This page lists short details of all BSC events during 2017/18. All events were free to attend and organised by the convenors of each regional group.
Wales
December 5, 2018
Cardiff University Glamorgan Building
Federico Varese (Professor of Criminology, Oxford University)
Federico Varese is Professor of Criminology at Oxford and a world expert on mafias and their movement. He has recently published Mafia Life, a more popular audience book on the dynamic of mafias.
***
Friday October 26, 2018 18:00-19:30
Bangor University, Room: Mathias Hall in the Music building
Normalising the Exceptional: Covert Surveillance and the Subterranean World of Policing
Dr Bethan Loftus, Bangor University
In this paper, I draw on data derived from an ethnographic field study of covert policing to make two arguments. The first is that the deployment of covert surveillance has become normalised, both in policing thought and operational practice. In a break with earlier patterns, the methods of covert surveillance are used extensively and are no longer regarded as a tactic of last resort. Covert policing is well anchored within organisational arrangements and is empowered by a series of internal rationales mobilised to justify the expansion of covert tactics over and above more traditional, overt forms. Secondly, I argue that the building of intrusive and exceptional policing practices within mundane contexts is one of the ways the police have innovated and adapted to a broader policing environment characterised by public scepticism and distrust. Policing relies on the invisibility and low profile that comes with covert work in order to govern contemporary concerns of crime and insecurity without the conflicts and tensions which increasingly accompany and trouble overt policing practices. In the context of reputational threats which hamper or restrict overt policing practices, covert policing has become a functional and alternative power resource largely uncoupled from the spectacle of mainstream policing.
***
November 23, 2018 18:00-19:30
University of South Wales, Treforest Campus, Room: TBC
The impact of ‘children first’ policies on the enforcement of statutory orders by Welsh Youth Offending Teams.
Heddwen Daniels (PhD Student, University of South Wales)
The Welsh Government’s latest youth justice strategy states that young people in the Youth Justice System are “children first, offenders second” (Welsh Government and YJB Cymru, 2014:4). Integral to this principle is that these young people should have “the same access to their rights and entitlements as any other young person” (ibid.). Numerous national social justice policies and legislation, and international conventions adopted by the Welsh Government, provide a firm historical underpinning for these statements. To just what extent, however, do these ‘children first’ principles inform the decisions made by the youth justice professionals who enforce statutory orders?
***
Thursday 31st May 2018
Professor Steve Tombs (Open University)
“Grenfell: From Crime to Social Harm”
We can of course agree that Grenfell was, remains and will continue to be a tragedy of immense proportions. But what does it mean to say this? Here Prof Tombs examined this question through the lens of social harm, and focus on the aftermaths and consequences of the fire; but in so doing, many of the factors it reveals also help to explain the presence and character of the factors which, in combination, helped to produce a fire which could have such devastating effects. The paper delineates, largely empirically (though suggestive of lines of conceptual development), the various, discrete ways in which distinct types of harms – physical, emotional and psychological, financial and economic , and cultural and relational – have been and will continue to be produced by the fire. Some of these are these are readily apparent, others of these are opaque and obscured. On the basis of these explorations of the range of social harms produced by the fire at Grenfell Tower, he concluded by asking what criminal justice can provide to the victims, survivors and other affected communities.
***
February 7, 2018 Cardiff University
Professor Letizia Paoli (University of Leuven)
“The Centrality of Harm to Crime, Criminal Policy and the Governance of Security, and the Potential Contribution of Harm Assessment”
In this talk, I will demonstrate the centrality of harm to crime, criminal policy and the governance of security, through an exploration of harm and crime in legal history, legal theory, criminology and related fields and consideration of the role of harm in criminal policy and the governance of security. I will also argue that such centrality is often only implicit in the contemporary discourses on crime, criminal policy, security and risk and that harm mostly remains underdeveloped as a concept. I will then briefly present the Harm Assessment Framework, a tool I have developed with Dr. Victoria Greenfield (George Mason University) to define and operationalize harm and systematically assess the harms of criminalized activities as well as those that are candidate for criminalization or control. Lastly, I will consider the potential contribution that the harm assessment can make to both criminal policy and the governance of security.
