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  • Articles

    Follow the links below to read various articles

  • Cesare Beccaria: A Short Introduction

    by John Hostettler

    How many people in England today have heard of Cesare Beccaria? Very few, I imagine. And the same could have been said of him in Europe in 1764 when, at the age of 26 he wrote his short book entitled On Crimes and Punishments (Dei Delitti e delle Pene in its original Italian). Yet, a year later his fame reached world-wide because of the sheer genius of that book. Why then is he so little known today?

    Read the full Cesare Beccaria article

  • Contemporary Penology and Restorative Justice

    Time for Moral Courage and Political Bravery
    by David J. Cornwell author of The Penal Crisis and the Clapham Omnibus

    We, in Britain, live in 'troubled times' in both our domestic economy and our penology. Unprecedented fiscal debt and the millstone of an excessive and unsustainable penal population compete for urgent remedial action in social policy terms. For too long until very recently, the myth that 'Prison Works' has remained un-refuted, due largely to an intellectual paralysis within the political elite: a paralysis fuelled by tabloid intransigence, manipulation of what is euphemistically termed 'public opinion' in relation to offenders and offences, and to an obstinate, 'traditionalist' refusal within the judiciary to surrender any element of its perceived independence to the dictates of reason. And all at a time when most crime rates across Europe generally, and in Britain specifically, have been falling markedly.

    Read the full Contempory Penology and Restorative Justice article

  • A Glimpse Behind the Wall at Holloway

    by Hilary Beauchamp author of Holloway Prison: An Inside Story

    Inmates would bring into the classroom photos of partners and children for me to draw, or attempt to employ me as their own individual portrait painter. Succumbing to this sort of pressure would have reinforced the erroneous criticism that the arts were a soft option...

    Read the full Holloway Prison article

  • Criminal Justice and Government at a Time of Austerity

    by David Faulkner author of Crime, State and Citizen

    Contents:
    • The State of Crime and Criminal Justice in England
    • Justice and Punishment
    • Government and Public Services More Generally
    • The Way Forward in Criminal Justice

    Download (PDF format)

  • A Short Pen Picture of Sir William Garrow

    by John Hostettler co-author of Sir William Garrow

    'Sir William Garrow was born in Middlesex in 1760 and was called to the Bar in 1783. He was the dominant figure at the Old Bailey from 1783 to 1793, later becoming an MP, Solicitor-General, Attorney-General and finally a Judge. His claim to fame, however, rests on.....'

    Read the full William Garrow article

  • Thoughts on a Visit to Auschwitz

    Thoughts on a Visit to Auschwitz

    by Bryan Gibson Justice of the Peace, April 2008

    'The Jewish Holocaust remains one of the most iconic of world events. Two things stand out - its magnitude and timescale. The events span a collapse of public service values in the mid-1930s to the erosion of the right to life that reached its peak from 1942 to 1944. It seems apposite that to mark the liberation of Auschwitz Concentration Camp, a Holocaust Express ended its journey at Auschwitz-Birkenau in 2008 after touring Germany. A reminder of the many Jewish transports this also symbolises the speed of events....'

    Read the full Auschwitz visit article

  • Smart Justice

    by Bryan Gibson Justice of the Peace, 3 March 2007

    'I knew the rot was beginning to set in when I heard the Lord Chancellor, Lord Faulkner, use the term “doing justice differently”. My suspicions that the Government were again up to no good solidified when Tony Blair, Prime Minister and John Reid, Home Secretary, began to use the words “smart justice”. Then in The Queen’s Speech of November 2006 the cat was truly out of the bag. Having conspired to wreck major tranches of the criminal law, sentencing, evidence and procedure, notions of justice are now expected to change......'

    Read the full Smart Justice article

  • Prison Writing

    Prison Writing

    by Bryan Gibson Justice of the Peace, 10 February 2007

    'There is a long and proud tradition of prison writing that the Government now seeks to kill off by either banning such activity altogether or scooping up the proceeds. Apart from the (unfashionable) human rights implications of such a move and the inevitable flood of appeal cases that this would generate concerning added punishment, proportionality, causation and intellectual property rights, whoever in their right mind would want to close a door on the insights provided by the writing (or other creative talents) of many ex-offenders? It is yet another example of short-sightedness; another headline grabbed at the risk of a detrimental outcome. There are perhaps few situations in which it might truly be said that offending is a cash cow, even if the modern way is celebrity whatever it takes....'

    Read the full Prison Writing article

  • Tyrants and Radicals

    by Bryan Gibson Justice of the Peace, 9 December 2006

    'Britain is a free country. I remember this from my schooldays. It was something to be grateful for we were told, and for good measure British justice was the best in the world, which is why so many other countries had either adopted or envied it. That, I suppose, is why we also stood for a minute’s silence on execution days. Later, as a lawyer, I learned that these claims are what are known as self-serving statements that may or may not be true, but should be treated with caution. Experience, especially in modern times, leads me to conclude that we are “sort of free”, not exactly living under a dictatorship or police state in the full sense of these words but increasingly hedged in by developments and incrementally unable to influence matters in any real or democratic sense. It has even become difficult nowadays to discover exactly what the law is at any given moment, never mind form an opinion on it or decide whether to agree with it or not......'

    Read the full Tyrants and Radicals article

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