New Labour – New Penology? Punitive Rhetoric and the Limits of Managerialism in Criminal Justice Policy

Date01 September 1998
Published date01 September 1998
DOIhttp://doi.org/10.1111/1467-6478.00094
This paper argues that New Labour’s ‘tough’ stance on law and order
has given rise to a criminal justice policy which is based on fundamental
contradictions and which involves a substantial retreat from traditional
socialist thinking on crime. The continuation of a populist punitive
approach ensures the predominance in policy making of a ‘criminology
of the other’ which, in turn, sustains a ‘punishment deficit’ which fuels
public expectations that crime can be controlled effectively by a policy
of deterrence through punishment. This populist punitiveness, it is argued,
is at odds with another strand of government penal policy, the attempt
to secure greater efficiencies and economies by an intensification of
managerialism throughout the criminal justice system.
CRIME AND PUNISHMENT UNDER NEW LABOUR
In the 1997 general election the Labour Party highlighted the issues of crime
and fear of crime in ways quite unprecedented in its history.1Rather than
merely trying to neutralize their opponents’ traditional electoral advantage
on this issue, Labour campaigned to establish itself in the public’s mind
as the party most likely to instigate ‘tough’ and effective measures against
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998, 108 Cowley Road, Oxford OX4 1JF, UK and 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148, USA
* Sheffield Hallam University, Sheffield S1 1WB, England
Earlier versions of this article were presented to the 1997 SPTL Annual Conference at Warwick
University. I also wish to thank Andrew Ashworth, David Campbell, Mary Seneviratne, Peter
Vincent-Jones, and two anonymous referees for their helpful suggestions.
313
JOURNAL OF LAW AND SOCIETY
VOLUME 25, NUMBER 3, SEPTEMBER 1998
ISSN: 0263–323X, pp. 313–35
New Labour – New Penology?
Punitive Rhetoric and the Limits of Managerialism in Criminal
Justice Policy
IAN BROWNLEE*
1D. Downes and R. Morgan, ‘Dumping the “hostages to fortune”? The politics of law and
order in post-war Britain’ in The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, eds. M. Maguire, R.
Morgan, and R. Reiner (1997).
law-breakers. In its first year in office the new government has done and
said a great deal to demonstrate that it means to deliver on its election
promises in this politically sensitive policy area.
A ban on the private ownership of handguns and the appointment of a
drugs ‘Tsar’ to co-ordinate the effort against drug-related crime have been
followed by the introduction of a wide-ranging (and much trailered) Crime
and Disorder Bill. Among its ninety-six clauses the Bill contains provisions
for the establishment of ‘anti-social behaviour orders’ aimed at curbing
‘harassment, alarm or distress’ caused by ‘criminal neighbours’. Although
essentially civil injunctions, breaches of these orders (which will be obtained
by the police or the local authority acting in concert) will constitute triable-
either-way criminal offences punishable by a fine or a maximum of six
months imprisonment in the magistrates’ courts or five years imprisonment
in the Crown Court.2The Bill also provides for reform of the youth justice
system through an extensive range of measures. A youth justice board will
be established to promote good practice by the setting of national standards.
New penalties are to be introduced for young offenders which will require
them to make reparation to their victims, or to the community as a whole,
either as a condition of a supervision order, or as a sentence in its own right.
Courts will also have powers to impose a new community penalty requiring
a young offender to comply with an ‘action plan’ intended to address his
or her offending behaviour. In addition, the present system of police caution-
ing will be replaced for young offenders by a regime of reprimands and final
warnings, the latter resulting in referral to a youth offending team for
assessment and possible participation in a programme designed to prevent
re-offending. In what is clearly meant to be an ‘up-tariffing’ addendum to
the new regime, the Bill provides that courts will not normally be able to
deal with a young offender by way of a conditional discharges for two years
after the issuing of a final warning. Action to force parents to take more
responsibility for offending children and to attend counselling and guidance
sessions to help them cope with their wayward offspring is also included in
the Bill and there are to be new powers for local councils to impose curfew
hours on children under ten. Provisions for adult offenders include extended
post-release supervision of violent and sexual offenders.
Beyond the Crime and Disorder Bill, the government has also moved to
implement parts of the controversial Crime (Sentences) Act 1997 it inherited
from the Conservatives, including the provisions regarding automatic life
sentences for a second conviction for a serious sexual or violent offence,
mandatory minimum sentences of seven years for a third class-A drug
trafficking conviction, and the abolition of consent requirements for certain
314
© Blackwell Publishers Ltd 1998
2Labour’s proposals for these hybrid orders have drawn criticism from an array of distin-
guished criminal lawyers: see A. von Hirsch, A. Ashworth, M. Wasik, A.T.H. Smith,
R. Morgan, and J. Gardner, ‘Overtaking on the Right’ (1995) 145 New Law J. 1501;
A. Rutherford, ‘A Bill to be Tough on Crime’ (1998) 148 New Law J. 13.

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