Centre for Crime and Justice Studies

Centre Co-Director speaks about the importance of lived experience voices at national event on diversion - Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre Professor Adam Crawford led a key roundtable discussion on the importance of listening to the voices of people with lived experience.

Our Co-Director Professor @adamcrawford.bsky.social led a roundtable discussion on the importance of listening to the voices of people with lived experience at @crimeandjustice.bsky.social's event on diversion last week.

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vulnerabilitypolicing.org.uk/news/centre-...

📣 Read CJA Trustee Dr Thomas McNeil's latest working paper, written for @crimeandjustice.bsky.social

The paper reflects on the key challenges to organisational change and cultural reform in policing, analysing community rehabilitation initiatives.

www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/diversion-we...

Policy and communications officer | Centre for Crime and Justice Studies | CharityJob Apply now for Policy and communications officer. , £35,266 per year, find a career with meaning today

We’re currently recruiting for a policy and communications officer

Great job for the right candidate

On the downside, you’ll be working with me quite a bit of the time

www.charityjob.co.uk/jobs/centre-...

Smart, self-critical and less patronising

Is it time for a rethink on the way criminal justice reformers do criminal justice reform?

My latest commentary on what’s what

www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/smart-self-c...

New report out today: Understanding Dual Contact for Women

In this @crimeandjustice.bsky.social Working Paper, our Head of Policy Kirsty Kitchen discusses the significant, but largely neglected, overlap between the criminal justice system and children’s social care.

bit.ly/3Ul7kb8

The criminalisation of young adults Centre for Crime and Justice Studies examines how the criminal justice system is processing young adults

The criminalisation of young adults
Liat Tuv of CCJS examines how the CJS is processing young adults and reveals that young women are being inappropriately detained, while Black defendants are facing tougher penalties than White defendants.
www.russellwebster.com/the-criminal...

Find out more about our new report on the criminalisation of young adults – Smaller, but tougher – here

#SmallerButTougher

www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/new-report-c...

However, unreliable ethnicity data makes it harder to work out the trends for the smaller, marginalised groups within the criminal justice system

This is particularly the case for young Black women, whose experiences and outcomes are not captured in the general trends

Young women are more likely to held in pre-trial detention for offences that do not ultimately lead to a prison sentence than young men

Meanwhile, White young adults appear to be getting more lenient sentences than their Black counterparts

Smaller, but tougher

Our new report, out today, reveals that fewer young adults are being sent to prison than a decade ago, but those who are imprisoned are getting much longer sentences

#SmallerButTougher

Mano Dura v. Uneasy Peace in El Salvador: Effects of Tough-on-Crime and Gang Truce Policies in the Former Murder Capital of the World Abstract. Until recently, El Salvador had one of the world’s highest homicide rates, largely driven by criminal groups. Since 2003, the government attempte

Interesting new research out in the British Journal of Criminology

Homicides in El Salvador rose when tough on crime policies were pursued, and fell when policies based on truces and negotiation with and between gangs were followed

academic.oup.com/bjc/advance-...

We received many insightful and thought-provoking essays, thank you to everyone who took the time to take part. Thank you also to the judges: Ben Cockburn (NAPO National Chair), Ruth Bloomfield (MOPAC), Paul Weatherstone (Probation Service) and Jake Phillips (University of Cambridge).

The other commended essay, by Ben Entwistle, looks at the concept of professional identity in probation.
www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/strong-passi...

One of the commended essays, by Christine Munn, takes the quest for the meaning of professionalism into the past as well as the present.
www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/quest-what-%...

In the highly commended essay, Jamal Hylton explores the view of professionalism from the frontline.
www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/concept-prof...

This year’s essay question was: What does professionalism mean in probation? In the winning essay, Anne Burrell reflects on the meanings of professionalism in probation practice over time.
www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/reflections-...

Mike was a dedicated probation officer and active Napo member. He often contributed thoughtful pieces on probation for our website, you can find all of these here: www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/author/mike-...

We have now published all the commended essays (and the winner) of the inaugural Mike Guilfoyle Essay Prize. The annual competition, run with @napotheunion.bsky.social , honours Mike’s memory by encouraging reflections on all that is valuable and important in probation.

Approach with caution: Does the UK have anything to learn from Texas?
A rare opportunity to hear from Michele Deitch, one of the foremost US experts on prisons and sentencing policy.
@crimeandjustice.bsky.social event 21 July lunchtime
www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/approach-cau...

BJC Virtual Issue 2025 Francis Pakes and Lisa Sugiura The theme for the 2025 British Society of Criminology conference is Criminology for Social Justice. It centres criminology as a

What's the best way to prepare for #BSC2025?

We recommend reading BJC’s new virtual issue, which explores how #criminology can advance social justice — expertly curated by @francispakes.bsky.social and @drlisasugiura.bsky.social.

:et us know your thoughts 💭

🔗 https://oxford.ly/3HYHarS

‘Prison was the first place we felt sisterhood’: six women return to the ruins of Holloway In an astonishing new documentary, former inmates go back to the cells that once held them – and reflect on what led them there in the first place. The result is a powerful indictment of our justice s...

‘Prison was the first place we felt sisterhood’: six women return to the ruins of Holloway
In an astonishing new documentary, former inmates go back to the cells that once held them. The result is a powerful indictment of our justice system
www.theguardian.com/film/2025/ju...

My latest commentary on our current crop of politicians

Burdened by the past and fearful of the future, they are stuck in a doom loop

www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/building-bet...

The event will be held online, with a select number of places available for in-person attendance

More information and to book you place

www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/echoes-tomor...

Join us for our next event, Echoes of tomorrow, on 24 June

We’ll be discussing how on present-day criminal justice policy-making is haunted by past decisions and anticipations of what the future might hold

Any Sentencing Review must surely be just a first step in the long promised fundamental appraisal of our entire neglected desperately underfunded Justice system.

A couple of quick thoughts on the Sentencing Review, due out today

Successive governments and parliaments have been persistent offenders: driving up sentence lengths, pitching the prison system into recurring crises, then casting around for fixes for the mess they have created

The prison population level is “unacceptable”

“There is no money available for the construction of expensive new prisons and many worthwhile schemes to improve the lot of both staff and inmate have had to be postponed or cancelled”

Written in 1977, but could have been today

When was this written?

“Many members of the Prison Service... have lived in hope for years of seeing, not merely adequate resources to end the sheer physical chaos of overcrowding, but recognition of and encouragement for the positive and imaginative part of their work”

Pick of the week

The Guardian recommends the four-part ‘In it together’ podcast on joint enterprise we produced with @jengba.bsky.social

All episodes now out. Listen to it wherever you get your podcasts

In It Together: The Joint Enterprise Podcast is produced by EarWorm (@melissafitzg.bsky.social & @smlangers.bsky.social), and edited by our Head of Programmes in collaboration with @jengba.bsky.social. This series was kindly funded by the Institute of Now and the Barry Amiel & Norman Melburn Trust.