School of Law/ Criminal Justice

The book has been designed with 7 interconnecting chapters. These chapters relate to a section of the website and link with separate areas where charities or universities work. The purpose of this book is to be read as a stand-alone book, become part of a criminology degree curriculum or used by practitioners or prisoners. 

Chapter 1 - History/ Feminism/ Prison Reform vs Abolition
Chapter 2 – Around the World – Data and Case Studies
Chapter 3 – Human Rights and Violations, including Solitary Confinement
Chapter 4 - Legal Issues – including sentencing, Brexit,
Chapter 5 – Supporting Women – information about health, substance abuse, mental health
Chapter 6 – Family Matters – visits, pregnancy, mothers and other family members
Chapter 7 –Resettlement, Employability, Future Directions

There is a huge gap in the current market for information that is readable, usable and in one place about women, their rights and the support they need when they are involved with the Criminal Justice system.

Since the enactment of the Human Rights Act 1998, breach of confidence has been rapidly reconfigured to become a key vehicle for the preservation of individual privacy in accordance with Article 8.  This development has formed a significant countervailing force to the excesses of a powerful and increasingly intrusive tabloid media which seeks to profit from the exploitation of commercially valuable personal information.  But the rapid evolution in breach of confidence has generated a range of concerns about the suitability of employing an equitable doctrine traditionally geared towards safeguarding commercial trade secrets to protect a fundamental human right.  Commentators have questioned whether post-HRA caselaw has resulted in a distortion of the confidence action and a lack of coherence in the justifications underpinning this area

This article considers recent caselaw and commentary in this area, paying specific attention to the way in which breach of confidence and Articles 8 & 10 have interacted and merged.  It argues that despite legitimate concerns from commentators about early directions in this area, recent judgments have yielded clarification and improvement.  Breach of confidence has been colonised and dominated by the ongoing complex opposition between Articles 8 and 10.  But vitally, confidence also appears to have been gradually discarded as privacy protection takes its own shape as an independent action that co-exists alongside ‘classic’ confidence.  However, remnants of confidence still have background roles to play in privacy disputes where a ‘new methodology’ is applied.

This article investigates UK judicial engagement with the war and related foreign affairs prerogatives, specifically considering developments in judicial review since 2002.  It outlines the comparative strengthening of judicial checks on high policy prerogatives during this period, but finds that such advances have had minimal impact in real terms; case outcomes remain unaltered and prerogatives in this area are still afforded special treatment by the judiciary.  The specific aim of this article is to identify underlying reasons why, despite appearances, there has been no actual material departure from the traditional GCHQ position which ring-fenced such prerogatives as immune from judicial scrutiny.  To this end it conducts a detailed analysis of caselaw, identifying and discussing two interrelated reasons. 

First, in war and foreign affairs matters the judiciary employ boundaries between law and non-law, specifically eliminating political or policy issues from their concern.  However, attempting to maintain the ‘internal purity’ of law involves judicial concessions in other respects; the way in which the courts apply boundaries is selective and inconsistent, ultimately acting to favour the government of the day.

Second, knowledge or expertise is a key factor underlying judicial approaches in war, defence and foreign affairs.  Executive views in this area have always enjoyed precedence in the courtroom and this is logically justified on the basis that government has superior expertise and exclusive access to information in this area.  The precedence of executive views has continued in recent caselaw, undermining the appearance of strengthening judicial checks.  The weight that courts afford government evidence in such areas is, for the most part, institutionally mandatory and it must therefore be concluded that the courts are incapable of effectively checking ministerial prerogative in war and related foreign affairs.

This article investigates the Crown within the British constitution and gauges its influence upon the decision to deploy troops in Iraq. It considers the functioning of parliamentary checks upon the Prime Ministerial war prerogative in the Iraq decision, specifically the parliamentary debate and vote on March 18, 2003. It identifies how the premiership's colonisation of the Crown enabled Mr Blair to obtain parliamentary approval for warfare despite extensive opposition to the deployment. The appearance of strengthening parliamentary involvement in warfare decisions was largely undercut by, amongst other factors, a cluster of prime ministerial Crown-based prerogatives. Ultimately, the Iraq affair demonstrates that the Crown is not a quaint constitutional abstraction but has real influence on issues of the utmost importance. The notion of monarch remains a subtle but powerful influence in the British prime ministerial war power legally, structurally and culturally, and parliamentary checks in this context may be thus institutionally limited.

