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Featured researches published by Nigel Stone.
Probation Journal | 1990
Nigel Stone
Enlisting in the ladies darts team at the Grafton Arms, an obscure white workj ing class local in Southwark, took Janet Foster into Only Fools and Horses territory (except that her Del is doing nicely as a wheeler-dealer) to examine community and family traditions of petty crime. The product is in the academic community tradition of participant observation familiar from Downes, View from the Boys, Luke Street and Hobbs’ L)oing the Business, but without a heavy theoretical input
Probation Journal | 2005
Nigel Stone
density of the erudition gathered in this book will influence wider ‘debate’. In similar vein, on narrower terrain, Young and Hoyle disparage the shallow, aspirational ‘theoretically unsophisticated’ writing that has dominated debate on restorative justice, and hope that the ‘maturing of the literature’ (p. 200) will improve its prospects in the world (as their own chapter tries to). But dare one suggest that criminologists might be overestimating their own importance here – and missing an important point? Lacey is far more sanguine and astute, recognizing that part of the problem with contemporary criminal justice is that free-thinking, truthseeking intellectuals are mostly excluded from the policy-making process, and utterly eclipsed by the stridency of a populist media; ergo, ‘the promotion of a more temperate debate on punishment may be impossible’ (p. 188). A sombre thought. So why bother with scholarship? Why edit a penology book? Is it not just whistling in the dark? Why even think if the world does not want you to? The answer to that is this: if we do not make a conscious effort to do what is reasonable, sensible and just – and we cannot work that out unless we all take time to think – we will by default act unreasonably, insensibly and unjustly. People on the front line of crime control, like probation staff, will then be expected to do heartless, soul-destroying things, and like many a minion before them may not have the breadth of knowledge, or the critical capacity to see in a true light either the edges, innards or direction of the machine which has engulfed them. I place rather more faith in accessible, inspirational, popular criminology than Young and Hoyle, simply because it usually makes a better bridge between the worlds of practice and academia than a tome like The Use of Punishment. Practitioners should nonetheless take heart from knowing that there are still deep thinkers out there doing what they can to humanize the politics of penal reform – not a lot, anymore, sad to say – but at least validating the unease they feel in their bones.
Probation Journal | 1996
Nigel Stone
It seems to me that feminists who doubt the merits of direct work with male clients are unlikely to opt for work in the Probation Service. In the probation context, therefore, this book serves to encourage workers seeking to practise from a feminist perspective and offers some useful guidelines. I was not convinced by all its conclusions, but they did stimulate thought. Cavanagh and Lewis write about interviewing violent men and, although they are researchers and not social
Probation Journal | 1996
Nigel Stone
Any video resource which can prompt discussion among young men about risktaking, responsibility, masculinity, health, race, relationships, sexism, sexuality and image has to be good news. It’s a tall order to cover so much territory in 25 minutes but Safe makes a creditable fist of it. Using a soap-style drama format, the storyline follows four young black men, three of whom are sharing a house in Birmingham while Ray’s parents are away in Jamaica. Ray has to juggle his loyalties to his absent parents, his long-suffering girlfriend, his inconsiderate mates and his Asian friend
Probation Journal | 1995
Nigel Stone
The first of the thirteen chapters charts the way in which penal policy in this country has ignored and undermmed the fact that high quahty, focused and research-driven probation intervention, underpinned by the principles of social work theory, is proving to be the most promising way forward in preventing reoffending. This is followed by three articles which trace developments in probation during the last decade or so in England and Wales, Scotland and, m a particularly interesting account, Northern Ireland. Although this makes for uncomfortable reading, the authors have been careful not to ignore some of the positive and much needed changes, such
Probation Journal | 1992
Nigel Stone
Whilst probation staff have been enjoying their nationwide CJA Summer Schools, puzzling the precise meaning of sectin 29(2) and calculating the ’at risk’ period for early released prisoners, events on the streets have pushed crime control ever higher up the political agenda. Colleagues seeking some contrast from the new groundrules of sentencing and National Standards and an accessible guide to the criminological high ground could do worse than dip into this convenient reader. The editors thoughtfully demarcate the orthodox from the mavericks, though Jack Young may be a little unhappy at his location among the latter, having made a Pauline conversion to ’new left realism’. Part One thus comprises critical analaysis of official crime prevention and control policies, including a splendidly combative debtate between the two leading American protagonists, the liberal Elliott Currie and neo-conservative James Q. Wilson, though it presumes a certain familiarity with their previous work. John Bright’s account of Home Office-led Crime Prevention programmes and Michael King’s contrast of British and French approaches are more accessible and as stimulating. A chapter on the politics of those ’tainted hedonisms’ prostitution and controlled drugs concludes the first half.
Probation Journal | 1991
Nigel Stone
tion is received and interpreted in the juvenile court; in this instance by interviewing JPs in six court areas in Northern England. In a nutshell, Brown tries to demonstrate that reports are not narrative stories in the tradition of realism; they massage the subject through a series of behavioural stereotypes, locating the defendant on scales of maternal care, family chaos, school conformity and success, leisure interests, etc. The story told, the lines of discourse, chosen, translate the individual into a case to ’enable
Probation Journal | 1988
Nigel Stone
Lord Mark Carlisle’s ’root and branch’ Review of the Parole System isexpectedto report during the summer of 1988. At the outset of the = enquiry a 1ot of smart money was being placed on the demise ofparole, unloved by the judiciary, at &dquo; odds with European Rights legislation, cumbersome to operate, and creaky after so much piecemeal tinkering during its twenty year lifespan. Now, however, the word is that it will survive in a modified and rationalised form, too useful and convenient a device for executive, back door gatekeeping in the penal system to be set aside. Of a dozen of the written submissions (of varying sophistication and clarity) to the Review
Probation Journal | 1988
Nigel Stone
Among the agencies involved in the events culminating in the death of Tyra Henry (in September 1984), the Probation Service had played a more central role than in other, similar tragedies which have subsequently been subject of exhaustive inquiry and recommendations. The recent Report Whose Child? of the Public Inquiry into Tyra Henry’s death, chaired by Stephen Sedley QC for the London Borough of Lambeth, highlights issues with obvious implications for probation practice. Inner London Probation Service gave written evidence to the
Probation Journal | 1987
Nigel Stone
were enterprising and active and the conclusion drawn is that their illegal and quasi-legal activeties are a necessary outlet; ’capable and energetic people cannot be expected to sit passively by and accept’. It is argued that the great unspoken advantage to the existence of such a level of crime is that the poor then fail to channel their energies into a struggle for political change. While the above essay is the only one directly about offending, the others are very useful to anybody seekmg to make sense of the changes that take place within individual, families and communities when hit by unemployment. The book is well-wmtten, easy to read and highly relevant.
