criminal institute profile

CRIME INSTITUTE PROFILE 121

European Journal on Criminal Policy and Research 7: 121–129, 1999. © 1999 Kluwer Academic Publishers. Printed in the Netherlands.

ADAM CRAWFORD AND CLIVE WALKER

CENTRE FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE STUDIES,UNIVERSITY OF LEEDS

INTRODUCTION

The Centre for Criminal Justice Studies at the University of Leeds hasrecently celebrated its 10th anniversary. It was established in 1987 as aresearch-based inter-disciplinary unit attached to the Faculty of Law. Itswider institutional context is the Economics, Social Science and LawGraduate School. The broad mission of the Centre, as set out in itsConstitution, is ‘the pursuit of research and study into all aspects ofcriminal justice systems’. There are 10 full-time members of staff at theCentre, including lawyers, criminologists and social scientists, who arededicated to its primary goal of research excellence in all aspects ofcriminal justice and related criminological issues. As a relatively smalland cohesive specialist unit, the Centre is highly productive, with itsmembers engaged in a wide variety of academic and funded research.Full-time staff are supported by an Advisory Committee which consistsof more than 20 academics and criminal justice practitioners in relevantfields of expertise. The Advisory Committee meets with members ofstaff on a formal annual basis and more frequently in connection withspecific projects.

The concept of ‘criminal justice studies’ in the research and teaching atthe Centre is defined fairly broadly. We understand this term to includethe study of both formal and informal processes of regulation and controlwithin the field of criminal justice. Consequently, this definition providesfor the following agendas of research and teaching:

1. the analysis of the competing theoretical perspectives by which tocomprehend and evaluate the criminal justice complex;

2. the analysis of current policy debates and legal developments, locatingthese within the context of broader socio-political change;

3. the investigation of the social impact of criminal justice policy andpractices;

4. the detailed study of the institutions and processes by which criminaljustice systems operate both in national and comparative contexts;

CRIME INSTITUTE PROFILE122

5. the examination of the complex interplay between criminologicalknowledge, governmental strategies, in the form of given policyinitiatives, and organisational as well as lay practices.

In so doing, research and teaching at the Centre draw upon both normativeenquiry and findings from empirical research. Accordingly, we deploy amixture of academic skills whilst fusing a number of disciplines, rangingfrom legal philosophy through political sciences to socio-legal studies. Itis the interplay between the legal, social and political fields which givesus a progressive and flexible profile which we call ‘criminal justice studies’and which has more vitality, perhaps, than the more established constituentdisciplines or even criminological studies. As such, criminal justice studiesat the University of Leeds has come to occupy a distinctive place amongacademic research institutes within the UK.

MAJOR RESEARCH PROJECTS

A major part of the work of the Centre consists of funded research projects.In recent years members of the Centre have received funding for researchprojects from: the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC – themajor social science academic funding body in the UK); leading charitableorganisations, such as the Nuffield Foundation, the Leverhulme Trust, theAirey Neave Trust, the Hamlyn Trust; major Government departments,including the Home Office, the Lord Chancellor’s Department and theNorthern Ireland Office; and other professional organisations, such as theLaw Society and West Yorkshire Police Authority. In addition, non-fundedresearch within the Centre has been conducted into areas of criminal justiceincluding ‘reporting restrictions in criminal cases’, ‘diversion for youngadult offenders’, ‘cross-posting of female prison officers in men’s prisons’,‘policing the Internet’, ‘international human rights’ and various aspectsof national and international criminal law. The major interests andspecialisms of past and on-going research coalesce under seven broadheadings:

The Administration of Justice

Specific groups of criminal justice personnel have been the subject offocused research conducted by members of the Centre. A working partyset up by the Lord Chancellor’s Department in 1995 to consider therelationship between lay and stipendiary magistrates and the number ofappointments of stipendiary magistrates outside of the Metropolitan area,


invited the Centre to research the role and appointment of stipendiarymagistrates. The report to the Lord Chancellor’s Department has now beenpublished (Seago et al. 1996). In addition, the conditions for, and qualityof, criminal legal aid have been an on-going source of research interest.This began with funded research for the ESRC into ‘criminal legal aid’which resulted in a number of publications (see Young and Wall 1996).More recently, this interest has fed into a Law Society funded project inwhich David Wall, as part of a team of researchers in Leeds, has beenexamining ‘quality performance indicators for legal aid delivery’ withincriminal justice. This research examines client and practitioner perceptionsof need in relation to quality performance indicators for legal aid delivery,and seeks to compare differences and similarities between practitionerand client perceptions of the quality of legal services. Moreover, membersof the Centre have also engaged in research into other aspects ofadministration of magistrates’ justice including: Home Office fundedresearch into pre-trial committal proceedings; on-going Lord Chancellor’sDepartment funded research into Magistrates’ courts and ‘managerialism’;and the aetiology of, and responses to, miscarriages of justice (Walkerand Starmer 1999).

