Jason in the Guardian

Jason Warr (one of our PhD students) has made the news in a debate about whether prison education is working: Guardian 30 January.

The exercise of discretion in the probation service and Bottoms’ model of compliance

Jake writes about compliance in probation in the Early Career Academics Network Bulletin of the Howard League for Penal Reform. He concludes that "although the move towards compliance was seen positively by offender managers and there is evidence of them exercising discretion after a period of very limited discretion, the fact that the move thus far has been set within a managerialist framework means that the kind of compliance achieved is short-termist and might work against normative compliance as proposed by Bottoms."

Jake Phillips publishes about target, audit and risk assessment cultures in the probation service

Jake has recently published his paper entitled "Target, audit and risk assessment cultures in the probation service" in the European Journal of Probation.

This article traces the rise of managerialism in the probation service in England and Wales before exploring the impact of these changes through reference to in-depth observation and interviews in probation. The article considers how national standards affect practice; how audits feature and their impact on accountability; and how the use of risk assessment tools are perceived and resisted in two probation teams in England Wales. The article then turns to changes implemented by the Coalition Government and highlights some tensions between managerialist occupational cultures in probation and what might occur in the near future.

Sytske Besemer publishes in Journal of Quantitative Criminology about specialisation in intergenerational transmission.

Sytske's article entitled "Specialized Versus Versatile Intergenerational Transmission of Violence: A New Approach to Studying Intergenerational Transmission from Violent Versus Non-Violent Fathers: Latent Class Analysis" has recently been published online in the Journal of Quantitative Criminology.
The paper investigates whether fathers who have been convicted of a violent offense transmit criminal and violent behavior more strongly than fathers who were convicted, but never for violence. First, a more traditional approach was taken where offending fathers were divided into two groups based on whether they had a violence conviction. Secondly, Latent Class Analysis (LCA) was performed to identify two classes of fathers, one of which was characterized as violent. Sons of fathers in this class had a higher risk of violent convictions compared with sons whose fathers were in the other class.

RISE Youth has won the Emerge Community Prize Competition

RISE Youth, the program matching court-involved young people with adult coaches, led by Baillie Aaron and Daniel Marshall, has won the Emerge Community Prize Competition - They are extremely grateful to you for voting, and so happy to win. This is another big leap forward for them as they look to implement RISE Youth in the near future. They are building the website, and will be going through the charity registration process very soon. For now, they will enjoy the moment of winning the community prize!

"Over the last month, you - our community - have helped one of our teams get a little help on the way to success: Over 750 people put in their votes to decide which of the Emerge Fellows should receive the £1000 Emerge Community Prize. We are excited to announce today that you chose a lucky winner: RISE Youth, led by Baillie Aaron and Daniel Marshall, two entrepreneurs from Cambridge University. Congratulations to a great team!"

Congratulations and keep going like this Baillie and Daniel!

Gradschool (9-11 September): useful experience!

There are still places available for the September GRADschool, 9th - 11th September.

GRADSchool is a residential ‘crash course’ in personal development; looking at who you are, where you might go and how to make the most of the skills you've acquired during your PhD.

It’s a tried and tested programme, having been run across the UK for over 40 years, and fully supported by the UK Research Councils. For example,

The AHRC strongly encourages its funded doctoral students to participate in one of the workshops organised by the Research Councils’ GRADschools Programme.” (AHRC, ‘Research Training Framework’, Autumn 2009)

However, GRADschool is open to all PhD students in Cambridge from the second year of your PhD onwards.

Matt, from the development office writes: "On a personal note, I attended a GRADSchool during my own studies and it was fantastic, re-charging my batteries for my PhD, and shaping my career. But don’t take my word for it (as they say), below are two testimonials from students who attended the last Cambridge GRADSchool."

"Thank you for giving us this wonderful opportunity to develop ourselves. Thank you for believing in us and devoting all the time and effort!" - PhD student on April 2011 GRADschool in Cambridge

"Loved it! It’s the best thing I have done in a long while! I know I am going to take the experiences with me for life. I did things I never thought I would do in public...and I surprised myself!" - PhD student on April 2011 GRADschool in Cambridge.

To find out more and book a place, click on the website:
http://www.admin.cam.ac.uk/offices/hr/cppd/gradschool/

A few of us went to the last gradschool in April and found it useful, fun and a good experience, so we can recommend going!

