The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice

Issue Number

Latest documents

• Citizenship, Crime and Community in the European Union S. Coutts. Oxford: Hart (2019) 264pp. £70.00hb ISBN 9781509915361
• Using A Culturally Safe Creative Writing Programme to Empower and Heal Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Men in Prison

  Interviews with 30 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander male prisoners who attended a culturally safe creative writing programme entitled ‘Dreaming Inside: Voices from the Junee Correctional Centre’, are used to explore how (re)connecting to culture can help improve social and emotional well‐being, and how the power of being heard and being able to express feelings and thoughts through poetry and storytelling, can help heal deep‐seated emotional trauma and grief. This article addresses a gap in research and theory regarding what types of prison programmes may be of greatest benefit for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander prisoners.

• Authenticity, Coherence, and Power Shifts: A Framework for Assessing Community Engagement Across the Criminal Justice System

  Criminal justice agencies increasingly use community engagement practices in efforts to improve public safety and garner legitimacy. While crime rates can be measured, improved legitimacy is harder to gauge. This article provides a framework to assess the influence of community engagement practices in the criminal justice system on legitimacy in three areas: authenticity, coherence in structure, and shifts in power dynamics. We explore each component through case studies of community policing, consent decrees, and community courts, respectively. We propose that this framework could be used to assess or build the capacity of community engagement to repair relationships with marginalised communities.

• Organisational Justice and Police Job Involvement in Haryana, India

  High job involvement has been shown to result in many favourable outcomes, including higher job satisfaction, increased work performance, and improved life satisfaction. Organisational justice, which includes the concepts of distributive and procedural justice, refers to the perception that the employing organisation treats employees in a fair and just manner. This study used survey data from 827 police officers from the Indian state of Haryana to explore how distributive and procedural justice affect job involvement. Ordinary least squares (OLS) regression analysis indicated that both components of procedural justice (promotions and evaluations) were positively related to, and significant predictors of, job involvement; however, distributive justice did not have a significant effect in the multivariate analysis. We examine the policy implications of these findings towards achieving the ends of improved organisational performance.

• The Arts, Rehabilitation or Both? Experiences of Mentoring Artists in Prison and Beyond

  Mentoring within the criminal justice system plays an important role in rehabilitative and desistance processes. The experiences of arts‐based mentors are scarcely documented. This study discloses the narratives of eleven trained arts mentors who support ex‐offenders in continuing their artistic engagement. Findings show a number of benefits and challenges for those who mentor ex‐offenders, and their experiences convey a message to new recruits. Reasons for becoming a mentor, limitations and constraints, and mentee‐focused factors are discussed.

• Violence & Society, 2nd edn L. Ray. London: Sage (2018) 320pp. £79.00hb, £27.99pb ISBN 9781473907911, 9781473907904
• Young Men's Experiences of Long‐Term Imprisonment: Living Life R.R. Tynan. Abingdon: Routledge (2019) 186pp. £120.00hb, £36.99pb ISBN 9781315208299
• Female Imprisonment: An Ethnography of Everyday Life in Confinement C. Frois. Cham, Switzerland: Palgrave Macmillan (2017) 231pp. £109.99hb ISBN 978‐3‐319‐63684‐9
• Solitary Confinement: Effects, Practices, and Pathways Toward Reform J. Lobel and P. Scharff Smith. Oxford: Oxford University Press (2020) 377pp. £75.00hb ISBN 978019094792I
• Issue Information

Featured documents

• Are Hope and Possibility Achievable in Prison?

  There is both hope and frustration in this article. A recent research exercise in a prison found it to be inspirational in its ethos, relationships and mission. Prisoners talked passionately about their experiences in it and its impact on their personal development. But prisoners received very...

• Citizenship, Crime and Community in the European Union S. Coutts. Oxford: Hart (2019) 264pp. £70.00hb ISBN 9781509915361
• Criminal Justice in Transition: The Northern Ireland Context A.‐M. McAlinden and C. Dwyer (Eds.). Oxford: Hart (2015) 386pp. £49.50hb ISBN 978–1849465779
• Enduring Uncertainty: Deportation, Punishment and Everyday Life I. Hasselberg. New York: Berghahn (2016) 186pp. £28.00hb ISBN 978‐1‐78533‐022‐3
• From Procedural Justice to Procedural Injustice: Understanding Prison Staff and Inmate Conflict

  This article focuses on the idea of procedural justice in prison. Prison employees in our case study explain that using respectful language improves their interactions with the inmates. However, some interviewees describe harsh language and threats used against the inmates. We identify this as...

• Incarceration Nation: How the United States Became the Most Punitive Democracy in the World Peter K. Enns. New York: Cambridge University Press (2016) 192pp. £24.99pb ISBN 978‐1‐107‐13288‐7, 178‐1‐316‐50061‐3
• Labouring out of Adversity: Maconochie, Political Economy and Penal Labour

  The modern prison emerged at broadly the same time as the discourse of political economy and a new understanding of the social meaning of work. This research explores how one penal theorist, Alexander Maconochie (1787–1860), deployed the ideas of political economy to answer key questions central to ...

• Older Prisoners’ Experiences of Death, Dying and Grief Behind Bars

  Prison populations are experiencing rapid increases and many more offenders are dying in prison. This article draws on research that was conducted by the authors in the US and in England and Wales. The study interrogates the meanings older prisoners give to the prospect of dying in prison. The...

• Predicaments in Prisoners’ Institutional Rehabilitation for Parole Release: Some Evidence from Malaysia

  Institutional rehabilitation is significant because the Parole Board's decision in releasing a prisoner would depend on the rehabilitation report. Such rehabilitation programmes and assessment have been implemented by rehabilitation officers with considerable challenges. This article reports the...

• Questions of Legitimacy in Probation Practice after Transforming Rehabilitation

  In this article, we discuss the impact of changes to the organisational structure of probation on the legitimacy of probation practice. In particular, we explore how the division of probation into the National Probation Service (NPS) and Community Rehabilitation Companies (CRCs) could affect the...