Home Office Research Research Articles

Social Science Research and Government: Comparative Essays on Britain and the United States.

Preface Contributors 1. Governments and social science: patterns of mutual influence Martin Bulmer Part I. Research in the Context of Policy-Making: 2. The governmental context: interaction between structure and influence Martin Bulmer 3. Governmental structures, social science and the development of economic social policies Theda Skocpol 4. The use of social research: myths and models Patricia Thomas 5. Networks of influence: the social sciences in Britain since the war Cyril S. Smith 6. Social science in Whitehall: two analytic perspectives Stuart S. Blume 7. Congressional committee staffs (do, do not) use analysis Carol H. Weiss 8. Social science training as related to the policy roles of US career officials and appointees: the decline of analysis Colin Campbell and Donald Naulls 9. Perhaps Minister: the messy world of 'in house' government social research Robert Walker 10. Social science in government: the case of the Home Office Research and Planning Unit Derek B. Cornish and Ronald V. Clarke 11. The work of the Commission for Economic and Social Change in Germany Lisl Klein Part II. Methodologies for Policy Research: 12. Varieties of methodology: strengthening the contribution of social science Martin Bulmer 13. The links between policy, survey research and academic social science: America and Britain compared Aubrey McKennell, John Bynner and Martin Bulmer 14. Survey research for government Barry Hedges 15. The Federal effort in developing social indicators and social reporting in the United States during the 1970s Denis F. Johnston 16. Social science analysis and congressional uses: the case of the United States General Accounting Office Ray C. Cist 17. Comparative aspects of randomised experiments for planning and evaluation Robert F. Boruch Part III. The Political Context: 18. The social sciences in an age of uncertainty Martin Bulmer 19. 'Pulling through': conspiracies, counterplots and how the SSRC escaped the axe in 1982 Paul Flather 20. Social science under siege: the political response 1981-1984 Roberta Balstad Miller Index.

THE PRESENT STATE OF CRIMINOLOGY IN BRITAIN*

There has been no adequate survey of contemporary criminology in Britain. The discipline has evolved quickly and erratically, appearing sometimes to advance in opposing directions, and it has been more than a little difficult to make sense of its progress. There are only a few criminologists in post who might have wished to report its development, and they have at best recon structed criminology in their own image. Indeed, any attempt to interpret current movements must refract the preoccupations of the observer. My own description will be just such a special organization of perspectives. It could not be otherwise. I shall focus on a small number of themes that I regard as important although I am aware that others might well have reviewed the field quite differently. In a short article, there cannot be a proper discussion of many things. For instance, I must neglect analysis of the important but vastly intricate exchanges that have occurred between British and foreign ideas about crime and control. British criminology has evolved in an intellectual environment constituted by others' thought, just as it has attained a modest presence elsewhere, but I shall not pay attention to that history. I shall concentrate instead upon the development of British criminology in Britain. In particular, I shall describe the negotiated order which has begun to emerge amongst the core members of a generation of criminologists who have worked together and known each other for some two decades. In the autumn of 1986, for the purposes of this article, I conducted a census of all the 160 British university departments and institutes in which criminol ogists might be found. I also approached the Home Office Research and Planning Unit with questions about its staff and funding. I did, of course, appreciate that criminologists were to be found elsewhere, particularly in the polytechnics, but I could not undertake more than a sample survey of academic institutions in the United Kingdom. It is uncertain what effect the addition of polytechnics and colleges of further education might have had on my argument. Excluding the Research and Planning Unit, 92 departments replied, and their replies produced some elementary demographic information about 118 specialist criminologists. Thirty-seven criminologists worked in law departments, eight in psychology departments, thirty-three in sociology

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:Secure Provision: A Review of Special Services for the Mentally III and Mentally Handicapped in England and Wales L. O. GostinSenior Research Officer, Home Office Research and Planning Unit.A Guide to United Nations Criminal Policy (Cambridge Studies in Criminology No. 54) M. Lopez‐Rey

Jack Tizard memorial lecture. Delinquency, environment and intervention.

Twenty years of Home Office research into delinquency prevention support Jack Tizard's belief that greater improvements in performance and behaviour are likely to attend efforts to change environments rather than inner dispositions. Situational measures which reduce opportunities for crime seem more effective than attempts to reform delinquents. Moreover, given that most delinquents desist from crime in early adulthood, minimal interference in their lives may be the best policy. For those requiring institutional placement, humane care rather than reform should be the goal.