***
October 25, 2017
Weakness as Routine: Contributing to a research agenda on the weak field of global justice
(in association with Bangor Social Sciences Research Seminar Series)
Dr Sara Dezalay (Cardiff University)
Bangor University
How can one account for the contrast between the protracted weakness of the International Criminal Court and the strength of a global justice discourse focused on the criminalization of state and societal violence? To address this puzzle, this article suggests the hypothesis of global justice as a “weak field” that is a space that is weak as regards its internal autonomy but not weak in its wider social effects. Looking at professional patterns within the ICC, and the way in which evidence is marshalled into the Court, its gist is that weakness is not a transitory feature – rather it has developed into a routine as a structural feature of the ICC, and the broader field of global justice. Grounded in Bourdieu’s field theory, it relies on biographical interviews with ICC staff, academics and members of non-governmental operating around the Court.
***
(In association with Cardiff University, Centre for Crime, Law and Justice research seminar series)
October 11, 2017
The politics of security in the case of Brussels after the bombings
Dr. Elke Devroe (Leiden University) & Professor Paul Ponsaers (Ghent University)
The basic proposition of the paper is that politics matters in explaining major problems of crime and insecurity, such as the recent spate of terrorist incidents in European cities. The politics of security is central to an understanding of the conditions that enable or frustrate such incidents and ought to be as central to social scientific research as are official preoccupations with the attitudes of perpetrators. Understanding the conditions of ‘radicalisation’ is as important as understanding the lifestyle and choices of the ‘radicalised’. To this end, the paper provides a case study of the politics of security in Brussels, a city directly implicated in the attacks on Paris in November 2015 as well as being a target for political violence itself, in March 2016.
***
21 June 2017
Sam Hanks (SOCSI)
“Critically exploring the governance of massage parlours in Cardiff: promoting sex worker safety and wellbeing”.
Simon Avery (SOCSI)
“The governmentality of local organised crime assessments”
***
17 May 2017
Dr. David Mellor (University of South Wales)
“Should robots commit crimes?”
The increasing integration of robots and automata throughout society will bring a range of social and public policy challenges. This talk looked specifically at how these might relate to security, crime and justice by asking: should robots commit crimes? This depends on what a robot is, how we understand the nature and possibility of action, and whether nonhuman actors will re-shape ideas about personhood that underpin modern society. These are complex philosophical and science fictional questions that we are being pressed into facing through the rapid emergence of new technologies. Building on some examples of and developments in current technology, I will discuss the scene of speculation and debate that surrounds robots, opening up some potential criminological implications. I will consider the interplay of social imaginaries, policy challenges and the development of regulations, and the design ethics for maintaining a safe and secure, technologically saturated society.
***
23 March 2017 Swansea University
“Hillsborough: Resisting Injustice, Recovering Truth”
Professor Phil Scraton (School of Law, Queen’s University, Belfast)
15 April 1989: an inescapable crush on the terraces at Hillsborough Stadium at an FA Cup Semi-Final led to the deaths of 96 men, women and children. Hundreds of Liverpool fans were injured, thousands traumatised. The families’ unrelenting campaign for truth recovery, spanning two decades, led to disclosure of all existing documents to an Independent Panel. Its definitive 2012 report revealed institutional mendacity, corrupted evidence and partial investigation. This brought an unreserved Government apology, an ongoing criminal investigation into all agencies involved and an unprecedented IPCC investigation into the policing of Hillsborough. It also led to new inquests, commencing March 2014 through to April 2016 and the momentous verdict that the 96 had been killed unlawfully. Author of the highly acclaimed Hillsborough: The Truth (2016), Phil Scraton headed the Panel’s research and was primary author of its report. Having worked with the families and survivors since 1989, he was advisor to the families’ legal teams throughout the inquests. In this public lecture he reflected on the long-term campaign for truth, details the Panel’s extensive findings, analyses the new inquests, their outcome, the work of the IPCC and the case for prosecutions. Finally, he examined the impact of his critical research and truth recovery for challenging institutional injustice and holding State institutions to account.
