Recent

Recent Publications

  • Mind Forg'd Manacles

    - Jon Gower Davies, 6 August 2012



    Institutional racism is an unfair allegation to level at British police forces and its universal acceptance by public officials has led to harmful policymaking, according to a new Civitas report.

    In Mind Forg'd Manacles, Jon Gower Davies outlines the history and influence of 'institutional racism' since the Macpherson inquiry, following the murder of Stephen Lawrence. He finds the evidence for institutional racism within British police forces to lack substance and describes how the resulting bureaucratic burdens placed on police forces have impeded their ability actually to serve the public.

  • Offender-Desistance Policing and the Sword of Damocles

    - Lawrence W. Sherman and Peter W. Neyroud, June 2012



    As the criminal justice system faces unprecedented cuts in the wake of the financial crisis, many members of the public fear for their safety. Criminals will face fewer police on the streets and a prison system that will struggle to contain convicts. But is an increase in crime inevitable? In this report, world-renowned criminologist Lawrence W. Sherman and former Chief Constable Peter W. Neyroud say 'no'. They offer hope in the form of an efficient criminal justice strategy: Offender-Desistance Policing. This approach uses some of the latest crime control techniques to focus resources on encouraging individuals to desist from crime.

  • The Public and the Police

    - Harriet Sergeant, June 2008



    Expenditure on the police force is at record levels but there is widespread public dissatisfaction, while the police complain of being short of resources. They are not intended to be servants of the state, but of the communities they serve. Their powers are personal and derived from the crown, but this essential feature of British policing - policing by consent - is now in jeopardy.

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Feature Articles