Year-long study of almost 2,000 officers across UK and US forces shows introduction of wearable cameras led to a 93% drop in complaints made against police by the public – suggesting the cameras result in behavioural changes that ‘cool down’ potentially volatile encounters.
The results of a major criminology experiment in Peterborough suggest that investing in proactive PCSO foot patrols targeting crime ‘hot spots’ could yield a more than five-to-one return: with every £10 spent saving £56 in prison costs.
A highly innovative project in which Cambridge students and prisoners studied together at a Category B prison in Buckinghamshire has broken down prejudices and created new possibilities for all of those who took part. The researchers behind it suggest that more such collaborative learning initiatives could help dismantle stereotypes and offer prisoners a meaningful vision for the future after release.
Cambridge criminologist tells White House task force that translating UK models of policing to US is the best hope in a generation for tackling dangerous rates of ‘justifiable’ homicides committed by US police, and the resultant haemorrhaging of police legitimacy across the nation.
Cambridge criminologist follows up on landmark US domestic violence arrest experiment and finds that black victims who had partners arrested rather than warned were twice as likely to die young. Researchers call for UK police to conduct similar experiments so that arrest policy can be based on evidence.
Research reveals disconnect between what adults and young people interpret as anti-social behaviour (ASB), as 40% of adults see young people gathering in public as ASB. Study is the first to directly compare teenage perceptions of ASB with those of adults.
New research into attitudes of 15-year-olds in Middle Eastern nation shows that the practice of brutal vigilante justice, predominantly against young women, for perceived slights against family ‘honour’ still holds sway for significant proportions of the adolescent population.
For thousands of people in Britain, prison is a grim reality. For the rest of us, it holds a fascination that is all too often simply prurient. Jason Warr, a PhD student at Cambridge University who has served a custodial sentence himself, offers a critique of television documentaries filmed behind bars.
A landmark study of criminal activity in teenagers indicates that some never see crime as a course of action while others are vulnerable to environmental inducements to crime. The study reveals factors that explains why some young people are ‘crime-prone’ and others ‘crime-averse’, and explains why crime hot spots occur.
With recent reports stating that almost three quarters of those charged with offences during the London riots had prior convictions, attention has turned to Justice Secretary Kenneth Clarke’s description of Britain’s “broken penal system”. Johann Koehler, from the Institute of Criminology, discusses some of the latest projects to reduce reoffending, and how politicians may have to risk the ‘soft on crime’ label to move forward.
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