Craig Paterson

Adding value? A review of the international literature on the role of higher education in police training and education

This paper reviews the current English-language literature on developments in police training and education in order to identify common areas where higher education ‘adds value’ to police learning and development. Reforms in training and education are constituent parts of the ongoing shift to a service-oriented professional police in a number of countries. A comparative analysis of the literature on police training and education is provided here which focuses primarily on the USA, the European Union, Australia and India. The review provides a contribution to international policy debates about future developments in this area.

Exploring recent developments in restorative policing in England and Wales

The evolution of the policing role over the last decade has led to 33 police forces in England and Wales integrating restorative justice practices, in one form or another, into their responses to minor crime committed for the first time by both youths and adults. Most recently, this reform dynamic has been used in response to more serious offences committed by persistent offenders and expanded to include all stages of the criminal justice process. Despite the significant positive rhetoric that surrounds the adoption and use of restorative justice, there are a number of procedural and cultural challenges that pose a threat to the extent to which restorative justice may become embedded within the policing response. This article explores these developments and highlights where potential problems for implementation may arise as well as some strategies to overcome them.

The global trade in (techno) corrections

Electronic monitoring (EM) of offender technologies developed as responses to the problem of prison overcrowding and the enhanced focus upon re-introducing market values to the criminal justice sector, incorporating advances in information and communication technological infrastructures into new modes of crime control. At first glance, EM technologies appear to be tools with the potential to stimulate criminal justice innovation: new modes of virtual regulation suited to the digital world that global citizens inhabit. Yet, closer scrutiny of the use of EM across the globe unveils a sprawling, amorphous industry in commercial techno-corrections that both stimulates penal growth in domestic markets and facilitates policy transfer across international jurisdictions. The pioneering EM markets of North America, the UK and Australasia act as testing stations for the next generation of developers across Europe, Latin America and South East Asia. Viewed more closely, EM appears indicative of an intensification of surveillance and electronic population governance that has emerged from neo-liberal states and dispersed across the globe in a myriad of shapes and forms.

Restorative Policing : Concepts, theory and practice

In the UK and elsewhere, restorative justice and policing are core components of a range of university programmes; however, currently no such text exists on the intersection of these two areas of study. This book draws together these diverse theoretical perspectives to provide an innovative, knowledge-rich text that is essential reading for all those engaged with the evolution and practice of restorative policing. Restorative Policing surveys the twenty-five year history of restorative policing practice, during which its use and influence over criminal justice has slowly grown. It then situates this experience within a criminological discussion about neo-liberal responses to crime control. There has been insufficient debate about how the concepts of ‘restorative justice’ and ‘policing’ sit alongside each other and how they may be connected or disconnected in theoretical and conceptual terms. The book seeks to fill this gap through an exploration of concepts, theory, policy and practice. In doing so, the authors make a case for a more transformative vision of restorative policing that can impact positively upon the shape and practice of policing and outline a framework for the implementation of such a strategy. This path-breaking book will be of interest to undergraduate and postgraduate students taking courses on restorative justice, policing and crime control, as well as professionals interested in the implementation of restorative practices in the police force.

From offender to victim-oriented monitoring: a comparative analysis of the emergence of electronic monitoring systems in Argentina and England and Wales

The increasingly psychological terrain of crime and disorder management has had a transformative impact upon the use of electronic monitoring technologies. Surveillance technologies such as electronic monitoring - EM, biometrics, and video surveillance have flourished in commercial environments that market the benefits of asocial technologies in managing disorderly behavior and which, despite often chimerical crime prevention promises, appeal to the ontologically insecure social imagination. The growth of EM in criminal justice has subsequently taken place despite, at best, equivocal evidence that it protects the public and reduces recidivism. Innovative developments in Portugal, Argentina and the United States have re-imagined EM technologies as more personalized devices that can support victims rather than control offenders. These developments represent a re-conceptualization of the use of the technology beyond the neoliberal prism of rational choice theories and offender-oriented thinking that influenced first generation thinking about EM. This paper identifies the socio-political influences that helped conceptualize first generation thinking about EM as, firstly, a community sentence and latterly, as a technique of urban security. The paper reviews attempts to theorize the role and function of EM surveillance technologies within and beyond criminal justice and explores the contribution of victimological perspectives to the use of EM 2.0.

An exploration of the role of leadership in restorative policing in England and Wales

Abstract This chapter explores the role of leadership in restorative policing in England and Wales and the impact of the external criminal justice policy environment on attempts to embed restorative approaches into police practice. It is clear that certain aspects of restorative justice chime with long-standing values in police culture, not least the emphasis on common-sense decision-making and the removal of unnecessary bureaucracy advocated by a focus on informal resolution. Yet, we argue that restorative policing cannot work where these ideas are placed solely in individual programmes. Instead, a clear vision needs to be articulated by police leaders with subsequent programmes being built around this overarching philosophy of ‘restorative policing’ that encourages leadership to ‘bubble up’ from below.

Towards victim-oriented police? Some reflections on the concept and purpose of policing and their implications for victim-oriented police reform

The global policy drift towards community policing and an enhanced philosophical and practical orientation towards victims of crime has been slow but incrementally successful in some jurisdictions. This article uses a comparative approach to review the different conceptual and theoretical assumptions that underpin thinking about policing to tentatively identify the factors that support victim-oriented police reform. The article draws on evidence from India and Argentina plus England and Wales to assess how different policing models have translated victim-oriented language into practice. It is notable that while police forces across the globe often share a common understanding of police functions, there is less agreement when referring to how to engage with citizens and balancing the broader panoply of policing priorities. Conceptual understandings of policing often contain unarticulated assumptions about how policing should be done, and this partly explains why placing citizenship and victims at the core in rhetorical terms does not always translate into practice. The article concludes with a call for a concerted effort to articulate a clear philosophical and conceptual understanding of victim-oriented policing as an enabler of police reform.

Tagging re-booted! Imagining the potential of victim-oriented electronic monitoring

Electronic monitoring (EM) technologies or ‘tagging’, as the ankle bracelet is known, have been subject to much experimentation across the criminal justice landscape, yet there remains a good deal of conjecture concerning the purpose and subsequent effectiveness of these technologies. This article calls for renewed consideration of both the potential and pitfalls of radio frequency (RF) and global positioning by satellite (GPS) EM technologies and provides a victim-oriented perspective on future developments in EM. The author proposes further interrogation of the penal assumptions that underpin thinking about the use of EM as well as analysis of recent police experimentation with the technology. The article concludes with a call for a clear and strong probation voice in the renewed debates about EM that can guide and support ethical and effective policy and practice.