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Interpreting Influence: Towards Reflexivity in Penal Policymaking?

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Reflexivity and Criminal Justice

Abstract

The shift in the nature and effects of penal policymaking in the UK from the 1970s to the present day is a well-told tale, to the extent that it can effectively be told in a series of shorthand phrases: the ‘fall of the Platonic guardians’ (Loader 2006); the ‘rise of the public voice’ (Ryan 2004); and the increasing centrality of ‘penal populism’ (Pratt 2007), leading to a penal arms race (Lacey 2008) within a ‘culture of control’ (Garland 2001). These criminological accounts tend to cast the majority of policymakers—or at least political actors—as cynical and non-reflexive about the effects of their policymaking efforts. Even those who do not cast policymakers in such terms suggest that this is the instrumentally rational response to the broader political climate.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    There are echoes here of Howard Becker’s famous call to sociologists to identify ‘whose side we are on’ (Becker 1967).

  2. 2.

    Relevant offenders must have committed one of 153 ‘specified offences’ and be considered by the trial judge to pose a ‘significant risk to members of the public of serious harm occasioned by the commission by him of further specified offences’: s225(1)(b) Criminal Justice Act 2003.

  3. 3.

    The sentence was abolished in November 2012 by the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012.

  4. 4.

    For a detailed and incisive survey of interpretive approaches, see Wagenaar (2011).

  5. 5.

    See, for example, Blunkett’s public admission of regret in relation to the IPP sentence (Conway 2014).

  6. 6.

    NOMS, the National Offender Management Service, is responsible for prisons and oversees probation services in England and Wales.

  7. 7.

    As will become clear, this conception of ‘evidence’ is importantly distinct from that generally promoted by those operating within an ‘evidence based policy’ paradigm.

  8. 8.

    For a full discussion, see Annison (2015).

  9. 9.

    On this point, see Loader and Sparks (2010: Chap. 5).

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Law, Southampton University, Southampton, UK

    Harry Annison

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  1. Harry Annison
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Sociology, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom

    Sarah Armstrong

  2. Menzies Building, Monash University, School of Social Sciences, Clayton, Australia

    Jarrett Blaustein

  3. Law School, Old College, Edinburgh, United Kingdom

    Alistair Henry

Additional information

The research on which this chapter draws was supported by an Economic and Social Research Council 1+3 Studentship (grant ES/GO10307/1). Thanks to John Boswell, Ian Loader and the editors for comments on earlier drafts. The usual disclaimers apply.

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Annison, H. (2017). Interpreting Influence: Towards Reflexivity in Penal Policymaking?. In: Armstrong, S., Blaustein, J., Henry, A. (eds) Reflexivity and Criminal Justice. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54642-5_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-54642-5_2

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