Reducing the Role of Research

Bill McWilliams reviews a significant Home Office Research Paper on Sentencing and Diversion, which emphasises 'policy' at the expense theory and confuses intentions with results.

REVIEWS

Journal Article REVIEWS Get access THE BRITISH CRIME SURVEY: FIRST REPORT. By M. HOUGH and P. MAYHEW. Home Office Research Study No. 76. [London: H.M.S.O. 1983, 62 pp. £4·35.] J. J. M. van Dijk J. J. M. van Dijk Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 24, Issue 2, April 1984, Pages 196–199, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjc.a047441 Published: 01 April 1984

Violent and Non-Violent Sex Offenders

Although this session is devoted to homicidal violence, and I am asked to speak about murderous sex offenders, I want first to emphasize that many sex offenders are non-violent and only very few are ever homicidal. In England, a survey of the Home Office Research Unit (Walmsley and White, 1979), based on an analysis of the offences of all persons convicted for indictable sex offences in a given year, came to the remarkable conclusion that 43 per cent of all the offenders had been involved with victims (or participants) who appeared to have been fully consenting to what took place. They were careful to exclude all victims under ten years of age, whose willingness or otherwise was difficult to establish, and all victims who appeared to have cooperated out of fear or mere obedience, but even so consensual activities comprised a substantial proportion of the offences dealt with by the courts. The explanation is that sex offences include, in addition to assaults in the true sense of the word, a high proportion of mere indecencies, that is sexual activities involving young persons under the legal age of consent, or sexual acts in public places, mostly homosexual behaviour in men’s lavatories.

OPPORTUNITY-BASED CRIME RATES

Journal Article OPPORTUNITY-BASED CRIME RATES: The Diffculties of Further Refinement Get access RONALD V. CLARKE RONALD V. CLARKE *Home Office Research and Planning UnitLondon Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 24, Issue 1, January 1984, Pages 74–83, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjc.a047426 Published: 01 January 1984

POLICE DECISIONS FOR DEALING WITH JUVENILE OFFENDERS

Journal Article POLICE DECISIONS FOR DEALING WITH JUVENILE OFFENDERS Get access JOY MOTT JOY MOTT *Principal Research Officer, Home Office Research and Planning Unit. I am grateful to the Chief Constables and the Commissioner who gave me access to divisional police records, to Janet Gawn who assisted in the statistical analysis and to Sarah Priest, Simha Landau and Anne Dunlop who assisted in the data collection Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 23, Issue 3, July 1983, Pages 249–262, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjc.a047378 Published: 01 July 1983

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:Imprisonment in America: Choosing the Future by M. Sherman and G. Hawkins.Social Enquiry Reports in Scotland by J. H. Curran and G. A. Chambers.Sentencing Theory, Social Enquiry and Probation Practice by S. Rawson.Controlling Women: The Normal and the Deviant edited by B. Hutter and G. Williams.Care and Discretion: Social Workers Decisions with Delinquents by H. Gilier and A. Morris.Children and Justice by S. Asquith.The Scottish Juvenile Justice System edited by F. M. Martin and K. Murray.Criminal Welfare on Trial by C. Brewer, T. Morris, P. Morgan and M. North.Perspectives on Crime Victims edited by Burt Galaway and Joe Hudson.Victims, Offenders and Alternative Sanctions edited by Joe Hudson and Burt Galaway.Evaluating Victim Services edited by Susan E. Salasin.The British Crime Survey (Home Office Research Study No. 76) by M. Hough and P. Mayhew.Developments in the Study of Criminal Behaviour, Volume 2, Violence edited by M. P. Feldman.

Persistent Petty Offenders: Problems and Patterns of Multiple Disadvantage

AbstractIn recent years a category of offender has been described and identified by Home Office research workers and penal reform groups as one which should be kept out of prison wherever possible. In this paper, the author reviews the work which indicates how many offenders fall within this group, and summarises those characteristics they have in common. He then traces the interacting patterns of multiple disadvantage from which so many offenders in this category find it difficult to escape, before drawing some conclusions about the implications of this analysis for penal policy and sentencing practice.

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:The Framework of Criminal Justice by Michael King.Punishment: A Philosophical and Criminological Inquiry by Philip Bean.Dangerousness and Criminal Justice by J. Floud and W. Young.Compulsory Admissions to Mental Hospitals by P. Bean.Persistent Petty Offenders (Home Office Research Study No. 66) by S. Fairhead.