***
22 Feb 2017 Cardiff University
Marco Calaresu (Sassari University),“Researching Urban Security Agendas in Europe”
Mark Berry (SOCSI), “Modern technologies of an everyday drug dealer”
***
22 Feb 2017 Cardiff University
Dr Anna Clancy (Research Manager, Invisible Walls Wales at HMP Parc & Researcher USW)
“Prisoner’s families and children: Can the walls be ‘invisible’?”
People sent to prison are cut off from close contact with their partners and children, with adverse consequences in terms of increased family breakups, obstacles to successful resettlement, and risks of the children going on to offend themselves. This issue has often been neglected in penal policy, although recently it has attracted greater recognition and a number of new initiatives have been introduced. One of the most ambitious of these is the ‘Invisible Walls Wales’ (IWW) project in HMP Parc, funded by the Big Lottery, and currently being evaluated by the speakers. This is built around the facilitation of much more frequent face to face contact between prisoners and their children (often combined with interventions to improve fathering skills), support from ‘family intervention mentors’, the transformation of visiting arrangements, liaison with schools, and ‘through the gate’ work by workers from G4S and Barnardo’s. The talk will explore the challenges of maintaining family relationships during and after imprisonment and present preliminary results from the study
***
25 January 2017
University of South Wales, Chair: Fiona Brookman
Marian Buhociu (University of South Wales)
“’I quit heroin for meow’: A qualitative study of the use of New Psychoactive Substances among problematic drug users in South Wales”
Until a few years ago it seemed that new psychoactive substances (NPS) had appealed mainly to young, recreational drug users. However, since the second half of 2012, anecdotal reports from South Wales drug agencies and research from elsewhere in Europe indicated that NPS started to make their way into the drug repertoires of more seasoned users of heroin, ‘crack’ cocaine and amphetamine, who are widely described as ‘problematic drug users’. This presentation considered the circumstances and reasons why this hidden population decided to use the most popular of these substances, namely mephedrone.
North East
2017
19 May 2017
New Directions in Criminology: Theory and Method
Northumbria University
The North East Branch of the British Society of Criminology hosted this half-day event New Directions in Criminology: Theory and Method. The aim of the event was to generate discussion and debate on a wide range of theoretical and methodological issues in criminology.
Programme
12.00 Coffee and introductions
12.30 Pam Davies (Northumbria) – ‘Children as Victims’
13.00 Mark Horsley (Teesside) – ‘Forget ‘Moral Panics’’
13.30 Jo Large (Teesside) – ‘Conspicuously Doing Charity: Exploring harm within the context of charity based tourism. A challenge for criminologists to address?’
14.00 Coffee break
14.30 Thomas Raymen (Plymouth) – ‘Show Me The Money: Developing a transcendental materialist theory of gambling addiction’
