The regulation of criminal justice detention by multisectoral actors

Session Submission Type: Roundtable

Abstract

This roundtable discusses a growing yet overlooked and internationally important phenomenon: the regulation of criminal justice detention by multisectoral actors operating from local to international scales. In this case, regulation includes, inter alia, external oversight, monitoring and inspection activities by state agencies and steering activities by voluntary organisations. We do not know how burgeoning detention regulation mechanisms do or could improve detention, and in turn societal health and safety. Addressing this fundamental failing, the RECEDE team have undertaken a large, novel, empirically informed case study of police, court and prison regulation in England and Wales, funded by a €1.5m European Research Council Starting Grant. In a context of persistent imprisonment crises, multisectoral and multiscalar agencies (from voluntary sector campaign groups to UN agencies) frequently push for more regulation as a response to abuses. We have gathered original empirical data from an unprecedented range of documents and interviews, including a range and number of (quasi)statutory and voluntary sector regulators not previously attempted. Mobilising theoretical insights from regulation studies, we critically appraise the (potential) functions of cross-sectoral regulation within and across criminal justice detention institutions and across glocal geographical scales, exploring how problem articulation practices might be reshaped. We advance this discussion by providing context and concise presentations of three articles.

Subtopic

• Topic 5: Social Control and Criminal Justice / Imprisonment, Prisons, Prison Life and Effects of Imprisonment (Prisons WG)

Chair

• Thomas Guiney, University of Nottingham

Discussants

• Layla Skinns, University of Sheffield

• Andriani Fili, University of Oxford Centre for Criminology, England

• Sarah Leonard, University of Manchester, England.

• Kirstin Drenkhahn, Freie Universität Berlin

• Rita Elisabeth Haverkamp, University of Tübingen

Individual Presentations

• Concise presentation of contextual article: The regulation of criminal justice detention by multisectoral actors. Prof Philippa Tomczak and Dr Tom Kemp - Philippa Tomczak, University of Nottingham; Tom Kemp, University of Nottingham School of Sociology and Social Policy

• Concise presentation of article: Problematisations of detention by statutory regulators. Dr Tom Kemp - Tom Kemp, University of Nottingham School of Sociology and Social Policy

• Concise presentation of article: Multisectoral regulation amidst resource scarcity. Dr Matthew Hall - Matthew Hall, University of Nottingham School of Sociology and Social Policy