Esther van Ginneken in Dutch newspaper NRC Next

Esther van Ginneken, Ph.D. student at the IoC, has written an opinion article in the Dutch newspaper NRC Next which was published on Friday 8 July 2011. Since most of the readers of this blog probably will not be able to read Dutch, I will give a brief overview of what she has written and why she wrote the article.

The Dutch Secretary of Justice continues to introduce proposals for tougher punishments, such as minimum prison sentences for repeat offenders. With these proposals he wants to answer to public demands for more punitive sentencing. However, sentencing in the Netherlands has already become more punitive over the last ten years, and is certainly not lenient when compared to other European countries. Furthermore, the public's knowledge about actual sentencing practices may be limited.

Esther's article briefly describes some of the impact of a prison sentence, and it explains that longer prison sentences may be counterproductive. The article recommends that more attention needs to be paid to alternative punishments, and to restorative justice in particular. It is argued that politicians should focus less on populist rhetoric and more on understanding and addressing the causes of crime.

Well done Esther for making criminological knowledge and the results of academic research known to the public!

Also, if you do want to read the original article, contact Esther!

RISE has won 'Cambridge University Entrepreneurs £5000 Award' and wants your help

Daniel Marshall and Baillie Aaron, Ph.D. respectively MPhil student at the Institute of Criminology have won another prize, the 'Cambridge University Entrepreneurs £5000 Award' and were national finalists in the 'Mckinsey students in society 2011 competition', for their not-for-profit social enterprise: 'RISE'; a coaching programme which provides adult role models to institutionalised young people. See this link for a report!
Due to this success, and building on previous awards, they have received increased interest from businesses, practitioners, academics, entrepreneurs, and other interested parties to invest and support the implementation of the programme. If anyone is interested in getting involved in anyway, or finding out more, please contact Daniel (djm210) or Baillie (bfa21), thank you.

They would also like your help!
1. Please - take 5 SECONDS and VOTE for their organisation, RISE - help us win £1,000 to start a mentorship organisation for young people in custody. This will attract a lot of attention from all over the world, so your vote is really important to us. (Feel free to forward this link to everyone you know / post on facebook / twitter...)

2. If you could spare just 2 minutes to complete the survey (only 3 names this time!) we would really appreciate it! Your ranking of the names will help us choose the ultimate winner!

PHD CRIMINOLOGY CONFERENCE 2011 Edinburgh: CALL FOR PAPERS

This year the third annual Postgraduate Criminology Conference will be held at the University of Edinburgh Law School on September 15th and 16th 2011. In order for postgraduates from across Europe to engage in discussion about emerging research interests in criminology, we would encourage submission on papers from across this broad field. This can range from insights into unique methodological approaches to theoretical discussion of crime in society today. As in previous years, this conference will include themed panel sessions of student papers, as well as plenary speeches and expert panels on postgraduate issues. We hope that this will provide an ideal forum to meet other postgraduate criminology students and to gain an insight into research taking place across Europe today.

If you wish to present a paper at this conference or have any questions, please send the following to this email address: edphdconference@gmail.com

* Your name
* Your university / institution
* Your year of study
* Your paper title
* An abstract of no longer than 500 words
* Your email address

*The deadline for this Call for Papers is FRIDAY 8th JULY 2011*

For more information on accommodation etc, please refer to this website:

http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/conferences/PhDCriminologyConference/

This will be updated with more information as it becomes available.

All the best,
Gemma Flynn and Christine Haddow.

Amy publishes her meta-analysis of Cross-national predictors of crime

Talking about good writing, Amy Nivette has published another paper! Her article entitled 'Cross-National Predictors of Crime: A Meta-Analysis' has been published in the most recent issue of Homicide Studies. Well done Amy!

Cambridge Space-Time

This time not just a comic about PhD life, but some work by my always creative housemate Gillean Denny. Gill is also studying for a Phd, not in Criminology, but in Architecture, and currently writing up and I wanted to share her project for today with you!

Amy Nivette publishes yet another paper!

Amy has published a paper in the most recent number of the British Journal of Criminology, titled Violence in non-state societies

The abstract: "Anthropological sources on non-state, tribal societies offer a wealth of evidence on violence that can expand the spatial and temporal gaze of criminological research. Reviewing this literature allows for a more comparative analysis of patterns of violence and challenges contemporary notions of social change and order. This paper provides an overview of the most relevant anthropological evidence on patterns of violence in non-state societies. Specifically, trends and overall levels of violence, age and sex patterns as well as social and environmental factors are reviewed in order to determine whether contemporary concepts and patterns of violence are universal or culturally specific. The findings presented here indicate that violence in non-state societies is a ubiquitous but culturally varying phenomenon used by males and may be related to interdependent social organizations and networks of exchange."

