News

A. Chamberlen on the current prison crisis

CJC member Anastasia Chamberlen wrote a short piece for The Conversation on prisoner wellbeing last week. Anastasia's article is entitled 'The real prison crisis is the damage the system does to its prisoners' and refers to her own ongoing research with women prisoners.

It will also be published in the Inside Time newspaper (prisoners’ national newspaper) in January.

Mon 28 Nov 2016, 13:06 | Tags: Empirical research, Public engagement, Publication, Punishment

New Publication! Prosecution in France

Prof Jackie Hodgson & Laurène Soubise have published an article on 'Prosecution in France' in Oxford Handbooks Online.

Their essay examines the increasingly ambivalent role and status of the French prosecutor, the procureur. As a judicial officer (magistrat), she is required to act in and to uphold the public interest, but her hierarchical accountability to the executive and her role in the formation and implementation of local criminal justice policy threaten her independence, notably in the eyes of her fellow magistrats. The dominance of the executive, both politically and through the imposition of managerialist imperatives, is felt in the ever-expanding role of the procureur, especially in the local sphere. While the limited forms of legal and structural accountability in place leave the prosecutor with broad discretion, this is diminished through the drive to standardization resulting from the delegation of work to fulfill the demands of dealing with greater numbers of cases more quickly, with fewer resources.

Fri 04 Nov 2016, 15:51 | Tags: Comparative research, Empirical research, Future of CJ systems, Publication

Vanessa Munro becomes a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences

On 19^th October 2016, the Academy of Social Sciences announced that it had conferred the award of Fellow on 84 leading social scientists, and Vanessa Munro was amongst them!

Fellows are recognised by the Academy after an extensive process of peer review for the excellence and impact of their work through the use of social science for public benefit.

Vanessa, who was nominated for the award by the Socio-Legal Studies Association, was described by the Academy as “the leading scholar of her generation in the socio-legal study of sexual offences.”

Wed 02 Nov 2016, 09:35 | Tags: Empirical research, Public engagement

Internship opportunities at the ECCC

The Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia (ECCC) offers exciting internship opportunities for law graduates with an interest in international criminal law.

More details available at: http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/research/centres/cjc/news/unakrt_call_for_applicants_ocij.pdf

Thu 27 Oct 2016, 14:18 | Tags: International criminal law

Behind closed doors - live observations of current police station disclosure practices and lawyer-client consultations

New Publication!

Divya Sukumar, Prof Jackie Hodgson & Dr Kim Wade's forthcoming publication on live observations of police station disclosure practices and lawyer-client consultations in the Criminal Law Review is now available to read online at:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/308749214_Behind_closed_doors_Live_observations_of_current_police_station_disclosure_practices_and_lawyer-client_consultations

Drawing on recent observational fieldwork as well as existing research studies in the fields of law and of psychology, this article examines the nature of police practices in the disclosure of evidence before and during custodial interviews of legally represented suspects. Whilst police pre-interview disclosure to lawyers was a fixed practice, the format of disclosure varied and lawyers were rarely permitted to inspect the evidence, relying instead on the officer’s account. Disclosure was sometimes provided in stages, either as a deliberate tactic or when evidence was lacking. Officers occasionally exaggerated the strength of their case to suspects and resisted providing more detail to lawyers – an approach that seemed designed to elicit an admission from the suspect. In line with past research, lawyers relied on the evidence that police disclosed when advising clients before the interview and occasionally argued with the police for more disclosure. Taken together, these findings suggest that police are complying with the minimum disclosure requirements set out by legislation, and that police may be more open with lawyers than previous research suggests. Some of our findings warrant concern, however, and raise questions about risks to vulnerable suspects in custody and risks to suspects without legal representation.

Tue 11 Oct 2016, 20:45 | Tags: Empirical research, Law & Psychology, Publication