Part 1 of the Civil Contingencies Act 2004 provides a framework that governs the planning and preparations for a wide range of potential emergencies. It requires the engagement and cooperation of numerous 'public' bodies including central government, local authorities and the emergency services, as well as a range of 'private' organisations such as utilities companies. It is apparent that information plays a fundamental role in the Part 1 planning provisions and associated guidance. This article will focus on one specific information-related provision, namely the duty to maintain plans to warn and inform the public in the event of an emergency. It undertakes detailed analysis of the CCA provisions, secondary legislation and extensive government guidance regarding informing the public and related media-handling. It will analyse these measures in light of two competing organisational models identified by Walker and Broderick as being present across various CCA arrangements. The tensions between traditional authoritarian 'command' structures on the one hand, and more flexible, de-centralised arrangements on the other, are particularly pronounced in the context of informing the public. They reflect the challenges of maintaining political authority whilst handling and disseminating information that is fluid and in nature and evades control.

Misuse of private information (MPI) governs media privacy disputes in English law. The second stage of this doctrine involves a balancing exercise conducted between a claimant's Article 8 privacy right and a defendant's Article 10 right to free expression. Though the starting point is that both rights are of equal value, the balancing process entails an inevitable privileging of one right over the other (albeit tailored to the specific facts of each case). This article focuses on this privileging process and explores the principles that determine which right will prevail in any given case. It applies the analytical technique of deconstruction propounded by Derrida as employed by American critical lawyers. This technique involves identifying binary oppositions, ascertaining the dominant concept and reversing the given hierarchies to reveal their mutual dependence and any potential underlying subjectivities. Deconstructing MPI case law reveals that the balancing of Arts 8 & 10 is underpinned by a fundamental dichotomy, that of the 'public interest versus interesting the public'. This underlying dichotomy is subjected to deconstructive analysis, revealing valuable insights into how these terms are deployed for rhetorical purposes by the various parties in MPI disputes, and the tensions between liberal ideals and commercial realities that permeate case law.

This article undertakes analysis of misuse of private information (MPI) case law informed by deconstruction and wider literary and critical theory. It specifically considers the operation of the 'balance' metaphor in MPI case law: What rhetorical effects might it foster, and how? What insights can the balance metaphor in MPI case law reveal about the nature of legal discourse more generally? This article starts by providing an account of select theorists who explore the subtle but vital role that metaphor plays in non-literary texts. Though metaphors have traditionally been viewed as poetic or literary devices, deconstruction indicates that they often exert a hidden influence in the texts of other disciplines such as philosophy and law, with inevitable implications for claims based on truth, objectivity and reason. This account ultimately highlights the fundamental-but often overlooked-role of metaphor in legal discourse. Following this discussion, the article proceeds to investigate the key 'balance' metaphor in misuse of private information judgments. It identifies and analyses two distinct ways in which the balance metaphor subtly benefits and supports judicial reasoning in these judgments. First, it creates an impression of certainty by drawing on connotations of the quantifiable and calculable. Second, it fosters the moral appeal of a decision by alluding to notions of justice and equilibrium. In doing so, the balance metaphor marginalises the non-rational, inexpressible, even mysterious, aspects of judicial rights balancing. 2 " In Demonstration, in Councell, and all rigorous search of Truth, Judgement does all; … But for Metaphors, they are in this case utterly excluded. For seeing they openly professe deceipt; to admit them into Councell, or Reasoning, were manifest folly. " T Hobbes, Leviathan, Ch 8 (1651) " What then is truth? a mobile army of metaphors, metonyms, and anthromorphisms, in short, a sum of human relations which were poetically and rhetorically heightened, transferred, and adorned, and after long use seem solid, canonical, and binding to a nation. Truths are illusions about which it has been forgotten that they are illusions, worn-out metaphors without sensory impact, coins which have lost their image and now can be used only as metal, and no longer as coins. " F Nietzsche, 'On Truth and Lies in an Extra-Moral Sense' (1873)