15.00 Mike Rowe (Northumbria) – ‘Policing and Visual Cultures’
15.30 Simon Winlow (Teesside) – ‘Criminology’s present crisis, and what we can do about it’
16.00 Close.
***
January 25, 2017 Teesside University
Human Enhancement Drugs: The Illicit Steroid Market and the Legal Supplement Industry
Katinka van de Ven and Kyle Mulrooney
While the origins of human enhancement drugs (HEDs) date back over 100 years, the drive for human enhancement has been insatiable and continues to grow. Millions of people take HEDs (also known as ‘performance and image enhancing drugs’ or ‘lifestyle drugs’), from elite level athletes and sport and exercise enthusiasts, who hope to further their athletic aspirations or achieve better bodies, to working students and adults seeking to get ahead in their studies or careers, to everyday men and women seeking to defy the ageing process or who are generally interested in healthy living and well-being. However, the legality of HEDs is not so black and white, and the fact remains that certain compounds sold can have serious health consequences. Some HEDs, such as vitamins, minerals and supplements are bought and sold legally on the open market in many countries, while others such as methylphenidate or testosterone fall into a semi-legal category in that they may be available by prescription, while still yet others such as 2,4-Dinitrophenol (DNP) or ephedrine are illegal and available only on the black market. The precarious legal position of human enhancement drugs means that the sale of these substances is ripe for criminological inquiry while their widespread availability means human enhancement drugs are likely to become a growing public health issue. In this presentation, we will provide an overview of the different types of HEDs and highlight some of the issues surrounding them. We will then zoom in a little closer and explore in more detail two specific HED markets; the illicit steroid market and the legal market for sports supplements.
Yorkshire and Humberside Branch
November 28, 2018
‘Dying on probation and after prison: human rights and the right to life’
Jake Phillips, Reader in Criminology, Sheffield Hallam University:
**
November 1, 2017
The Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Event on Contemporary Research in Crime and Justice took place at the University of Hull.
North West Branch
23 May 2018
Theorising Sites of Discipline in Society – Liverpool Hope University
This event was sponsored by the North West Branch of the British Society of Criminology and Liverpool Hope University
There has been growing interest within criminology and across the social sciences more widely in the diffusion of disciplinary techniques and institutions throughout society. These techniques range from the more subtle as exhibited by the development of the Behavioural Insights Team (or nudge unit) under the Coalition Government and the associated shift towards an increasingly penal welfare state, to the hardening of responses in more traditional institutions in the carceral state and beyond. This one-day conference intends to critically examine the growing influence of some of these techniques and institutions and their impact upon vulnerable and marginalized populations as well as their wider ramifications for society as a whole. Themes which we intend to address during the day’s discussion include: the role of the military in disciplining marginalized populations; the disciplining of refugee and migratory groups in the ‘Jungles’ of Northern Europe; the problems posed by imprisonment upon those seeing to desist from crime; the associated role of society as a site of discipline for those facing the stigma of criminal records and Disclosure and Barring Service checks; and shifting sites of discipline in contemporary mental health and penal welfare policy reform.
List of speakers:
Dr Emily Hart (University of Liverpool)
Developing a ‘Critical Desistance’: The harms of imprisonment and the search for a ‘real utopia’
Dr Andrew Henley (Keele University)
Criminal records checks and the regulation of redemption: a delegation of the power to punish?
Dr Rich Moth (Liverpool Hope University)
From psychiatric abuse to psycho-compulsion: shifting sites of discipline in contemporary mental health and welfare policy reform
Dr Zaki Nahaboo (Liverpool Hope University)
Disciplining refuge in The Calais Jungle
Hannah Wilkinson (Keele University)
The military as a continuation site of discipline and conflict: ‘it was either join the army, or go to jail’
***
April 26, 2018
Criminology and Public Theology: On Justice, Mercy and Forgiveness – Edge Hill University
A seminar hosted by the Department of Law and Criminology and sponsored by the North West Branch of the British Society of Criminology and the Institute for Public Policy and Professional Practice (I4P), Edge Hill University
The seminar brought together leading academics from theology and criminology – two disciplines that have seldom interacted – in a cross-disciplinary discussion to consider the potential contribution that Christian theology can make to criminological debates on justice, mercy and forgiveness. The starting point for the seminar was , “At the heart of the Christian tradition is a radical critique of the concept of punishment” (Chris Wood, 1991:72). At a time when the penal system is in crisis it is perhaps right to consider such challenges to criminal justice orthodoxy.
List of speakers:
Dr Aaron Pycroft (Reader in Criminal Justice and Social Complexity, University of Portsmouth)
Saint Paul amongst the criminologists
Prof Andrew Millie (Professor of Criminology, Edge Hill University)
Public theology, criminology and hope
Dr Alistair McFadyen (Senior Lecturer in Systematic Theology, University of Leeds)
On having and loving enemies – Terror, torture, policing … and theology!
