Dangerous politics: lessons for penal reform

Annison, Harry (2016) Dangerous politics: lessons for penal reform. Justice and Penal Reform: Re-shaping the Penal Landscape, Oxford, United Kingdom. 16 - 18 Mar 2016.

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Understanding the beliefs and practices underpinning penal policy making is an indispensable component of fostering what we might term ‘utopian realist’ proposals for penal reform (Giddens, 1990). This paper presents findings from a detailed analysis of the ‘IPP story’ (the creation, contestation, amendment and abolition of the preventive Imprisonment for Public Protection sentence), considering the lessons that it provides for scholars, policymakers and penal reformers. The research draws on over 60 in-depth interviews with key policymakers, utilizing an interpretive political analysis framework (Bevir and Rhodes, 2003, 2006) in order to analyse the beliefs, traditions and practices that underpin penal policy making.

We see that this exploration of ‘one of the least carefully planned and implemented pieces of legislation in the history of British sentencing’ (Jacobson and Hough, 2010) provides us with insights that hold general relevance for penal reform, as well as providing specific lessons in relation to the rise of preventive justice. The paper surveys policymaker concerns regarding the role of expertise in penal policy making; the influence of ‘the public’ (primarily as an ideational construct); the related role of the media and the sub-optimal relationships between policy participants within, and beyond, the Ministry of Justice. In closing it is argued that ‘recursive collaboration’ (Wagenaar et al, 2015) between policy participants, supported by empirically grounded interpretive research, is one important means by which a better politics of criminal justice might be pursued.

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