This article examines the unintended consequences of injunctions granted in misuse of private information (MPI) disputes. The MPI action enables successful claimants to obtain injunctions, often anonymised, to prevent publication of a story (or parts of it) that infringe upon their Article 8 privacy rights. This article considers cases such as Giggs v News Group and PJS v News Group which highlight the challenges of MPI injunctions; they may draw additional attention to disputed material, a phenomenon that has been colloquially termed the 'Streisand effect'. It affords specific attention to the phenomenon of 'jigsaw identification' which may result from MPI injunctions that only restrict the publication of specific parts of a dispute, such as the claimant's identity. It proceeds to discuss three primary reasons for unintended consequences in some MPI cases, including psychological reactance, social countering and the possibilities afforded by new online technologies. The article concludes with a close analysis of the recent Supreme Court decision in PJS where the judicial response was to modify the problem that MPI injunctions seek to address. Changing the purpose of such injunctions, and therefore the outcomes by which their efficacy is to be gauged, enables the courts to justify their continuation in the face of widespread publication of private information. But this reasoning process relies on newly constructed, tenuous distinctions between press/Internet dissemination and secrecy/intrusion elements of privacy, and it necessarily entails some sacrifice of the wider credibility of law. 2 Jigsaws and Curiosities: The Unintended Consequences in Misuse of Private Information Injunctions

In Article 8 ECHR privacy right jurisprudence, photographs are deemed distinct forms of information that are particularly intrusive nature.  This article is concerned with explaining why this is so.  Part 1 examines the notion of ‘intrusion’ itself.  It argues that ‘intrusion’ functions as a legal metaphor and plays an important role in constructing a binary between an outer self presented to the world and a ‘spiritual’, emotional interior that privacy purports to protect from transgression.  Part 2 argues that that this ‘spiritual intrusion’ metaphor is influential in the continental personality right that informs the ECtHR’s approach to Art 8 protection for photographed individuals.  This leads to potentially stronger protection for image, including a basic Art 8 right to control one’s image.  Yet there is a divergence of approach in the English courts, where personality theory has limited influence; here there is traditional scepticism towards an image right and photographic capture is largely neglected.  Part 3 argues that photography becomes a relevant factor at publication stage, where courts agree that the distinctive features of the medium may cause or exacerbate intrusion.  This is because photography creates a permanent, infinitely replicable ‘truthful’ record of the individual’s image that can be disseminated to the objectifying gaze of a mass audience.  But the medium also leads viewers to overlook its inherent complexities and ambiguities.  Ultimately, Article 8 jurisprudence, particularly in the ECtHR, occasionally adopts reasoning that contains echoes of the ‘photographs steal souls’ mythology.

There is growing concern from criminal justice academics and practitioners that young women are being subjected to more punitive attitudes and higher incarceration rates, particularly for violent offences (Worrall, 2001; Alder and Worrall, 2004; Sharp, 2009). It has been argued that stereotyped gender roles and patriarchal attitudes have resulted in the criminal justice system treating young women more harshly for offences considered as masculine, such as violence (Carlen and Worrall, 2004). This paper presents preliminary research findings from a study that provided a unique opportunity to explore young women’s violence from the perspective of police officers in Scotland. Thirty three qualitative interviews were carried out with front line police officers in Scotland in 2008 to investigate social control mechanisms employed to regulate the behaviour of young women. The research utilised a feminist approach to control and a Foucauldian understanding of discourse to identify three forms of social control utilised by police officers; institutional control; discursive control; and discretionary control. This paper discusses the findings that illustrate changes in policing, rather than changes in women’s behaviour, have resulted in more young women being policed in Scotland. Furthermore, each of these controls highlights how violence perpetrated by men is normalised by the police, whist women who are perceived as violent are labelled as ‘troubled’ and ‘troublesome’. This paper highlights how gender stereotypes are continually being reinforced within policing which impacts on the way police officers respond to young women they depict as violent.