Prof Jonathan Burnside (Professor of Biblical Law, Law School, University of Bristol)
Why does Israel obey the law? Legitimacy and compliance in Biblical Law
Prof Loraine Gelsthorpe (Professor in Criminology and Criminal Justice, University of Cambridge)
Am I my brother’s or sister’s keeper?
Prof Tim Gorringe (Emeritus Professor of Theological Studies, University of Exeter)
Slaves to defunct theologians: Religion, structures of affect and penal theory of practice
Dr Eric Stoddart (Lecturer, School of Divinity, University of St Andrews)
The restoration gaze
Prof Lawrence Burke (Professor of Criminal Justice, Liverpool John Moores University)
The ‘quality of mercy’ in probation practice
Revd Dr Myra Blyth (Fellow in Practical Theology, Regent’s Park College, University of Oxford)
Rituals of restoration: Understanding restorative conferencing and eucharistic sharing through the lens of ritual studies.
***
2017
10 May 2017
Ethics in Criminological Research Conference
Hosted by the Centre for Crime, Law and Justice, University of Lancaster Law School.
Ethical issues in criminological research are an increasingly complex matter. Consideration of issues around safety, informed consent, ‘guilty knowledge’ and disclosure, the limits of ‘participation’ in participant observation, the protection of vulnerable populations and so on, leads to a complex set of interlinked concerns. The aim of this one day conference is to examine these issues more closely. Invited speakers have conducted research which brought with it specific ethical considerations and will present papers outlining how these were tackled and ‘overcome’.
| Speaker | Institution | Research Area |
| Prof. Teela Sanders (Keynote) | University of Leicester | Sex industry |
| Dr. Raphael Schelmbach | University of Brighton | Policing protest; activist research |
| Dr. Anthony Ellis | Salford University | Male violence & far right politics |
| Dr. Irene Zempi | Nottingham University | Islamophobia |
| Dr. Jennifer Fleetwood | Goldsmiths, UoL | Female drug mules |
| Joanna Hill | University College London | Wildlife poaching in Uganda |
| Dr. Karenza Moore | Lancaster University | Drug use; illegal leisure |
| Dr. Gary Potter | Lancaster University | Cannabis cultivation |
| Dr. Sarah Kingston | Lancaster University | Prostitution |
The event took place at Lancaster University, Faculty of the Arts and Social Sciences, Main Room.
Midlands
17th Sept 2018
Prison Re-Design: Designing the space in-between
An exploration of collaborative projects between the Interior Design programme students at De Montfort University and HMPs. Demonstrating how design can benefit and foster positive visitations with the aim of helping to reduce recidivism and enhance the visitor’s experience. Whilst at the same time providing transformative learning experiences for the student cohort in spaces rarely explored in the interior design industry.
Rosemarie Fitton, Associate Professor, School of Design, De Montfort University-
***
2nd Annual Emotion and Criminal Justice Conference 2018
Date: Tuesday 15th May 2018 9.15am – 4.45pm
Venue: De Montfort University
This conference will bring together both scholars and practitioners with an interest and passion for debate in the developing field of emotion and criminal justice.
Following the success of our first conference in 2016, we continue the lively discussion with our exciting conference programme which will draw upon national and international research, and offer important perspectives to the debate about emotions in this sector.
We are extremely pleased to welcome both Professor Rob Canton and Jason Warr of De Montfort University as our keynote speakers. There will also be a series of stimulating workshops which reflect current research on emotion in the criminal justice context.
This conference was run by De Montfort University’s Criminal Justice Research Group’s Emotion and Criminal Justice Cluster.