Victims of Crime and Restorative Justice

Interests around restorative justice and the growth of a victims’ perspectivewithin criminal justice are reflected in the Centre’s recent and on-goingresearch. Adam Crawford has completed ESRC funded comparativeresearch, ‘victim/offender mediation in comparative legal cultures: Englandand France’. This project sought to locate the growth and practice of victim/offender mediation and reparation within a wider cultural framework. Thiswas done through extensive fieldwork, including observations andinterviews in the two research sites in the different countries underconsideration (see Crawford, forthcoming).

In addition, a research team, directed by Crawford, is evaluating ‘victimcontact work and the probation service’, funded by the Nuffield Founda-tion. The research is seeking to assess the impact of the requirements underthe British Government’s Victim’s Charter and Probation Circular 61/95for the probation service to contact victims of life sentenced and seriousor violent offenders to keep them informed during the custodial processand to get information from victims as to any anxieties that they may haveabout the offender’s release. In satisfying this new requirement a victimcontact’s work is conducted and an enquiry report is compiled. The researchinvolves interviews with victims, enquirers, through care probation officers


and other relevant criminal justice personnel. The fieldwork is based inthe Northumbria and West Yorkshire Probation services. Both services havebeen identified for their national recognition for good practice and yetoperate slightly different models of victim contact work. It is anticipatedthat the findings from this research will inform future policy and goodpractice. Furthermore, on the theme of restorative justice, David Wall hasreceived funding to assess the role and place of ‘sentencing circles’ inCanadian criminal justice.

Crime Prevention and Community Safety

Interest in crime prevention and community safety have never before beenso high on the public and political agendas. Preventing crime has becomea central concern of government – both national and local. In England andWales this is reflected by the passage of the recent Crime and DisorderAct 1998 at the heart of which lies a new statutory duty on local authoritiesand the police to establish and promote community safety partnershipsand to put into place crime and disorder strategies. Developing upon hisearlier research publications Crawford (1997, 1998) has been researchingthe implications of the ‘shift to prevention’ in the UK and elsewhere,including work for the Ministry of Justice in New Zealand and the Ministryof the Interior in France. This research has been expanded to encompassan analysis of the comparative community safety partnership structuresand strategies in a number of countries, notably New Zealand, France, theNetherlands, Ireland and the UK. The Northern Ireland Office is currentlyfunding him, together with a research assistant, to produce a reportcomprising a literature review of international community safety structuresas well as options for Northern Ireland, as part of its major criminal justicereview.

Policing and the Police

Policing as a generic social function transcends much of the work of theCentre. It was the specific focus of the ‘urban crime fund’ evaluationconducted by members of the Centre. In addition, David Wall was fundedby the Nuffield Foundation to conduct a further analysis of chief constableswhich he began in 1986 and concluded in 1998. This is the final stage ofa long-term survey of every appointment of chief constables in Englandand Wales since 1836 which has been incorporated into a social history ofthe chief police officers (Wall 1998). On a slightly different theme,following the IRA bombings of the City of London in 1992 and 1993,


action was taken by the Government to stabilise the insurance market soas to ensure that cover remained available for commercial properties.Professor Walker received a grant from the Airey Neave Trust to researchinto the working of the arrangements. A full-time research student wasappointed to research the re-insurance aspects of the project. ProfessorWalker, developing upon his earlier work (Hogan and Walker 1989; Walker1992) has concentrated on the security aspects of the research.

Minorities, Race and Criminal Justice

The rights of minorities and indigenous peoples is a growing area ofresearch interest within the Centre particularly since the arrival of JavaidRehman a number of years ago (Rehman, forthcoming). This concern withminority rights and interests is also reflected in Jo Goodey’s NuffieldFoundation funded project on ‘the impact of race and racism on boys’fear of crime’, albeit from a more criminological perspective (see Goodey1997). This has connected with her wider interests in masculinities, raceand crime. She has pursued these themes in her visiting research fellowshipposition at the Max Planck Institute, in Germany, during the latter part of1998, where she is undertaking comparative research on the treatment ofimmigrants and refugees by criminal justice agencies in six European Unioncountries. Recently, she was asked to join the World Society of Victimology’snewly formed Research Committee, which meets annually in Croatia todiscuss the society’s research agenda.

