By Maureen O’Hara

This report addresses the impact of policies and practices within the criminal justice system in England and Wales which classify and treat suspects, defendants in criminal trials, and convicted offenders on the basis of their ‘gender identity’ rather than their biological sex. In recent years, self-declaration of ‘gender identity’ has been adopted as policy by all of the key criminal justice institutions, despite the fact that this is not aligned with the law. This change appears to have come about largely as the result of policy capture, as it is a widely contested belief and has been adopted without public scrutiny. Current criminal justice policy prioritises the wishes and feelings of those who identify as transgender over the rights of others, and particularly over the sex-based rights of women, such as rights to single-sex facilities. This publication examines the detrimental effects of this approach and makes recommendations about the development of policies which are based on acknowledgment of the significance of biological sex in the field of criminal justice.

London: Policy Exchange, 2022. 73p.

By: Julienne Weegels

Nicaragua has implemented a community-oriented policing model in addition to providing a prison system that is based on the premise of prisoners’ re-education. Though these are part of the criminal justice system, they are also presented as social policies with the objective of social (re) insertion of marginalised urban youth particularly. On the premise that detention is temporary and beneicial, these policies claim to prevent (youth) criminality and to reform its perpetrators. Yet they mostly push these youths into a spiral of continued state interventions. Through an analysis of youth-oriented public policy and an examination of the expansion of criminal justice services, complemented by ethnographic research material collected with young (former) prisoners, this article demonstrates how and why social policy for youth is being carried out by the criminal justice system. This development is underpinned by the securitisation of social policy and a political culture of social conservatism that renders marginalised youth unworthy of social protection.

OXFORD DEVELOPMENT STUDIES, 2017; https://doi.org/10.1080/13600818.2017.1391192

By Stephen Farrall and Emily Gray

This book explores the impact of right-wing political ideology on crime, the criminal justice system, and attitudes towards punishment in Britain. Grounded in a rigorous analysis of repeated cross-sectional surveys such as the British Social Attitudes Survey and the British Crime Survey, as well as individual-level cohort data such as the 1958 National Child Development Study and the 1970 British Cohort Study, it examines changes in long-term crime rates, criminal justice policies, and their integration with social and economic policies in Britain over four decades. It offers a detailed discussion of how radical social and economic changes affected the fear of crime and attitudes to punishment, and how well Thatcherite social and economic values were embedded in contemporary British society. Drawing on a wide literature across criminology, political science, sociology, and social policy, this book demonstrates how a thorough understanding of crime cannot take place without an examination of the wider social policies enacted, the life courses of the individuals affected, and their communities and the political environment in which they live. It is essential reading for criminologists, sociologists, political philosophers, and social theorists alike since it combines thinking from political sciences, life-courses theories, and detailed analyses of the outcomes of social policy change

Abingdon, Oxon, UK: New York: Routledge, 2024.

By David Spencer

‘The Wicked and the Redeemable’ reveals that:

• Despite representing nine percent of the nearly six million people convicted of a criminal offence between 2000 and 2021 prolific offenders receive over half of all convictions.

• The Crown Prosecution Service is taking far longer to charge suspects than ever before. It now takes an average of nearly 44 days compared to 14 days seven years ago. These delays are putting vulnerable victims at risk of considerable harm as a result of wholly unnecessary bureaucracy.

• The number of cases that have been outstanding for more than 6 months (the expected standard) has quadrupled in the last four years to 30,384 cases. This is part of the biggest ever Crown Court backlog in history (with 64,709 cases now outstanding – double the number four years ago).

• Despite already having more than 45 previous convictions, ‘Hyper-Prolific Offenders’ are sent to prison on less than half of all occasions (47.3%) on conviction for an indictable or either-way offence. For ‘Prolific Offenders’, those with 16 previous convictions or more, the number falls to less than a quarter being sent to prison on conviction (24.4%) for an indictable or either-way offence.

London: Policy Exchange, 2023. 54p