***
What is Digital Criminology? Exploiting technology to enhance rehabilitation
Monday March 5, 2018
This session offered three insights into the ways in which technology can facilitate rehabilitation and help boost recovery and desistance for offenders of crime. There is a small yet growing raft of research which has focused on this area within criminology. Much focus has been on how technology is facilitating criminal activity. This session, deviates from this growing trend in criminology and reports in detail how digitization is currently been employed and how rehabilitative agendas can be assisted by technology.
Our speakers include:
Dr Victoria Knight– De Montfort University UK
Steven Van De Steene– Smart Corrections Belgium
Jason Morris- Interventions Team- HMPPS UK
Dr James Tangen – De Montfort University UK
***
***
Why Punish?
December 13, 2017. 6-8pm, Trinity Chapel, De Montfort University, Leicester
We welcomed three esteemed experts to reflect on their own contributions to the field of punishment. Professor Rob Canton’s recent book Why Punish? An Introduction to the Philosophy of Punishment prompted us to think about punishment. The evening reflected on Rob’s important question to consider how our society responds to and deals with punishment.
Professor Rob Canton, DMU
Professor Anne Worrall, Keele University
Professor Gavin Dingwall, DMU
Wednesday November 15, 2017
Vijay Patel Building Room 2.02, De Montfort University
This event was free.
Chair: Professor Neil Chakraborti, Head of Department and Director of the Centre for Hate Studies, Department of Criminology, University of Leicester
Panel session members:
Professor Neil Chakraborti, Head of Department and Director of the Centre for Hate Studies, Department of Criminology, University of Leicester
Kim Sadique, Senior Lecturer in Community & Criminal Justice, De Montfort University
Dr Irene Zempi, Lecturer in Criminology, Nottingham Trent University
Abstract:
Hate crime has become an increasingly pernicious problem in many parts of the world, with numbers of incidents rising to record levels and causing devastating emotional and physical damage to victims, their families and wider communities. Within the UK last June’s EU referendum result was the catalyst for a surge in reports of targeted violence, while similar spikes have been seen within the US since the election of President Trump after a prolonged campaign of heated rhetoric and a slow disavowal of white supremacy. Equally alarming levels of hate crime have been documented across Europe with populist political parties in countries such as France, Denmark, Germany, Hungary and the Netherlands exploiting anti-immigrant sentiment, fuelling the scapegoating of particular minority groups and feeding off widely-held anxieties.
Within this context the need for fresh responses to hate crime has become all the more pressing. Despite progress within the domains of scholarship and policy, these escalating levels of hate crime – and the associated rise in tensions, demonisation and hostility towards ‘difference’ that accompanies such spikes – casts doubt over the effectiveness of existing measures and their capacity to protect victims of hate crime. As such, this session draws from extensive fieldwork conducted by the panel members to examine the nature, impact and implications of hate crime. In addition to identifying the different forms that hate crime can take and their associated harms, the panel consider ways in which existing faultlines within criminal justice responses compound the sense of distress and alienation felt by victims from a diverse range of communities. They also explore ways in which criminological debate can reach beyond its own echo chamber to connect with ‘real-world’ hate crime responses and experiences, and call for urgent action to plug the ever-widening chasm between state-level narratives and victims’ lived realities.
***
5th July 2017, De Montfort University
Dr Irene Zempi
Since the Macpherson Report, there has been pressure on the police to increase diversity of police staff. Although British police have recently recruited greater numbers of minority police officers, they still remain vastly outnumbered by their white, heterosexual, male counterparts. Drawing on data from qualitative interviews with 20 participants based in a force in the UK, we examined police officers’ experiences of hostility, discrimination and exclusion internally in the police (Mawby & Zempi, 2016). Although there is a lot of research focusing on police officers’ experiences of racism in the police, other aspects of their identity remain under-researched. In this study, we employed intersectionality (the presence of multiple aspects of identity) in order to examine police officers’ experiences of bias, prejudice and ‘hate’ perpetrated by work colleagues and supervisors. The findings show widespread hostility, discrimination and exclusion towards minority police officers, especially those with multiple and intersecting personal identities.
