Criminal Justice Process and Institutions
Criminal justice processes and institutions are used by the government or state to maintain social control, deter and control crime, and sanction those who violate laws. Key institutions involved in the Scottish criminal justice process include the police, the courts, Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service and correctional institutions (prisons etc).
SCCJR’s work on this topic includes research on formal practices (such as policing, prosecution, sentencing and sanctioning) and less formal alternatives (such as restorative justice). We have a particular expertise in relation to youth justice and community penalties.
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Scottish Universities-Prisons Network
The Scottish UP Network brings together those currently running or interested in university initiatives in Scottish prisons. It provides a forum for: learning about initiatives; collecting resources to support and develop activities as well as sharing and reflecting on practices; building collaborations within Scotland and beyond; and developing strategies of evaluation, to define and understand...
IMPRODOVA
IMPRODOVA is a 36-month European Commission funded research and innovation project which is focused on the human factors shaping institutional responses to domestic abuse. The research involves 8 countries (Austria, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Portugal, Scotland, Slovenia), and 16 project partners and is being conducted by Professor Michele Burman, Dr Oona Brooks and Dr Lisa Bradley, all...
Justice Journeys: Informing policy and practice through lived experience
The principal focus of this research is on rape and sexual assault victim-survivors’ end-to-end experiences of the criminal justice system. It comprises in-depth interviews with 17 participants, whose cases reached varying stages of the criminal justice process in Scotland, including through to trial and conviction. The research aims to gain fuller understanding of: rape and sexual assault...
Reconviction among Drug Court participants
The aim of the project was to assess whether the pilot drug courts had successful in bringing about reductions in re-offending by comparing drug court reconviction rates with reconviction rates among similar offenders sentenced elsewhere. The analysis compared recidivism among drug court participants sentenced over a period of 4 years with reconviction among offenders given DTTOs in Glasgow and...
Reconviction among young people sentenced in the pilot Youth Courts
This project was to assess whether the pilot Youth Courts were more effective in bringing about reductions in recidivism, reconviction among Youth Court cases was compared with reconviction among three other groups of cases: those sentenced in the sheriff summary court and those sentenced in two comparator Sheriff Summary Courts over a similar period of time. The work was requested by the...
Understanding the drivers of the female prison population in Scotland
SCCJR are undertaking some analysis aimed at identifying factors that may have contributed to the increased use of female imprisonment in Scotland. The number of women imprisoned in Scotland has risen dramatically over the last 10-15 years (as it has done in other western jurisdictions) prompting questions as to the factors that have brought about this change. In seeking to explore this issue...
Assessing Dynamic Risk in Intimate Partner Offenders
This project, which was conducted in 2009, was sponsored by the Scottish government and involved reviewing literature to develop a comprehensive risk assessment approach for intimate partner offenders which would be open to dynamic change, thus capable of reflecting the impact of treatment groups and other interventions within the criminal justice system. This was undertaken by Prof. E.
Assessing Risk in Intimate Partner Offenders
This project was sponsored by the Risk Management Authority and was undertaken 2009-2010. This involved critical appraisal of the literature and evidence base in IPV risk assessment and producing a paper to inform the Risk Management Authority’s guidance on IPV risk Assessment and management. The work was undertaken by Prof. Liz Gilchrist and is currently informing policy advice...
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...
A Rapid Evidence Assessment of the Drivers of Perception of Anti-Social Behaviour
This rapid evidence assessment was requested and funded by the Home Office in 2009. Non-SCCJR colleagues John Flint and Sadie Parr were also members of the project team. The report is available here...
Evaluation of Up-to-us Young Women’s Project
Evaluation of the Up-2-Us Time for Change Project This is an evaluation of the pilot Up-2-Us Time for Change Project, which is a gender-specific service targeted at young women aged between 14 and 18 years deemed to be at significantly high risk of admission to secure care or custody. The research takes a multi-dimensional perspective, by undertaking a set of qualitative interviews...
Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Home Detention Curfew (HDC) and the Prison’s Open Estate
The Scottish Government has contracted with SCCJR to evaluate the effectiveness of these two schemes of graduated release from prisons. The project began in February 2010 and is scheduled to be complete at the end of September 2010. The evaluation involes statistical analysis of the trends of use and breach of HDC and open prisons, an assessment of the costs and benefits of the schemes and...
Analysis of Supervision Skills by Juvenile Justice Workers
This research, funded by the Australian Criminology Research Council, is examining the nature and effectiveness of different styles of supervision of offenders. The research is being conducted in collaboration with the Department of Juvenile Justice in New South Wales. The study sample will include 50 juvenile justice workers and 200 juvenile justice clients (four clients for each worker). Data...
A profile of female offenders within the Lothian and Borders
Understanding the characteristics and needs of women in the criminal justice system is a first step towards the development of effective interventions and services that can divert female offenders from imprisonment and support their desistance from crime. This study, funded by the Lothian and Borders Community Justice Authority, described and analysed the characteristics and needs of women...
Evaluation of the Women in Focus Programme
The Women in Focus Programme is aimed at reducing the number of women imprisoned from the South West Scotland Community Justice Authority area by offering additional support within the framework of a statutory order. The research, funded by the South West Scotland Community Justice Authority, is assessing the effectiveness of the programme in reducing levels of breach and levels of custody...
Women, Punishment and Community Sanctions – Human Rights and Social Justice
The core objective of the programme will be to draw upon international knowledge and expertise to critically assess cross cultural responses to lawbreaking by women with a particular emphasis upon human rights and social justice. The programme will focus upon comparative experiences of community sanctions for women, an area that has received relatively little academic and policy attention. In...
A Comparative Analysis of Community Service in Belgium, Holland, Scotland and Spain
This project is being undertaken for a special issue of the European Journal of Probation. An analytical framework has been adopted to describe the development, implementation and evolution of unpaid work by offenders in each country and to identify contemporary issues and challenges. A further comparative paper is focusing on identifying similarities and differences across jurisdictions, and how...
User Views of Punishment
Sarah Armstrong (Glasgow University) and Beth Weaver (Strathclyde University) conducted research, in cooperation with the Scottish Prison Service, into the experience of doing short prison sentences and community-based sentences (probation, community service). We explored what those affected by these punishments are going through and how such sentences help or hinder the ability to reduce...
Working Lunches at Ivy Lodge
Working Lunches are held from 12.30pm to 2pm on Wednesdays in the ASRF Meeting Room, 66 Oakfield Avenue, Glasgow. They provide an informal space in which to discuss research ideas, whether this comes from work in progress, work we are thinking about doing or a common reading. We welcome visitors and have a small budget to offset costs of travel for anyone seeking a forum in which to discuss...
Consensus / Consenso
SCCJR, in collaboration with Xunta de Galicia, Spain and 4 other international partners, were awarded a grant under the European Commission, DG Freedom, Justice and Security: Framework Partnership ‘Prevention of and Fight Against Crime 2007’ for a project identifying, analysing and disseminating existing good practices in restorative juvenile justice across six...
Community Policing in Scotland
This AHRC funded knowledge transfer project runs from Jan 2009 to Dec 2011. It involves working with the Scottish police to interrogate available conceptual models of community policing and develop best practice in Scotland. The project has its own website at http://police.sccjr.ac.uk/ It involves a range of activities and outputs which will be posted to that site through the life of the project.
Racism and social marginalisation research study
Discrimination and social marginalisation are major stumbling blocks to integration and community cohesion. In particular, discrimination and racial abuse can lead to social marginalisation and alienation that, in turn, might be one set of factors leading some individuals to develop attitudes, and even activities, supporting criminal movements and their use of violence. With funding from the...