REVIEWS

Journal Article REVIEWS Get access CONTESTED TRIALS IN MAGISTRATES' COURTS. HOME OFFICE RESEARCH STUDY NO. 71. By J. VENNARD. [London: H.M.S.O., 1982. 32 pp. £3.30.] FINE ENFORCEMENT: AN EVALUATION OF THE PRACTICES OF INDIVIDUAL COURTS. RESEARCH AND PLANNING UNIT PAPER 12. By P. SOFTLEY and D. MOXON. [London: Home Office, 1982. 23 pp. No price stated.] Andrew Willis Andrew Willis Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar The British Journal of Criminology, Volume 23, Issue 3, July 1983, Page 297, https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordjournals.bjc.a047394 Published: 01 July 1983

Short reviews

From Africa to affirmative action Mary Frances Berry and John W. Blassingame, Long Memory: The Black Experience in America, Oxford University Press, 1982.468 pp. £14. Race relations text books Alan James and Robert Jeffcoate (eds.), The School in the Multicultural Society. Peter Braham, Ed Rhodes and Michael Pearn (eds.), Discrimination and Disadvantage in Employment. Both published by Harper & Row in association with the Open University Press, 1981. £5.95. Race relations research George Mair, Philip Stevens (eds.), Abstracts of Race Relations Research, Home Office Research and Planning Unit Paper 7, Home Office, London, 1982. 86 pp. The case for Asian languages Jennifer Wilding, Ethnic Minority Languages in the Classroom: A Survey of Asian Parents in Leicester, Leicester Council for Community Relations, 58 Earl Howe Street, Leicester, November 1981. £1.50.23 pp. Books for West Indian children Jessica Wellum, Black Children in the Library, The Polytechnic of North London School of Librarianship, Research Report No. 8,1981. English by television Jenny Lo (ed.), Speak for Yourself: The BBC Project on English as a Second Language, BBC 1981, 3 5 Marylebone High Street, London W1M 4AA. Political history of Southall Campaign Against Racism and Fascism/Southall Rights, Southall: The Birth of a Black Community, Institute of Race Relations and Southall Rights, 1981. £ 1.30.70 pp. Ethnic languages in the libraries Pirkko Elliott, Literary Needs of Children Attending Self‐Help Mother Tongue Schools in London. Polytechnic of North London, Research Report No 6,1981. 118 pp. Race, crime and the Metropolitan Police Susan Smith, Race and Crime Statistics, Background Paper No. 2, Race, Pluralism and Community Group, BSR, Church House, Dean's Yard, London SW1P 3NZ., Aug., 1982,24 pp., 35p. Advice for teachers Richard Willey, Teaching in Multiracial Britain, Longman for Schools Council, 1982, 38 pp., £1.55. Good intentions are not enough Trevor Hitner, David Knights, Eleanor Green and Derek Torrington, Racial minority employment: equal opportunity policy and practice, Department of Employment Research Paper No. 35, January 1982, 34 pp. Equal rights and equal responsibilities Australian Council on Population and Ethnic Affairs, Multiculturalism for all Australians: Our Developing Nationhood, Australian Government Publishing Service, Canberra, 1982,53 pp. The ‘hidden’ unemployed K. Roberts, Maria Noble and Jull Duggan, Unregistered Youth Unemployment and Outreach Careers Work, Final Report part 2, Research Paper No. 32, Department of Employment, Jan. 1982. Careers and further education Shirley Dex, Black and White School‐Leavers: The First Five Years of Work, Research Paper No. 33, Department of Employment, March 1982. Inadequacies in adult education Alan Little, Richard Willey and Jagdish Gundara, Adult Education and the Black Community, ACACE, Leicester, 1982.37 pp. £2.00 Marriage and divorce in the Jewish community Barry A. Kosmin, Divorce in Anglo‐Jewry 1970–1980, West Central Jewish Community Development Centre, London, 1982.28 pp. £1.00. The churches and racism R. Elliott Kendall, Christianity and Race, Community and Race Relations Unit, British Council of Churches, June 1982. 55 pp. Interfaith initiatives Babbara Holden and Eric Rolls, Christian Community and Cultural Diversity, National Centre for Christian Communities and Networks, Westhill College, Selly Oak, Birmingham. June 1982. Black youth housing crisis Harry Cowen and Richard Lording, The Hidden Homeless, Gloucester Community Relations Council, May 1982. Legal language Omkar Nath Channan, The Role of the Court Interpreter, Shaw & Sons, 1982 (Shaway House, Lower Sydenham, London SE26 5AE). 44 pp. £2.25.