***
Learning Together in Leicester
De Montfort University, Leicester, organised a two-day Learning Together event in partnership with HMP Leicester. The event brought together people from prisons and universities to share information about the ways we have been working together to improve the educational experiences available to people in prison.
Day 1 – 15 June 2017 – HMP Leicester – Developing Learning Together partnerships. Arrival: arrive to enter prison for midday.
Focus: What do the different prison-university partnerships look like, how did they get started, what have been the main fears and challenges? How have they been overcome?
Day 2 – 16 June 2017 – De Montfort University, Leicester (Hugh Aston building).
Focus: Making sense of Learning Together. Understanding impact. Exploring our pedagogy and our methods.
***
Rethinking Prisons Research
13 & 14 June 2017
A two-day conference focusing on the emerging theoretical, conceptual and empirical themes in prisons research and possible future directions.
Plenary speakers included:
Dr Jamie Bennett (HMPPS)
Dr Ben Crewe (University of Cambridge)
Dr Dominique Moran (University of Birmingham)
Dr Ruth Mann (HMPPS)
****
Why Criminology needs Autoethnography : the importance of using past experiences to highlight current practices
Anita de Klerk third year PhD candidate at the University of Salford.
Anita’s PhD is entitled: The Transforming Rehabilitation Revolution: an autoethnographic investigation in voluntarism within criminal justice in England.
My focus is on the volunteer mentor and not just the peer mentor per se. In fact, my focus is on the increasing significance of voluntarism within criminal justice overall. My research is a comparative study between two case studies; the ‘old’ style volunteer mentor (before TR) and the ‘new’ style (after TR) investigating the influence that TR ,as policy, has had on the nature of voluntarism. The first case study has been constructed into a Weberian Ideal Type, completely from memory, as a Reflective Autoethnography and the second case study will be conducted as a Participatory Autoethnography where I go out and become a volunteer again and experience volunteering myself so that I may draw the comparisons.
***
1 March 2017
Dr Irene Zempi, Director of the Nottingham Centre for Bias, Prejudice & Hate Crime/Lecturer in Criminology, Nottingham Trent University (email: irene.zempi@ntu.ac.uk)
Title: “I FEEL DEMOTIVATED, I DIDN’T JOIN THE FORCE FOR THIS”: The Experiences of Police Officers as Victims of Hate Crime
Abstract
Hate crime has attracted significant academic and policy interest in recent years. This has focussed, inter alia, on contested definitions and boundaries of hate crime, the difficulties of recording and measurement, and policy and operational responses. While policing has figured in these debates, this has mainly focussed on their role in responding to hate crimes, and the levels of service provided to victims. However, in light of an increasingly diverse force, minority police officers might experience hate crime because of the intersectionality between their occupation identity and ‘difference’ based on core aspects of their personal identity. Nevertheless, the experiences of police officers as victims of hate crime remain ‘invisible’ in research terms. Drawing from qualitative data elicited through a UK-based study, Dr Rob Mawby and I conducted the first ever study to examine police officers’ hate crime experiences both ‘externally’ (e.g. from members of the public) and ‘internally’ within the force (e.g. from work colleagues and supervisors). Drawing on the ‘dirty work’ literature in parallel with the hate crime framework, this paper considers how police officers make sense of, and respond to these experiences. The findings show that hate crime from within the organisation ‘hurts more’ than experiencing hate crime externally.
South Coastal
9 May 2017
Professor Robert Reiner, LSE
‘Crime: The mystery of a common-sense concept’ 4pm, Mayfield House, Falmer Campus, University of Brighton.
***
Wed 22 March 2017
Professor Stephen Savage and Mr John Grieve, University of Portsmouth
‘Non-recent (‘historic’) investigations and inquiries from Hillsborough to Operation Yewtree – Joining up the Dots’?
**
Thurs 23 March 2017
Professor James Sheptycki, University of York, Toronto
‘Policing Gun Crime in Toronto’, 4pm, Checkland Building, Falmer Campus, University of Brighton.
