Nigel South

Green exercise in the UK countryside: effects on health and psychological well-being, and implications for policy and planning.

Abstract There is evidence that contact with the natural environment and green space promotes good health. It is also well known that participation in regular physical activity generates physical and psychological health benefits. The authors have hypothesised that ‘green exercise’ will improve health and psychological well-being, yet few studies have quantified these effects. This study measured the effects of 10 green exercise case studies (including walking, cycling, horse-riding, fishing, canal-boating and conservation activities) in four regions of the UK on 263 participants. Even though these participants were generally an active and healthy group, it was found that green exercise led to a significant improvement in self-esteem and total mood disturbance (with anger-hostility, confusion-bewilderment, depression-dejection and tension-anxiety all improving post-activity). Self-esteem and mood were found not to be affected by the type, intensity or duration of the green exercise, as the results were similar for all 10 case studies. Thus all these activities generated mental health benefits, indicating the potential for a wider health and well-being dividend from green exercise. Green exercise thus has important implications for public and environmental health, and for a wide range of policy sectors.

DRUG MARKETS AND LAW ENFORCEMENT

This paper examines the market in illegal drugs, law enforcement counter-measures, and their interaction in Britain. Doubt is cast on the conventional view that the drug market is monopolistic, dominated by a few big suppliers. A diverse set of enterprises, best distinguished by their qualitative features rather than their size, is described. These enterprises are faced by law enforcement agencies that have at their disposal formidable legislation which providesfor life imprisonment and confiscation of assets of drug distributors. The British post-war history of legislation against distributors has been one of increasingly punitive measures, and although there is no evidence that this has restricted the distribution networks, it may have contributed to the increasing professionalization of the trade. The authors conclude that drug control policies would be more effective if less enthusiasm were expended in raising levels of penalties and more attention paid to the ways in which an irrepressible market may be shaped in more or less harmful forms by legislation and policing strategies.

Comparing illicit trades in wildlife and drugs: An exploratory study

This article is an exploratory study into the similarities, differences, and overlaps between the illegal wildlife trade and the illegal drug trade, using original and literature-based research from the Russian Far East and Western Europe, respectively. The purpose of such a comparison is to gain further insight into the illegal wildlife trade through the examination of the more thoroughly studied illegal drug trade. We first examine the global size of these markets and then detail and compare actors and smuggling operations found in each. This leads to a possible typology of features that the trades have in common and to discussion of the direct linkages between these two illicit markets.

A green-cultural criminology: An exploratory outline

Within the last two decades, “green criminology” has emerged as a distinctive area of study, drawing together criminologists with a wide range of specific research interests and representing varying theoretical orientations. “Green criminology” spans the micro to the macro, from work on individual-level environmental crimes to business/corporate violations to state transgressions, and includes research conducted from both mainstream and critical theoretical perspectives, as well as arising out of interdisciplinary projects. With few exceptions, there has been little work attempting to explicitly or implicitly integrate cultural criminology with green criminology and vice versa. This article promulgates a green-cultural criminology—an approach that seeks to incorporate a concern with the cultural significance of the environment, environmental crime, and environmental harm into the green criminological enterprise. It begins by demonstrating how cultural criminology is, at some levels, already doing green criminology. It then attempts to map a green criminology onto several key dimensions of cultural criminology: (a) the contestation of space, transgression, and resistance; (b) the way(s) in which crime is constructed and represented by the media; and (c) patterns of constructed consumerism. This article concludes by showing how a green-criminology-cultural-criminology cross-fertilization would be mutually beneficial.

Managing work, hedonism and ‘the borderline’ between the legal and illegal markets: Two case studies of recreational heavy drug users

In the context of cultural and/or differential ‘normalisation’ of certain forms of drug use, this article describes two case-studies of heavy recreational drug users. The daily lives of these users blur the line between the legal and the illegal; their drug trading is generally as a consumer and ‘friend of a friend’ small dealer in the low-level market. In the first case, problems with management of employment, time and financial budgeting are described; in the second case, such management is accomplished. Discussion refers to: differences between the two in relation to resources and vulnerability to risks, and to leisure/pleasure cultures of hedonism. The research agenda should pay more attention to users who seek to maintain a legitimate lifestyle but who develop problems managing work and their drug-related leisure. Understanding the consumer demand and dealing activity of such users is important in trying to develop a fuller understanding of drug markets.

