Christina Pantazis

Housing Deprivation and Health: A Longitudinal Analysis

While there is a longitudinal literature that considers the impact of poor socio-economic circumstances upon health, the more specific impact of poor housing upon health is much less frequently studied longitudinally. This paper draws on the National Child Development Study to examine the impact upon health of poor housing through the life course. The analysis takes the novel approach of constructing a composite severity of ill health measure to act as the dependent variable. Poor housing is operationalised through a housing deprivation index calculated for each sweep of the NCDS. The index of multiple housing deprivation goes beyond traditional concerns with the quality and amenity of a dwelling to incorporate key subjective factors such as satisfaction with dwelling or residential area: these subjective factors play a particularly important role in the index. The key result is that, even when other relevant factors are allowed for, the NCDS data suggest that experience of both current and past poor housing is significantly associated with greater likelihood of ill health. Moreover, for those who are living in non-deprived housing conditions in adulthood, ill health is more likely among those who experienced housing deprivation in earlier life than among those who did not. Thus, history matters. The analysis also highlights the increasing inadequacy of conventional measures of housing deprivation.

SOCIAL HOUSING AS CRIME CONTROL: AN EXAMINATION OF THE ROLE OF HOUSING MANAGEMENT IN POLICING SEX OFFENDERS

This article considers the ways in which social housing has in recent years become inextricably linked with the process of crime control. Drawing on case study research into the rehousing of sex offenders, the authors provide evidence illustrating why and how social housing management has become increasingly drawn into the fold of crime control. The article then highlights some serious but often neglected concerns stemming from the adoption by social housing management of more crime control responsibilities. Whilst protection of individuals and communities should always remain paramount, the article concludes with a discussion about the implications of what these processes may mean for social housing.

Policies and discourses of poverty during a time of recession and austerity

This article introduces this themed issue which challenges government policies and discourses using evidence from the UK 2012 Poverty and Social Exclusion Study. Policies and discourses prioritising the role of individual deficiencies and highlighting the structural problems of the welfare state in poverty causation are nothing new. However, they re-emerged vigorously in the UK following the 2007–8 global financial crisis and ensuing economic recession. The articles forming this themed issue seek to challenge in different ways this prevailing discourse. This introductory article draws upon Bacchi’s ‘what is the problem represented to be’ (‘WPR’) approach to examine the ways in which poverty was problematised by the Conservative–Liberal Democrat Coalition government (2010–15). It argues that this problematisation silenced structural processes associated with the government’s commitment to neo-liberalism, resulting in devastating, socially harmful consequences.

Comparing Public Perceptions of the Necessities of Life across Two Societies: Japan and the United Kingdom

Establishing what constitutes ‘need’ has been a long-standing tradition in empirical investigations of poverty. In their pioneering Poor Britain study, Joanna Mack and Stewart Lansley (1985) developed the ‘consensual’ or ‘socially perceived deprivation’ approach. This sought the views of ordinary people (as opposed to academics or professional experts) in determining the necessities of life. Their approach subsequently provided the basis for further UK poverty surveys, as well as studies in other counties in Europe, Australasia, Africa and Asia. Despite this international proliferation, comparative analyses examining public perceptions of need across different societies and cultures remain sparse. This article presents findings from the first Japanese–UK comparative study based on nationally representative surveys informed by Mack and Lansleys approach. It compares the necessities of life in the two societies, examining differences as well as common socially perceived needs, and explores two possible explanations accounting for the variations found. In doing this, the article seeks to contribute to international debates on public attitudes towards the necessities of life.

Trading Civil Liberties for Greater Security? The impact on minority communities

Abstract This is not an argument about whether we respect civil liberties or not; but whose take priority. It is not about choosing hard line policies over an individuals human rights. Its about which human rights prevail. In making that decision, there is a balance to be struck. I am saying it is time to rebalance the decision in favour of the decent, law-abiding majority who play by the rules and think others should too (Tony Blair, 2006).

Introduction: Comparative Perspectives on Poverty and Inequality: Japan and the United Kingdom

Poverty and inequality appear to be intractable features of rich industrialised nations. It is a great paradox that despite rising prosperity in most advanced industrialised countries over the last two or three decades, poverty and inequality have remained stubbornly high and have even increased in the majority of rich countries (OECD, 2008, 2011). The United Kingdom and Japan are no exceptions to these trends. Despite having markedly different historical trajectories, there is evidence that the two societies are converging on the issue of these pressing social problems.

Social exclusion, neoliberalism and resistance: The role of social workers in implementing social policies in Chile:

The views of social workers in Chile are rarely heard and considered in the policy debates. This article addresses this lacuna by examining discourses of social exclusion and underlying assumptions held by social workers with responsibility for implementing social policy interventions in Chile. It draws upon the findings of a study involving interviews with senior social workers from two large non-governmental organisations (NGOs) tackling social exclusion. We found that individual-based narratives and neoliberal rationality are dominant in the implementation of Chilean social policy. At the same time, anti-hegemonic strategies pursued by some social workers were also identified. Such an approach is highly relevant in the Chilean context, in which power imbalances remain almost untouched since the return of democratic regimes in the 1990s. The study findings pose diverse challenges to Chilean social policy and social work professional training. The necessity of promoting transformative imaginations that favour collective practices of resistance is identified to counteract, through a critical discourse, the neoliberal rationale, its rhetoric and practices affecting excluded people’s lives.

Harm audit: the collateral damage of economic crisis and the Coalition's austerity programme

©2012 Centre for Crime and Justice Studies 10.1080/09627251.2012.721981 Narratives of crime are powerful discourses that exist to portray what, but also whom we should fear. Yet, as the deepening economic crisis and responses to it highlight, the very organisation of societies can produce serious and widespread damage. Discussion in the wake of the 2007-2008 ‘credit crunch’ has been inevitably highly politicised, subjecting how societies are organised to intense scrutiny. However, the terms of the debate have shifted dramatically. The initial critiques about the detrimental impact of ‘casino capitalism’ soon faded and were replaced by demands to reform the ‘costly’ and ‘bloated’ public sector. What began as a critique of neoliberal capitalism has turned full circle to reaffirm the central tenets of this ideology and provide the rationale for the retrenchment of the social state. Paradoxically, however, the erosion of these social structures may further exacerbate and deepen the widespread harms produced by the current crisis. This article represents the beginning of a mapping exercise intended to describe and understand the production of harm during the UK Coalition government’s period in office. In doing so, we hope to track the harms that are most likely to ensue from the economic recession and government spending cuts, identify those groups who have ‘shouldered the burden’, and assess the interrelationships between harms, particularly ‘criminal’ and ‘non criminal’ harms.

Television Licence Evasion and the Criminalisation of Female Poverty

The purpose of this paper is to identify and address important gaps in criminology regarding the extent and nature of female criminality. A neglected area of academic interest is investigated, namely, offences relating to television licence evasion. The focus is on the growth, over the 1980s and 1990s, in the disproportionate number of women entering the criminal justice system for possessing a television without a licence. Thus, by 1994, 57% of all female criminal convictions related to television licence evasion. A number of factors are reviewed, however, the combination of the growth in poverty over the 1980s and 1990s, women’s domestic routines, and the long-term increase in female-headed households seem to be the most plausible. Various solutions aimed at easing the licence fee burden on poor households are discussed.