Custodial control or community alternatives? : an examination of the impact of the 1982 Criminal Justice Act in one local authority
State intervention with children and young people in conflict with the law is determined at a local level in England and Wales. While the state lays down legislation which provides a framework for sentencing juvenile offenders, the interaction among agencies involved in local juvenile justice systems determines the day to day practice of controlling young people in trouble with the law. Research into one local juvenile justice system examined the cases of all juveniles sentenced to custody or community alternatives from 1983 through 1988. The research raises issues around methodology, race, criteria for custody, social inquiry reports and agency policy towards juvenile offenders and illustrates a research approach which brings researchers, policy makers, and practitioners together in a productive alliance.
Moral panics and punctuated equilibrium in public policy: an analysis of the criminal justice policy agenda in Britain
How and when issues are elevated onto the political agenda is a perennial question for the study of public policy. This paper considers how moral panics contribute to punctuated equilibrium in public policy; whereby a specific event contributes to, or reinforces, change in the dominant set of issue frames on an issue – by encapsulating broader societal anxieties or fears – creating opportunities for policy entrepreneurs to disrupt the existing policy monopoly. In a test of this theory, we assess the factors behind the rise of crime on the policy agenda in Britain between 1960 and 2010. We adopt an integrative mixed methods approach, drawing upon a combination of qualitative and quantitative data. This enables us to analyse the rise of crime as a policy problem, the breakdown of the political-institutional consensus on crime, the moral panic that followed the murder of the toddler James Bulger in 1993, the emergence of new issue frames around crime and social/moral decay more broadly, and how – in combination – these contributed to escalation of political rhetoric and action on crime, led by policy entrepreneurs in the Labour and Conservative parties.
Criminal Justice Act '82 and the Use of Custody
A warning that the new legislation could significantly increase the flow of young persons into custody, with an erosion of custodial standards, and the entrenchment of young offenders in crime. The author calls for a 'moral crusade' to counteract the impetus of the Right in penal policy.