Emerging from Lockdown
This project draws on empirical research and a large scale public photographic project to tell Coventry Stories of lockdown through a creative narrative account and a short film.
Since March 2020, the UK has been in some form of lockdown, restricting our movement and our ability to meet with others in our homes, in cafes, bars and clubs, and outside. This has been backed by police powers of dispersal, the use of temporary barriers to control public mobility, and the ability to issue fixed penalty notices of £100 where more than six people or two households have gathered outside. There were also fines of up to £10,000 for those holding or involved in prohibited gatherings indoors of more than 30 people.
Through interviews with 25 people in Coventry city centre in June 2021, the research asks how people have experienced this loss of freedom and what their new-found liberty looks like as they emerge out of lockdown and return to the city. This poses a further question about what ‘new normal’ spaces in the city may materialise, and the extent to which the extraordinary measures introduced in lockdown might be retained in a post-pandemic world. We ask how criminal justice powers to enforce public health restrictions have impacted individuals. How do people with young families, those working in front line services, retail, hospitality, the arts or at-home experience the city? How did they understand the legal restrictions on their freedom of movement, and how does the city feel now that they're free to move, meet and gather as they please?
These responses have been woven into a fictionalised story, written by Georgie Evans - "Blinking in the Light" - and then narrated by actor Bharti Patel in a short film alongside images from the Coventry Grid project, organised in collaboration with Dave Allen.
Policing, Culture and Community: WM Police as City of Culture Partners
The 15 month project Started in September 2021. It seeks to understand the potential for police partnerships around arts and culture to have a positive impact in reducing crime, protecting vulnerable people, increasing diversity in recruitment, and on police relationships with young people and seldom heard communities.
It poses a number of salient questions: To what extent has the model of partnership with the Trust ensured that WMP can contribute to Coventry City of Culture in order to make positive impacts in the city? What are the benefits to the police in investing in a partnership in the delivery of cultural mega events, and how does this compare with other forms of collaboration e.g. sporting mega events? What benefits has the police partnership with City of Culture brought to young people, areas of deprivation, those most fearful of crime and those suffering health and economic disadvantage? What is the legacy of the Police-Trust partnership in terms of robust, tested strategies and practices.
PI: Jackie Hodgson (Law, co-director of COPR); Co-i: Neil Stewart (WBS); Research Fellow: Dr Rachel Lewis (Law)
This project is funded by the City of Culture Trust, WM Police and ESRC Impact Acceleration Account
For more information: https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/cross_fac/copr/our-research/police/
ESRC Impact Studies
Jackie has recently carried out two impact studies funded by the ESRC Impact Acceleration Account.
The first, conducted with West Mercia police and colleagues in the Centre for Operational Police Research (COPR), explores the impact on public confidence in policing of a variety of preventive interventions. Residents across five sites were surveyed before and after different burglary prevention interventions took place, and then again six months later. They were asked about their experience of criminal behaviour in their area and their levels of confidence in, and satisfaction with, policing. Police officers organising the interventions were also interviewed, along with Police and Community Support Officers in the areas and some recent burglary offenders. The findings were published in a final report in 2019 available on the COPR website: Public Confidence and Crime Reduction: The Impact of Forensic Property Marking.
The second study evaluates the Criminal Cases Review Commission's treatment of applications where no appeal has been brought. This new research (co-authored with Juliet Horne and Laurène Soubise) is available on the Law School's Criminal Justice Centre website: <a href="https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/research/centres/cjc/news/?newsItem=8a1785d8669b2d230166aa84d9b41d1e">The Criminal Cases Review Commission: Last resort or first appeal? </a> The research looks at the impact on practice of earlier research by Warwick Criminal Justice Centre researchers, including a study commissioned by the Legal Services Commission, 'The extent and impact of legal representation on applications to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC)' published with Dr Juliet Horne (2009) and Juliet's further work in her doctoral thesis (2017).
Access to Justice and Legal Aid: Comparative Perspectives on Unmet Legal Need
In collaboration with Dr Asher Flynn from Monash University, Jackie organised conference workshops in Warwick and Melbourne comparing legal aid cuts and access to justice in the two jurisdictions, resulting in the edited collection (2017) 'Access to Justice and Legal Aid: Comparative Perspectives on Unmet Legal Need' (Hart Publishing) and with Monash colleagues Asher Flynn, Jude McCulloch & Bronwyn Naylor (2016) 'Legal Aid and the Right to a Fair Trial: A Question of Human Rights' 40 (1) Melbourne University Law Review.
https://ssrn.com/abstract=2980337">https://ssrn.com/abstract=2980337
More than Just a Prisoner
Working with Dr Juliet Horne and Natalie Kyneswood though the Criminal Justice Centre, Jackie launched in the House of Lords (in 2015) a study of the Prisoners Penfriends' scheme 'More than Just a Prisoner'.