The normalisation of drug supply: The social supply of drugs as the “other side” of the history of normalisation

Abstract Aims: Describes how the relative normalisation of recreational drug use in the UK has been productive of, and fused with, the relatively normalised and non-commercial social supply of recreational drugs. Methods: Semi-structured interviews with 60 social suppliers of recreational drugs in two studies (involving a student population n = 30 and general population sample n = 30). Respondents were recruited via purposive snowball sampling and local advertising. Findings: Both samples provided strong evidence of the normalised supply of recreational drugs in micro-sites of friendship and close social networks. Many social suppliers described “drift” into social supply and normalised use was suggested to be productive of supply relationships that both suppliers and consumers regard as something less than “real” dealing in order to reinforce their preconceptions of themselves as relatively non-deviant. Some evidence for a broader acceptance of social supply is also presented. Conclusions: The fairly recent context of relative normalisation of recreational drug use has coalesced with the social supply of recreational drugs in micro-sites of use and exchange whereby a range of “social” supply acts (sometimes even involving large amounts of drugs/money) have become accepted as something closer to gift-giving or friendship exchange dynamics within social networks rather than dealing proper. To some degree, there is increasing sensitivity to this within the criminal justice system.

“They Say That You Are a Danger But You Are Not”: Representations and Construction of the Moral Self in Narratives of “Dangerous Individuals” 1

This article is based on an analysis of narratives of 26 offenders with mental health problems living in the United Kingdom. It explores the impact of an ascribed dangerous status and the construction of the self as moral and responsible in response to this label with reference to the literature on denial, deviance disavowal and other “techniques of neutralization” and Goffmans presentation of self. Two dominant strands are identified in relation to the construction of moral self-hood: “Not my fault” and “Good at heart” narratives. “Techniques of neutralization” are widely drawn on, particularly denial of responsibility in the “Not my fault” narratives that seek to explain anti-social behavior with reference to external forces such as a hostile environment inhibiting their ability to control their lives. In contrast, “Good at heart” narratives draw on the essentially good and moral nature of the inner-self. Both are used as evidence of sharing and adhering to moral norms in order to present an acceptable and credible self.

Court-based psychiatric assessment: case for an integrated diversionary and public health role

This article describes a follow-up study of 232 individuals who underwent psychiatric assessment by a Criminal Justice Mental Health Team (CJMHT) in 2001/2002, and also draws upon in-depth interviews conducted with 26 of the cohort. At assessment many people are identified with substance misuse problems, as homeless and with a history of psychiatric contact but in the main their problems are of insufficient severity to merit diversion to psychiatric hospital. The study mapped service contact, housing and offending in the 12 months following assessment and compared this to the 12 months prior to assessment, and found increased levels of service contact but also increased levels of offending and no decrease in homelessness. Thus assessment by the CJMHT brought few discernible advantages for the majority of clients. This was also the perception of the 26 clients who were interviewed. Their own perceptions of their lifestyle and the support that they deemed most valuable are described to identify means of enhancing the efficacy of court assessment.

‘Life-Stage Dissolution’, Infantilization and Antisocial Consumption Implications for De-responsibilization, Denial and Environmental Harm

Hayward (2012, 2013) asserts that the opposition between adolescence and adulthood is increasingly challenged as late-modern capitalist culture artificially extends the former. Hayward introduces the concept of ‘life-stage dissolution’—and its attendantbidirectionalprocesses of ‘adultification’ and ‘infantilization’—to propose that it isbecomingdifficult for young people to differentiate and disassociate themselves from the generation immediately ahead of them and vice versa. This article makes a contribution to a ‘green cultural criminology’ (Brisman and South, 2013b, 2014) by extending Hayward’s argument to the realm of environmental harms and concerns. It provides examples of ways in which ‘life-stage dissolution’ and the resulting ‘generational mulch’ impede efforts towards environmental protection that might take into account future generations, and it explores how such responsibility is denied even while scientific awareness grows that over-consumption is damaging the environment that future generations will inherit.

Criminology and Economics of Drug Distribution in Britain: Options for Control

In this paper focus is upon the criminology and economics of drug control in Britain and criticizes the prevalent and dominating concepts of “supply” and “demand” that underlie current drug control theory and policies. An alternative perspective is proposed that rests upon appreciation of the importance of the drug distribution system (between supply and demand) as a part of the irregular economy and as the primary motor behind recent expansions in heroin use in Britain. The possibilities are discussed for intervention in the irregular economy, viewed within the context of recent trends in thinking about crime prevention and family responses.