There are growing fears in the UK that young women are becoming increasingly violent and starting to ‘act like men’ according to varying media sources. This study examines the issue of young female violence from the perspective of thirty three frontline police officers in Scotland. The research found that the rise in violent crimes statistics for young women can be partially explained by changes in police practices and a net widening zero tolerance approach to violence. The police officers believed women needed to be ‘controlled’; they perceived them as more disorderly than men and this defiance towards authority resulted in women being arrested. The findings show police officers normalise violence perpetrated by men by labelling women who act in this manner as ‘troubled’ and ‘troublesome’. Women depicted as violent remain to be categorised on the basis of socially constructed gender norms and it is argued that this mechanism of discursive control continues to locate violence within the realm of masculinity.

This paper presents empirical research findings that explored police officers’ perceptions of and responses to young women regarded as violent. Criminal justice institutions, including courts, prisons and probation services, have been shown to respond to women who offend on the basis of socially constructed gender norms instead of understanding the social context of women’s offending. By drawing on feminist perspectives within criminology, this paper considers whether these gendered stereotypes have any bearing on how police respond to young women who are classified as ‘violent’. The research found little evidence of police decision making being influenced solely by gender, however, the findings suggest that the masculinisation of violent behaviour and the police officers’ perceived uncooperativeness of young women could put some young women at greater risk of arrest.

This paper presents analysis based on an ethnographic study of the governance of security and risk assessment during the security planning stages of the G2014. In considering both the Games and their security apparatus as cultural artefacts, we revisit Garland’s thesis on the culture of control and ask if a particular ‘culture of (high) security’ can be determined in the securitisation of the Games. We apply Garland’s key propositions to the case study of G2014 and seek to extend them to take account of the recent development of critical academic discourses around the idea, meaning and social effect of security. Issues covered include responsibilisation, commercialisation, and governing at a distance. We look again at these ideas through the data generated by the G2014 study.

This paper presents data from an empirical study carried out with operational police officers in Scotland that examined how they perceive and respond to young women considered violent. The paper explores two inter-related aspects of young women’s violence. The first examines how violent behaviour is stereotyped on the basis of traditional gender roles and this is compared against police officers’ actual experiences of violence by young women. The second discusses how young women themselves are characterised by police officers and presents three distinct depictions; liberated, wayward and troubled. The evidence demonstrates how young women are subjected to gendered stereotypes and supports research conducted in other criminal justice institutions whereby women who use violence are categorised as on the basis of their biology and psychology. The paper concludes by arguing that women depicted as violent remain to be labelled on the basis of socially constructed gender norms which continues to locate violence within the realm of masculinity and ultimately disadvantages young women in the criminal justice system.

Police officers exercise various forms of power including governmental, authoritarian and disciplinary (Foucault and Sheridan, 1977; Lukes, 1986; Sanders and Young, 2003) that are utilised to regulate the behaviour of others in an attempt to maintain social order. However, this power has been shown to have particularly negative consequences for marginalised social groups such as ethnic minorities (Bowling and Philips, 2003), the unemployed (Smith and Visher, 1981) and young people (Lundman et al., 1978). Despite a growth in research exploring gender within the police, there remains to be a lack of attention being paid to how gender impacts on arrest decision making (exceptions include Horn and Hollin, 1997; Horn and Wincup, 1995; Visher, 1983).  This paper presents empirical research carried out with frontline police officers in Scotland that examined how police officers respond to young women considered violent. The research draws parallels with studies undertaken within courtrooms that demonstrate how the social construction of appropriate gender norms can have a negative consequence for women who offend (Carlen, 1983; Hedderman and Gelsthorpe, 1997; Heidensohn, 1985; Worrall, 1990). This paper highlights implications for police policy and practice while considering directions for future research on policing female offenders.