Criminal Law and International Human Rights

Various aspects of criminal law, international human rights and Europeanhuman rights are the subject of research interest of members of the Centre,including ‘rights of assembly’ (Fitzpatrick and Taylor 1998), ‘rights ofminorities’ (Rehman, forthcoming), ‘the treatment of terrorist suspects’(Walker 1992) and ‘comparative criminal law’ (Reed et al. 1998).

Crime and the Internet

The growth of research within the Centre into aspects of the policing ofthe Internet and the implications of legal technologies led to theestablishment of the Cyber Law Unit in early 1998 to act as a focus forthis research. Within this broad field, our research attention has turned tothe implications for policing (see Wall 1998) and also for court processes.In addition, the attempts to impose forms of constraint, either in regard to


the content of Internet pages or the means of delivery such as encryptionhave also been considered. Recently, members of the Centre have publishedextensively in leading journals in this area and have two major collaborativepublications forthcoming (Walker and Akdeniz, forthcoming; Wall,forthcoming).

CRIMINAL JUSTICE TEACHING

The Centre has a substantial body of postgraduate research students atMA and PhD level. The supervision and teaching of postgraduate studentsarises out of, and relates to, the research specialisms of members of staff.Students are provided with extensive study facilities as well as training inresearch and presentational skills.

The Centre offers a postgraduate programme in Criminal justice studies,which includes a hierarchy of courses that range from the part-timecertificate through to the diploma and Masters degree. The Mastersprogramme attracts approximately 20 students each year. It is 12 monthsfull-time or 24 months part-time and aims to enable students to acquirenew theoretical perspectives on, and wider knowledge about, criminaljustice systems, whilst grounding them in research methodology thusengendering a capacity to undertake research projects. The Mastersprogramme entails a number of compulsory courses in ‘applied criminaljustice research methods and skills’, ‘criminal justice processes’, ‘criminaljustice policies and perspectives’ and a dissertation. In addition, students canchoose from a variety of optional courses including: ‘policing’, ‘politicalviolence and criminal justice systems’, ‘victims and victimology’, ‘Europeanaspects of criminal justice’, ‘forensic medicine and forensic science’,‘theories of crime and punishment’ and ‘gender, race and crime’. The Mastersprogramme has been externally recognised through the ESRC’s allocationof a funded scholarship. In addition to the postgraduate programme incriminal justice studies, the Centre offers a number of criminal justice andcriminology undergraduate courses, both to LLB students in the LawDepartment and non-LLB students across the University.

CONFERENCES

The Centre runs a public programme of criminal justice seminars of aboutfive talks each semester, given by external speakers. The talks are attendedby local practitioners and academics, plus the staff and research students


attached to the Centre. These talks include the annual Frank DawtryMemorial lecture and the bi-annual Anne Spencer Memorial lecture. Thesehave attracted international figures such as the (then) Chief Constable ofWest Yorkshire, Keith Hellawell (currently co-ordinator of drug policy inEngland and Wales), the General Secretary of Interpol, Ray Kendall, andProfessor Amitai Etzioni, George Washington University.

The Centre’s approach to the discipline has led it to organise a considerablenumber of national and international conferences. In addition to hostingannual conferences for practitioners such as senior magistrates and courtclerks, it has also hosted some major international conferences. In 1995 ithosted the Socio-Legal Studies Association (SLSA) annual conference,entitled ‘Value and Commitment in Diversity’, which attracted some 300delegates to the University of Leeds. In March 1999 the British and IrishLegal Education and Technology Association (BILETA) annual conferencewill be organised by the Centre, to be titled: ‘Cyberspace 1999: Crime,Criminal Justice and the Internet’.

In 1998 the Centre hosted two important international and nationalconferences: On 17 and 18 July 1998 the Centre for Criminal Justice Studiesheld an international conference in York on the subject of ‘Integrating aVictim Perspective within Criminal Justice’. The conference sought to bringtogether and encourage a dialogue between academics, practitioners andpolicy makers in relation to three central conference aims:

1. to consider the implications of introducing a ‘victim perspective’ intothe delicate balance between state and offender and the fundamentalquestions about the future of criminal justice to which they give rise;

2. to examine recent legislative and policy developments in relation tovictims, as well as practical experiences, research findings andtheoretical debates from around the world;

3. to explore the prospects and implications of a ‘restorative justice’approach.

Over 130 delegates from as far afield as New Zealand, Israel and SouthAfrica attended the conference and presented over 50 papers on a widerange of topics which addressed the conference themes. The plenary papers,along with selected keynote papers, will be published by Ashgate in abook edited by the conference organisers (Crawford and Goodey,forthcoming). The conference will also result in a forthcoming specialedition of the International Review of Victimology based on refereedconference papers. These forthcoming publications testify to the wealthof academic and practitioner interest concerning the practice, promise andproblems of integrating victims into the criminal justice system.


