and crim...

This is the fifth and final volume in the Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales.This volume covers the uneven and often irresolute evolution of policing from the late 1940s to the end of the 1990s, concentrating on the impact of a succession of scandals on the reputation and regulation of the police; and the fluctuating relations between central government, local authorities and police forces in shaping the control of police funding, policy and organisation, par...

This book is Volume IV in the Official History of Criminal Justice in England and Wales.Previous volumes have focused on the moral reforms of the 1960s, the changes to the criminal courts and the introduction of an independent prosecution service, and the broad shifts in penal policy that have taken place in the post-war era. This volume examines the changing politics of law and order, charting the gradual shift toward greater political conflict and dispute. Until the early 1970s l...

When people witness occasions when police use their powers to investigate crime and arrest offenders, how do those members of the public assess what they have seen? This book reports research in which a variety of groups from the West Midlands watched short video-clips of such real-life incidents and then discussed their appraisal amongst themselves. What emerges from those discussions is that the practice of policing is deeply controversial. On most issues, group members were divided and ...

This book reports the result of research carried out in a busy London police station on the role and impact of closed-circuit television (CCTV) in the management and surveillance of suspects - the most thorough example of the use of CCTV by the police in the world. It focuses on the use of CCTV in a very different environment to that in which its impact has previously been studied, and draws upon the analysis of CCTV footage, suspects' backgrounds and extensive interviewing of both police ...

How do British pavements remain free of dog mess? Why are paths not littered with cigarette butts or roads not lined with abandoned cars? What does the decline of the public lavatory say about us and is the national reputation for queuing still deserved today?Orderly Britain takes a topical look at modern society, examining how it is governed and how it organises itself. It considers the rules of daily life, where they come from and why they exist. It asks whether citizens...