Institute of Criminology

The phenomenon of child sexual abuse has been widely acknowledged across many societies, including Ghana. Efforts to address this problem in Ghana have yielded limited success because this type of child abuse is severely underreported. This study explores the relevance of three cultural factors, namely, patriarchal nuances, (child) rape myth acceptance, and a “collective shame problem,” to the understanding of the problem of nondisclosure of child sexual abuse in Ghana. Evidence from an exploratory study provides support for the importance of these factors. The findings are discussed and the need for further research highlighted.

Resettlement and correctional practices have been severely damaged by the ‘othering’ process in which offenders are not only seen as external enemies determined by their circumstances, but also as distinctive individuals who must be integrated and transformed into ‘us’. As Young (2011, 64) pointed out, ‘Ontological insecurity gives rise to a desire for clear-cut delineations, and for othering: it generates a binary of those in society and those without it, which is seen to correspond to the normal, on the one side, and the deviant and criminal on the other’. According to this view, individuals are divided between offenders and non-offenders and desistance is understood as a radical transformation in which offenders not only have to stop committing crimes completely, but also have to overcome all their social deficits by changing their lifestyle, identities, values, and aspirations.

Can a prison in the Netherlands, that is neither ‘Dutch’ nor ‘Norwegian’, be ‘legitimate?’ What are the moral challenges? Our study of the controversial Norgerhaven project—a Norwegian prison located in the Netherlands—found that this ‘experiment’ generated one of the most reflexive, ‘deliberative’ prisons we have encountered. Officials involved in the decision assumed that the two jurisdictions were alike in their values. Few were prepared for the differences that arose. This hybrid prison made punishment, the use of authority, and the meanings of fairness, professionalism and discipline unusually explicit as staff negotiated their practices, creating a shift from ‘practical’ to ‘discursive’ consciousness and exposing many of the complexities of liberal penal power.

This article has three main purposes: (1) To describe an in-prison methodology for measuring the moral quality of life, developed organically out of experience and necessity. It is conducted over an intense but exceptionally brief period of time. (2) To reveal and reflect on our intellectual methodology: how do we describe, think, interpret and theorise about prison life in our work together, especially in a transnational team? (3) Finally, to consider the benefits and challenges of collaboration and intense immersion across national boundaries, in a study of Norgerhaven prison in the Netherlands. We found that our own implicit prison moralities varied significantly, as we worked together to describe a prison that surprised us, and our participants, hugely.

Can a prison in the Netherlands, that is neither ‘Dutch’ nor ‘Norwegian’, be ‘legitimate?’ What are the moral challenges? Our study of the controversial Norgerhaven project—a Norwegian prison located in the Netherlands—found that this ‘experiment’ generated one of the most reflexive, ‘deliberative’ prisons we have encountered. Officials involved in the decision assumed that the two jurisdictions were alike in their values. Few were prepared for the differences that arose. This hybrid prison made punishment, the use of authority, and the meanings of fairness, professionalism and discipline unusually explicit as staff negotiated their practices, creating a shift from ‘practical’ to ‘discursive’ consciousness and exposing many of the complexities of liberal penal power.

User Voice commissioned Monica Barry and Beth Weaver of the University of Strathclyde – in association with Mark Liddle, ARCS Ltd, Bethany Schmidt, University of Cambridge, and with input from Shadd Maruna, Rosie Meek, and Judy Renshaw - to assess the implementation, operation and short-term outcomes of the Council model of prisoner/service user participation/integration. These Prison and Community Councils were located in six prisons and three CRC areas across England, namely HM Prisons Durham and Northumberland and the Northumbria CRC; HM Prisons Oakwood and Birmingham and the Staffordshire and West Midlands CRC; and HM Prisons Wormwood Scrubs and Pentonville and the London CRC. These sites were at different stages of implementing Councils; some Prison Councils had only been operating for months whereas others had been operating for four or more years, and the Community Councils had been operating for between a year and five years. These differences in stages of implementation - i...

This chapter considers the relationships between criminology and the worlds of penal policy and practice. It focuses in particular on the day-to-day interactions the authors of the chapter forge in their research lives and on their ‘effects’ and failures as ‘engaged criminologists’. The chapter supports forms of criminological engagement that are subtle, long term and relational rather than occasional, mechanical, linear, or instrumental, and proposes that these forms of engagement improve understanding but require constant reflection and negotiation. This chapter argues that knowledge-generation is slow and cumulative; it takes time to ‘read a situation’ in complex human and social environments and it should be an iterative process with the research community and the world of practice teaching, learning from each other at every step of the way. Research participants welcome a ‘full’ research presence of the kind described in this chapter. For knowledge to ‘do good’, it needs to be ...

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 little resettlement support and things sometimes went wrong as soon as they were released, not because of any ‘moral failings’ on their part, but because they could not even navigate the journey ‘home’. It looked like everything we know cumulatively about ‘better prisons’, but its prisoners were failed as they transitioned out. More ‘tragic imagination’ is required in penal policy.