The Howard Journal of Crime and Justice

Publisher:: Wiley
Publication date:: 2021-02-01

ISBN:: 2059-1098

Issue Number

Latest documents

The Myth of Mob Rule: Violent Crime and Democratic Politics. Lisa L. Miller. New York: Oxford University Press (2016). 272pp. £26.49hb ISBN 9780190228705
The Myth of Mob Rule: Violent Crime and Democratic Politics. Lisa L. Miller. New York: Oxford University Press (2016). 272pp. £26.49hb ISBN 9780190228705
The Myth of Mob Rule: Violent Crime and Democratic Politics. Lisa L. Miller. New York: Oxford University Press (2016). 272pp. £26.49hb ISBN 9780190228705
Contents
Differentiating Contract Killers: A Narrative‐Based Approach
Previous attempts to determine contract killers’ behaviour have not benefited from any formal psychological framework of behavioural distinction. The Narrative Action System model (NAS model; Canter and Youngs 2009) offers an empirical basis for differentiating contract killings and examining the psychological underpinnings of different contract killer styles. The model identifies four major narrative offender types: Professional, Revenger, Hero, and Victim. The present study aims to examine whether these themes can be applied to contract killing. Content analysis of 75 contract killer cases identified 56 crime scene actions. Data were subjected to a non‐metric multidimensional scaling procedure, namely Smallest Space Analysis (SSA‐I). Findings revealed four distinct types of contract killers that could be related to the four modes of offending proposed by the NAS model. Differences in the thematic structure of contract killing offences are discussed, and implications are offered for clinical and investigative purposes.
Forging Selfhood: Social Categorisation and Identity in Arizona's Prison Wildfire Programme
This article examines the expressions of identity for participants in the Inmate Wildfire Program (IWP), a skilled prison labour programme in the US state of Arizona. The identity of imprisoned individuals is deleteriously shaped by the penal regime's construction of the social category ‘criminal’. Yet this process in not totalising. Using evidence drawn from 15 months of ethnographic fieldwork with prison wildfire fighters, I argue that participation in the IWP encourages critical thinking, access to open space, and interactions with the public, which destabilises the label of criminality and allows prisoners to engage in positive forms of identity construction. Prison officials can incorporate aspects of the IWP into other prison programmes in order to promote the construction of non‐carceral identities.
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 findings on such challenges in five local prisons in Malaysia. The primary data were obtained from qualitative interviews with prison rehabilitation officers, parole officers, prisoners, and Parole Board members. The findings reveal that these operational predicaments reconnected not only to the officers’ role, qualification, expertise, and professionalism but also to the policies and priorities of their respective prisons.
Assessing Convicted Traffickers: Negotiating Migration, Employment and Opportunity through Restricted Networks
This article presents a rare insight into convicted ‘traffickers’ and draws on research undertaken using risk assessment data from criminal justice sources relating to those convicted for trafficking offences in the UK between 2004 and 2008. Analysis of these data identified conflicts between the dominant understanding of trafficking and the group of people ultimately convicted for this activity. It is argued that there is a need to contextualise the response to this group with knowledge of their backgrounds often including the structural barriers experienced through migration. Developing an awareness of these offending pathways is important in understanding the nexus between the movement and exploitation of victims and the structures that control access to employment and income as well as for developing effective interventions for those involved in these offences.
Manifest Injustice? The Judiciary as Moderator of Penal Excess in the Sentencing of Youth for Murder
A principled approach to the sentencing of young people requires recognition of their particular mitigating characteristics, including brain development. Contemporary approaches to the sentencing of murder involve mandatory or presumptive sentencing. Legislative allowance for judicial discretion has been suggested as a counterbalance to the punitive effect on young offenders. This article uses New Zealand as a case study to consider whether, and how, judges would exercise a ‘safety valve’ discretionary provision for young offenders. Judges acted (at least in part) to moderate penal excess in the imposition of long minimum periods of imprisonment (MPIs), but it seems that a discretionary sentencing provision of itself will not ensure proportionate and humane sentences for this category of offender. This lends support to the idea that appropriate legislative caps and a requirement of demonstrated risk to public safety for a sentence of imprisonment may be a better avenue for ensuring proportionality.
The Mechanics of Reform: Implementing Correctional Programmes in English Prisons
AbstractDelivering correctional programmes in the prison environment has proved challenging, and desired outcomes have not always been achieved. Drawing on interview data, this article considers the mechanics through which programmes are introduced into English prisons and how the environment shapes what is accomplished. We argue that the operation of programmes is influenced by institutional features (such as values, priorities and resources), situational features (such as the challenges posed by operating in the secure environment), and interactional factors (such as the attitudes of prison staff and the nature of programme‐prison staff relations).