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:Prisons: Present and Possible edited by M. E. Wolfgang.The Penalty of Death by T. Sellin.Criminology and Crime Policy by D. Szabo.Community Service by Order edited by K. Pease and W. McWilliams.Assessing Problem Children: Issues and Practice by M. Hoghughi.The Hard‐Core Delinquent by M. O. Mayers.How Staff Rule: Structures of Authority in Two Community Schools by P. Bramham.A Bibliography on General Deterrence Research by D. Beyleveld.Mugging as a Social Problem by M. Pratt.Junior Attendance Centres (Home Office Research Study No. 60) by A. B. Dunlop.

RECONVICTION RATES OF ADULT MALES AFTER DIFFERENT SENTENCES

For a long time the only comparison of reconviction rates after the different sentences available to English courts was Hammond's (1964). This was based on a sample consisting of all offenders convicted in the Metropolitan Police District during March and April 1957. Now that Phillpotts and Lancucki (1979) have published details of a much later and better sample it seems worthwhile to carry out an analysis on Hammond's lines and see how the results compare. The Phillpotts-Lancucki sample consisted of one person in every six (approximately) recorded in the Home Office's Offenders' Index as con victed of a standard list offence in the course of January 1971. Names were taken systematically from an alphabetical list, so that people who had been convicted more than once in that month had no greater chance of being selected than those convicted only once. The follow-up in search of standard list reconvictions covered the six years following the conviction. The information recorded also included previous convictions which had been incurred after 1962 (i.e. in the preceding eight years). The findings were presented in Home Office Research Study 53 ; but the only table (3.4) which dealt with the relationship between the type of sentence and reconviction rates did not take into account the variation in reconviction rates for different types of offence. Phillpotts and Lancucki were kind enough to provide us with the necessary raw figures for a more thorough analysis of the reconviction rates for the 2,06g1 men aged 21 or older who had been sentenced in normal ways 2 for the main standard list offence groups: personal violence, sexual offences, burglary or robbery (together), theft or dishonest handling (together), fraud or forgery (together) and criminal damage. (We would like to record here our thanks for their helpful ness, both in providing the data and in commenting on our analysis.) Their sample is in several ways preferable to Hammond's : ( 1 ) it represents courts throughout England, not merely in London; (2) the follow-up period is a year longer; (3) the information about previous and subsequent convictions is likely to be more accurate because of the existence of the Offenders' Index, which was not set up until the early sixties; (4) the later date of the sample is an obvious advantage, especially since it means that suspended sentences are amongst the disposals. * Institute of Criminology, University of Cambridge. 1 The entire sample of 5,000 or so included females, young adults and juveniles. We chose adult male offenders because sentencing possibilities are less complicated for them than for young adults or juveniles and because they are more numerous than adult female offenders. a i.e. absolute or conditional discharge, fine, probation, suspended sentence, immediate imprison ment. Community service was not available as a sentence in 1971.

Race, inequality and public housing (a review article)

Alan Simpson, Stacking the Decks: A Study of Race, Inequality and Council Housing in Nottingham, 1981, Nottingham and District Community Relations Council, 37 Mansfield Road, Nottingham, 300 pp., £2.95 (plus 50p. p & p). The Greater London House Condition Survey, Reviews and Studies Series, No. 7, 1981, Greater London Council, 233 pp., £15.00. Simon Field, George Mair, Tom Rees and Philip Stevens, Ethnic Minorities in Britain: A Study of Trends in their Position since 1961, Home Office Research Study No. 68, 1980, HMSO, 48 pp., £3.60. A Future for Public Housing, Labour Party Discussion Document, 1981, The Labour Party, 72 pp., £1.00.

Alcoholism and social policy: are we on the lines?

SummaryA critique is presented of a recent Home Office Research Unit review of alcohol distribution theory, and the bearing of the scientific evidence on health policy. The Home Office paper is loaded with errors and mis‐understandings.

