By Angus K Ryan

Crime can evade detection and prosecution by criminal justice systems. This can include safety crime, briefly defined here as violations of law that either do, or have the potential to cause sudden death or injury as a result of work-related activities. Research estimates that 2.3 million people across the globe succumb to work-related incidents and diseases every year, and that safety crime causes nearly 900 annual deaths in Britain. Despite this largescale harm, safety crime fails to attract major political, public, or academic attention. One consequence of the lack of attention to safety crime in policy discussions is a significant gap in the body of knowledge on how to effectively punish safety criminals. This thesis aims to address how the effectiveness of penalties for safety criminals can be improved to reduce safety crime. To fulfil this aim, this study answers: which theories are currently informing the punishment of safety criminals in England and Wales? Which theories are effective at punishing safety criminals and why are they effective? How can penalties be used to effectively punish safety criminals? This qualitative study explores 21 stakeholders’ views on the relationship between the punishment of safety criminals and the prevalence of the theories of deterrence, retributive justice, rehabilitation, and incapacitation in England and Wales. The findings of this study indicate that there is a lack of punishment for safety criminals in England and Wales, and that the theories of deterrence, retributive justice, rehabilitation, and incapacitation can be used in varying degrees of effectiveness against these persons, typically dependent on how penalties are used to achieve these theories. The interview data suggests numerous methods of improving current penalties and effectively punishing safety criminals. This study concludes that a mixture of sanctions in a pyramid of penalties should be used to punish safety criminals more effectively.

Bristol, UK: University of Bristol, 2022. 300p.

By Grahame Allen and Megan Harding

“Knife” crime, a crime involving an object with a blade or sharp instrument, is a persistent concern and disproportionately impacts the young and disadvantaged. Various remedies have been tried over the years. The Library Briefing Paper Knives and Offensive Weapons (SN00330) discusses the legislation which governs the carrying (possession) and sale of knives and other offensive weapons.

London: House of Commons Library, 2021. 37p.

By Carolyn Conley.

Even though England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales were under a common Parliament in the nineteenth century, cultural, economic, and historical differences led to very different values and assumptions about crime and punishment. For example, though the Scots were the most likely to convict accused killers, English, Welsh and Irish killers were two and a half times more likely to be executed for their crimes. In Certain Other Countries, Carolyn Conley explores how the concepts of national identity and criminal violence influenced each other in the Victorian-era United Kingdom. It also addresses the differences among the nations as well as the ways that homicide trials illuminate the issues of gender, ethnicity, family, privacy, property, and class. Homicides reflect assumptions about the proper balance of power in various relationships. For example, Englishmen were ten times more likely to kill women they were courting than were men in the Celtic nations.

By combining quantitative techniques in the analysis of over seven thousand cases as well as careful and detailed readings of individual cases, the book exposes trends and patterns that might not have been evident in works using only one method. For instance, by examining all homicide trials rather than concentrating exclusively on a few highly celebrated ones, it becomes clear that most female killers were not viewed with particular horror, but were treated much like their male counterparts.

The conclusions offer challenges and correctives to existing scholarship on gender, ethnicity, class, and violence. The book also demonstrates that the Welsh, Scots, and English remained quite distinct long after their melding as Britons was announced and celebrated. By blending a study of trends in violent behavior with ideas about national identity, Conley brings together rich and hotly debated fields of modern history. This book will be valuable both for scholars of crime and violence as well those studying British history.

Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2007. 255p.