Congratulations Amy!

Comic: PhD and life in general

Yet another cartoon from PhD Comics to remind us to not forget the rest of the world and our life while doing a PhD!

Jake Phillips keynote speaker at conference: Approaches to Social Problems and Community Safety & Cohesion

Jake Phillips, Ph.D. student at the Institute of Criminology, will give a talk about " Offender Managers and the Rehabilitation Revolution: implications for implementation" at the Newport Centre for Criminal and Community Justice Conference on “Approaches to Social Problems and Community Safety & Cohesion". Jake's dissertation research is on The Rehabilitative Ideal in the Probation Service. He is looking at the Probation Service in the context of recent policy changes, focussing on practitioner's use of, or opinions towards, rehabilitation, discretion, compliance, managerialism and risk management. The Ph.D. uses a mix of ethnographic work in a probation office, semi-structured interviews with staff and analysis of policy documents and political rhetoric. Jake's presentation follows from his Ph.D. research. The half-day conference will be held in Newport, Wales on Wednesday 18 May 2011.
Date: Wednesday 18 May 2011
Time: 9.30am – 1.00pm (Half-day Conference)
Location: Caerleon Campus Boardroom, University of Wales, Newport

Useful website for post-docs: Humanities and Social Sciences Postdocs 2010-2011

I was pointed towards this extremely useful website with a collection of 'Humanities and Social Sciences Postdocs 2010-2011'. I realise that for many the deadline has passed for the next academic year, but it's still useful as a collection of possibilities and I assume (hope!) there will be an updated for post docs starting in the academic year 2012-2013.

Amy Nivette publishes in Theoretical Criminology about Adler's theory of low crime

Amy Nivette, Ph.D. Student at the Institute of Criminology, recently published an article, titled 'Old theories and new approaches: Evaluating Freda Adler's theory of low crime and its implications for criminology' in Theoretical Criminology. Congratulations Amy!

The abstract of the paper:

Many years ago, Freda Adler (1983) sought to explain the full variation of crime rates through the notion of synnomie. Although Adler’s research was incomplete and somewhat flawed, it drew attention to low crime societies as the subject of criminological research. In this article I critically revisit Adler’s ideas in order to encourage a more methodologically rigorous approach to researching low crime societies. The main issues this article addresses are the assumption of ‘low’ crime and the meaning this label entails, the implications of ‘norm cohesion’ and the need for an alternative approach when studying ‘low’ crime. I conclude with implications for criminological research in the hope that this will invite future inquiry into matters that lie outside the traditional criminological gaze.

Daniel and Baillie accepted as fellows of the Oxford University Emerge Social Venture Lab

Following our earlier post about Daniel Marshall and Baillie Aaron, we can announce more good news. They have also been successfully accepted as Fellows of the Oxford University Emerge Social Venture Lab.

Well done!

Criminology Students Daniel Marshall and Baillie Aaron win Entrepreneurs prize!

Daniel Marshall and Baillie Aaron, Ph.D. respectively MPhil student at the Institute of Criminology have won an award for the Cambridge University Entrepreneurs (CUE) 1k challenge for their proposal for RISE, a mentoring scheme for institutionalized youn people in the UK “RISE’s mission is to provide court-involved young people with opportunities for role modelling, inspiration, success, and enrichment through its coaching program. Studies have consistently shown that at-risk young people benefit tremendously from ongoing mentorship relationships. The RISE program is based on empirically-tested best practices and provides adult coaches for youth in custody, commencing during their sentence and extending through to their community re-entry. RISE’s annual operational cost is £123,000, relative to the £160,000 per annum cost of keeping one youth in a secure training centre. With recidivism rates of approximately 75%, RISE is expected to produce significant fiscal savings and social impact.”

Congratulations!!

The relationship between caffeine, sleep and productiveness in a PhD

I am currently doing loads of analyses with 2x2 tables, so this PhD comic came exactly at the right time:

Article by student at Institute of Criminology: relationship between parental imprisonment and offspring offending in England and the Netherlands

Sytske Besemer, a Ph.D candidate at the Institute of Criminology, has published an article in the British Journal of Criminology that she co-authored with Victor van der Geest (NSCR), Joseph Murray, Catrien Bijleveld (NSCR), and David Farrington. The article is based on research in England and the Netherlands. They investigated parental imprisonment and offspring offending and differences between the countries on this topic.