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:Community Service Orders: The Development and Use of a New Penal Measure by W. Young.Pressures and Change In the Probation Service (Cropwood Conference Series No. 11) edited by J. F. S. King.Barred from Prison: A Personal Account by C. Culhane.Life Sentence Prisoners (Home Office Research Study No. 51) edited by D. Smith.White Collar Bird by B. Breed.Inequality, Crime and Public Policy edited by J. Braithwaite.Legal Rights of Prisoners: An Analysis of Legal Aid by G. P. Alpert.The Care of Long Term Prisoners by R. Short.Justice for Children by A. Morris, H. Giller, E. Szwed and H. Geach.Reforming Corrections for Juvenile Offenders: Alternatives and Strategies by Y. Bakal and H. W. Polsky.Schooling the Smash Street Kids by P. Cor rig an.The Life‐style Violent Juvenile by A. H. Vachss and Y. Bakal.Crime, the Police and Criminal Statistics by R. A. Carr‐Hill and N. H. Stern.Policing the Inner City: A Study of Amsterdam's Warmoesstraat by M. Punch.Policing the City by R. Mawby.Policing Freedom by J. Alderson.J.P.: Magistrate, Court and Community by E. Burney.Legality, Morality and Ethics in Criminal Justice edited by N. N. Kittrie and J. Susman.Crime in Public View (Home Office Research Study No. 49) by P. MayhewSocial Inquiry Reports: A Survey (Home Office Research Study No. 48) by J. Thorpe.Sexual Offences, Consent and Sentencing (Home Office Research Study No. 54) by R. Walmsley and K. White.Radical Issues in Criminology, edited by P. Carlen and M. Collison.Dealing with Death: A Practical Guide, by W. M. Bowder.Angel Dust: An Ethnographic Study of PCP Users, edited by H. W. Feldman, M. H. Agar and G. M. Beschner.Criminology and Crime Policy, by D. Szabo.An Anatomy of Criminal Justice: A System Overview, by C. H. Foust and D. R. Webster.Research and Criminal Policy (Home Office Research Study No. 59), by J. Croft.The Labelling of Deviance: Evaluating a Perspective, 2nd ed., edited by W. R. Gove.Junior Attendance Centres (Home Office Research Study No. 60), by A. B. Dunlop.Community Service by Order, edited by K. G. Pease and W. McWilliams.Psychiatry, The Law and the Offender: Present Dilemmas and Future Prospects, by R. Bluglass.Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research, Vol. 1, edited by N. Morris and M. Tonry.Critical Issues in Juvenile Delinquency, edited by D. Shichor and D. H. Kelly.The American Prosecutor: A Search for Identity, by J. E. Jacoby.The Economics of Crime, edited by R. Andreano and J. J. Siegfried.Prison Crisis, by P. Evans.The Female Offender, edited by C. T. Griffiths and M. Nance.Learning to Care: The Training of Staff for Residential Social Work with Young People, by S. Mill ham, R. Bullock and K. Hosie.Juvenile Offenders: Care, Control, or Custody, by Howard League.Police Interrogation (Home Office Research Study No. 61), by P. Softley.Geographical Perspectives on Juvenile Delinquency, by D. J. Evans.Compulsory Admissions to Mental Hospitals, by P. Bean. Chichester. Wiley.Crime and Deviance: A Comparative Perspective, edited by G. R. Newmann.

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:The Future of the Prison System by Roy D. King and Rod Morgan, with J. P. Martin and J. E. Thomas.International Corrections edited by R. J. Wicks and H. H. A. Cooper.Diversity in a Youth Correctional System: Handling Delinquents in Massachusetts by R. B. Coates, A.D. Miller and L. E. Ohlin.Correctional Rehabilitation and Management: a Psychological Approach by T. Ayllon and M. A. Milan.Race, Crime and Arrests (Home Office Research Study No. 58) by P. Stevens and C. F. Willis.Sentencing Practice in Magistrates' Courts (Home Office Research Study No. 56) by R. Tarling and M. Weatheritt.R. INMAN, J.P., Sheffield. Restraining the Wicked: the Incapacitation of the Dangerous Criminal by S. Van Dine, J. P. Conrad and S. Dinitz.Correctional Intervention and Research by T. Palmer.Crime and Justice: An Annual Review of Research, Vol. 1, edited by N. Morris and M. Tonry.The Failure of Imprisonment: An Australian Perspective by R. Tomasic and I. Dobinson.Voluntary Action in a Changing World by F. J. Gladstone.