Ethnography of Penal Policy
This project, funded by the ESRC, is using the techniques and perspective of ethnography to study penal reform at a key moment in Scottish history. An ethnographic approach involves close up observation and immersion in the world it aims to document. Over the past 18 months, Sarah has been both working on and tracing the changes taking place in penal policy as various actors - civil servants, politicians, academics, local residents, prisoners, professionals, among others - participate in efforts to change Scotland's entrenched pattern of high prison populations. The project thus takes an anthropological approach to the study of policy, for example by treating policy documents as cultural texts. The research is also informed by an actor network theoretical orientation that views policy documents and other materials and practices as essential to making sense of change as the people who generate them. The aim of the project is to provide a holistic and integrated account that can answer a very simple question: how do you get things to change? The project began in September 2008 and is due to conclude in September 2010.
'Siting Prisons, Sighting Communities: The Case of Addiewell Prison in Scotland' Presentation at Oxford Workshop on Penal Geographies, 22 June 2010
'Prisms of Prisons: Policy's Objects in Scottish Penal Reform' (Powerpoint) ; Article Version (Word)Presentation at Interpretive Policy Analysis Meeting, Grenoble, 24 June 2010
'Payback and Punishment: Metaphors in Scottish Penal Reform' (Powerpoint) and Payback and Punishment Handout (Word) Presentation at RaAM8 Amsterdam conference
Project Contacts
All Projects
- A Comparative Analysis of Community Service in Belgium, Holland, Scotland and Spain
- Policing organised crime: effectively measuring performance
- Restorative Practices for Serious Adult Offenders
- 'Holistic' interventions with women involved in the criminal justice system.
- A profile of female offenders within the Lothian and Borders
- A Rapid Evidence Assessment of the Drivers of Perception of Anti-Social Behaviour
- Alcohol Misuse and Domestic Abuse
- All Change
- An investigation into the environmental impact of off-license premises on residential neighbourhoods
- Analysing the Scottish Crime Survey Over Time
- Analysis of Supervision Skills by Juvenile Justice Workers
- AQMeN
- Assessing Dynamic Risk in Intimate Partner Offenders
- Assessing Risk in Intimate Partner Offenders
- Audit of a sample of alcohol outlets in Glasgow
- Building Safer Communities: ESRC Engaging with Scottish Local Authorities initiaitve
- Circles of Support and Accountability
- Collaboration of Researchers for the Effective Development of Offender Supervision (CREDOS)
- Community Policing in Scotland
- Comparing Crime Surveys Across the UK
- Compliance with Community Penalties
- Consensus / Consenso
- Crime and Justice Research Training and Development
- Cultural Change in Community Justice
- Desistance and Reducing Reoffending
- Different Systems, Similar Outcomes? Tracking Attrition in Reported Rape Cases
- Diversion from Prosecution to Social Work
- Drinking and Drug Use in the Community: A Survey of Young Offenders, 2007
- Economics of Crime
- Ethnography of Penal Policy
- Ethnography Reading Group
- European Postgraduate and Early Stage Researchers Working Group
- European Society of Criminology Working Group on Community Sanctions
- Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Home Detention Curfew (HDC) and the Prison's Open Estate
- Evaluation of the Grampian Return Home Welfare Interview (RHWI) pilot
- Evaluation of the National Parenting Development Project Project (NPDP, Aberlour Child Care Trust).
- Evaluation of the Women in Focus Programme
- Evaluation of Up-to-us Young Women’s Project
- Families of Nations and Criminal Justice Outcomes
- Football Banning Orders in Scotland: Evaluating their operation
- Gender Equality Duty and Scottish Criminal Justice - EOC Guidance
- Implicit Thinking in Intimate Partner violence
- Incarceration, social control and human rights.
- Juvenile Justice in New South Wales
- Learning about alcohol: Influences of family context
- Metaphors in Policy
- Organised Crime Mapping Project
- Pathways to Recovery Seminar Series
- Policy Responses to Gender Based Crime in Scotland
- Prison Privatisation
- Probation Histories
- Quality of Engagement in Probation Practice
- Racism and social marginalisation research study
- Reconviction among Drug Court participants
- Reconviction among young people sentenced in the pilot Youth Courts
- Restorative Justice Survey for Criminal Justice Professionals
- SCJS User Guide
- Scoping Study into Quantitative Methods Capacity Building in Scotland
- Scottish Prisons Commission Report
- Services for Young Runaways: A Scoping Study
- Social Enquiry and Sentencing in the Sheriff Courts
- The Governance of Security and the Analysis of Risk for Sporting Mega-events: Security Planning for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games
- The International Market in Illicit Antiquities
- Understanding the drivers of the female prison population in Scotland
- User Views of Punishment
- Using the Scottish Offenders Index for Research
- Women, Punishment and Community Sanctions - Human Rights and Social Justice
- Working Lunches at Flo House
- Young Women and Violence
- Youth Gangs and Knife Carrying
- Youth Violence in Scotland