***
Wed 15 March 2017
Dr Louise Westmarland, The Open University
“Policing Gender and Ethics: An Ethnographic View of Culture and Practice”.
***
Wed 1 March 2017
Professor Yvonne Jewkes, University of Brighton
“Prison Planning and Design in the UK and Europe: What Constitutes a “Well-Designed” Prison?”
***
Wed 15 February 2017
Dr Matt Clements, University of Winchester
A People’s History of Riots, Protest and the Law: The Sound of the Crowd)
South branch (in association with the Mannheim Centre London School of Economics)
31 October 2018
‘Betwixt and Between’: The Evolution of Parole as a Public Policy Concern in England and Wales
Thomas Guiney (LSE), with a response from Nick Hardwick (Royal Holloway, University of London)
***
28 November 2018
Taking Stock of Research on Policing and the Police
Panel with Jennifer Brown (LSE), Penny Dick (University of Sheffield) and Nigel Fielding (University of Surrey)
***
26 September, 2018
Atmospheres of Crime and Justice
Alison Young (University of Melbourne)
***
6 June 2018
Insa Koch (LSE)
The Paradox of Punishment: an Anthropology of Crime, Politics and Welfare at the UK’s Margins
***
16 May 2018
Ben Crewe (Cambridge), Alison Liebling (Cambridge), Yvonne Jewkes (Brighton)
Panel on ‘Deep Imprisonment’
***
21 March 2018
Jenni Ward (Middlesex)
Transforming Justice: Modernisation in the Lower Criminal Courts
***
28 February 2018
Jen Turner (Liverpool)
‘The Prison Boundary: Between Society and Carceral Space’
***
10 January 2018
Beth Weaver (Strathclyde)
‘Desistance’
***
6 December 2017
Vincenzo Ruggiero (Middlesex)
‘Political Violence: A Typology’
***
8 November 2017
Annette Ballinger (Keele)
Women convicted of homicide
***
11 October 2017
Scott Decker (Arizona)
The Promise of Ethnography: Gangs, Active Offenders and Policy
***
7 June 2017 Joanna Adler (Middlesex University) Impact of Pornography on the young
10 May 2017 Beth Weaver (Strathclyde University) Desistance from Co-offending: A relational perspective?
15 March 2017 Richard Garside (Centre for Crime and Justice Studies) and others (journalist and adviser to a crime programme invited) Communicating Criminology
8 February 2017 Sappho Xenakis (Birkbeck College, University of London) Global crime and comparative penology
11 January 2017 Annette Balinger (Keele University) Women convicted of homicide
South West Branch
November 30, 2018
University of Plymouth
The BSC SW is supporting an interdisciplinary research seminar organised by the Institute for Social, Policy and Enterprise Research (ISPER) at the University of Plymouth entitled ‘Obtaining best evidence from child suspects in police custody: challenges and opportunities’. Speakers include Professor Ray Bull, Professor Becky Milne (University of Portsmouth), Professor Miet Vanderhallen (University of Antwerp and University of Maastricht), Miranda Bevan (LSE), Dr Lesley Laver (Bournemouth University), Martin Vaughan (University of Portsmouth), Piers von Berg (University of Plymouth), Rudi Schellingen (Chief of Police and Head of Investigation department CARMA, Genk, Belgium), and Chris Bath (Chief Executive, National Association of Appropriate Adults)
***
Neoliberalism, Work and Harm: Criminological Perspectives
Thursday 20th September 2018 at 15:00-17:00
University of Plymouth, Room 215 Babbage Building
***
May 8, 2018
Room 214 Babbage Building, University of Plymouth
Everyday Talk and Children’s Sense of (In)Justice: some examples from a school setting.
Richard Sparks and Marion Smith, Edinburgh University
AND
Are All Radical Initiatives in Penal Policy Doomed to Fail?
Richard Sparks, Edinburgh University