In order to mark the 10th anniversary of the Centre for Criminal JusticeStudies a one-day conference was organised on 22 September 1998. Theconference ‘The Renewal of Criminal Justice? New Labour’s Policies inPerspective’ was organised for the specific purpose of reflecting upon andanalysing the new Labour government’s policies in the field of criminaljustice. Some 130 delegates attended the conference and heard fromkeynote speakers including Right Hon. Jack Straw, Home Secretary andGeoff Hoon M.P., Parliamentary Secretary at the Lord Chancellor’sDepartment amongst other distinguished speakers. The conference wasdivided broadly into two sections. In the morning the focus of the speakers’presentations was directed at reforms to the courts and court processes, inparticular the potential impact of the incorporation of the EuropeanConvention on Human Rights by means of the Human Rights Act. Theafternoon sessions concentrated largely upon issues of policing andcommunity safety, in particular the impact of the Crime and Disorder Actwhich received Royal Assent in July 1998. Delegates contributed to livelydiscussions to which each presentation gave rise. The full conferenceproceedings have been published (Crawford and Walker 1998) and copiesare available from the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies.

VISITING SCHOLARS

The Centre operates a ‘visiting scholar programme’ and welcomesapplications from scholars interested in the opportunity to utilise researchfacilities and make research links with Leeds in any aspect of criminal justiceand related criminological research. To date, the Centre has received visitingscholars from as far afield as Korea, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. TheCentre has good links with international institutes in France, Belgium,Canada, Germany, the USA, Japan and New Zealand. Applications arewelcome. Further information is available from our extensive web site at:<http://www.leeds.ac.uk/law/ccjs/homepage.htm>.

REFERENCES

Crawford, A., The Local Governance of Crime: Appeals to Community and Partnerships.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1997.

Crawford, A., Crime Prevention and Community Safety: Politics, Policies and Practices.Harlow: Addison Wesley Longman, 1998.

Crawford, A., Contrasts in victim/offender mediation and appeals to community in Franceand England. In: D. Nelken (Ed.) Contrasts in Criminal Justice. Aldershot: Ashgate,forthcoming.


Crawford, A. and J.S. Goodey (Eds), Integrating a Victim Perspective within CriminalJustice. Aldershot: Ashgate, forthcoming.

Crawford, A. and C.P. Walker (Eds), The Renewal of Criminal Justice? New Labour’sPolicies in Perspective. Leeds: Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, 1998.

Fitzpatrick, B. and N. Taylor, Trespassers might be prosecuted: the European conventionand restrictions on the right to assemble. European Human Rights Law Review, 3, pp.292–300, 1998.

Goodey, J.S., Boys don’t cry: Masculinities, fear of crime and fearlessness. British Journalof Criminology, 37(3), pp. 401–418, 1997.

Hogan, G. and C.P. Walker, Political Violence and the Law in Ireland. Manchester:Manchester University Press, 1989.

Reed, A., P.J. Seago and R. Weaver, Readings in Criminal Law. Cincinnati: AndersonPress, 1998.

Rehman, J., Analysing the Weaknesses in the International Protection of Minority Rightsthrough the Spectrum of State Practice. The Hague: Kluwer Law International,forthcoming.

Seago, P., C.P. Walker and D.S. Wall, The Role and Appointment of StipendiaryMagistrates. Report for the Lord Chancellor’s Department. Leeds: Centre for CriminalJustice Studies, 1996.

Walker, C.P., The Prevention of Terrorism in British Law. Manchester: ManchesterUniversity Press, 1992.

Walker, C.P. (Ed.), Justice in Error. London: Blackstone, 1993.Walker, C.P. and Y. Akdeniz (Eds), Internet Law in the United Kingdom. Harlow: Addison

Wesley Longman, forthcoming.Walker, C.P. and K. Starmer (Eds), Miscarriages of Justice. London: Blackstone, 1999.Wall, D.S., Catching cybercriminals: policing the Internet. International Review of Law,

Computers and Technology, 12(2) pp. 201–218, 1998.Wall, D.S., The Chief Constables of England and Wales: The Socio-Legal History of a

Criminal Justice Elite. Aldershot: Ashgate, 1998.Wall, D.S. (Ed.), Cyberlaw: Information Technology, Law and Society. Harlow: Addison

Wesley Longman, 1999.Young R. and D.S. Wall (Eds), Access to Criminal Justice: Lawyers, Legal Aid and the

Defence of Liberty. London: Blackstone Press, 1996.

Centre for Criminal Justice StudiesUniversity of LeedsLeeds LS2 9JTUKE-mail: [email protected]

criminal institute profile

Documents