Families of Nations and Criminal Justice Outcomes
There is a long history within Social Policy of identifying groups of countries who share common policy outcomes (typified by the work of Gøsta Esping-Andersen, 1990, and Francis Castles, 1998). This work built on the recent work of Paul Norris (2007) by looking at how the groups of nations identified in other areas of Social Policy may relate to differences in criminal justice...
Scottish Prisons Commission Report
In July 2008, the Scottish Prisons Commission published its report, setting out an ambitious vision of penal reform. Sarah Armstrong and Fergus McNeill acted as academic advisers during the latter stages of the Commission’s work. The report, ‘Scotland’s Choice: Report of the Scottish Prisons Commission’, argued that a nation’s use of prison is partly an expression of...
Metaphors in Policy
Metaphors are not merely ornamental, they fundamentally shape how we know things. The use of passive language and particular prepositions when discussing womens’ offending (see the report ‘Women Offenders: A Safer Way’), for example, is the deployment of a metaphor of women as victims. The metaphors used to describe integration of public sector activities, such as...
Evaluation of the National Parenting Development Project Project (NPDP, Aberlour Child Care Trust).
This was a four year evaluation of the National Parenting Development Project which examined the strategic and direct impact of the project. This involved an examination of the collaborative work between NPDP and the Programmes Unit at HMP and YOI Cornton Vale where a pilot project has been introduced aimed at assisting women prisoners to address issues of separation...
European Society of Criminology Working Group on Community Sanctions
The European Society of Criminology has recently established a new Working Group on Community Sanctions. The group, which is open to members of the ESC, aims to stimulate critical comparative research on community sanctions in European jurisdictions. For more details, see: http://esc-eurocrim.org/workgroups.shtml#sanctions or contact Fergus McNeill at F.McNeill@sccjr.ac.uk...
Collaboration of Researchers for the Effective Development of Offender Supervision
CREDOS is an international network of researchers, and policy and practice partners in research, who share a common interest in the effective development of offender supervision. It was established following a seminar in Prato, Italy in September 2007 and aims to support, encourage and engage in high quality, collaborative and comparative research and scholarship.
An investigation into the environmental impact of off-license premises on residential neighbourhoods
The project was funded by the Alcohol Education Research Council (AERC) and has been conducted with Neil Davidson, now at the Scottish Institute for Policing Research, University of Dundee, and Jemma C Lennox of the Department of Psychology, Glasgow Caledonian University. As well as field observation and expert interview, this groundbreaking research has pioneered the use of digital photography...
Cultural Change in Community Justice
SCCJR was commissioned by the Scottish Government to prepare a brief literature review which explores cultural change in community justice. This is intended to inform the ongoing work of a Performance Improvement Strategy Group which is trying to develop the effectiveness and quality of criminal justice social work in Scotland, as part of the Reducing Reoffending agenda. The basic idea is...
Desistance and Reducing Reoffending
Desistance from crime – the process through which people cease and refrain from offending – is a research topic that is of significant import for criminal justice policy and practice. Staff of the SCCJR have already made a number of contributions to debates about how policy and practice could and should respond to the findings of desistance research. For...
Compliance with Community Penalties
This project is a collaboration with Dr Gwen Robinson at the University of Sheffield. At the moment we are awaiting a decision from the ESRC about funding the research. The focus of the project is on exploring the dynamics of compliance with community supervision. This is an area of considerable policy and practice significance, particularly in penal systems concerned about the...
Probation Histories
This project was funded by the British Academy and ran from March 2008-winter 2009. The basic idea was to collect oral histories of probation in Scotland by interviewing former probation officers and former probationers who experienced probation in the 1950s and 60s, prior to the demise of the Scottish Probation Service after the Social Work (Scotland) Act 1968. The reason for our...
Social Enquiry and Sentencing in the Sheriff Courts
This ESRC funded research project was a collaboration led by Simon Halliday, Neil Hutton and Cyrus Tata at the University of Strathclyde. The study used ethnographic methods to study the production of social enquiry (or pre-sentence) reports and their use by sentencers. A summary report of the project’s findings can be found in project documents, along with some related recent...