Interpreting Influence: Towards Reflexivity in Penal Policymaking?

Abstract

The shift in the nature and effects of penal policymaking in the United Kingdom from the 1970s to the present day is a well-told tale, to the extent that it can effectively be told in a series of shorthand phrases: the 'fall of the Platonic guardians' (Loader, 2006); the 'rise of the public voice' (Ryan, 2004); and the increasing centrality of 'penal populism' (Pratt, 2007), leading to a penal arms race (Lacey, 2008) within a 'culture of control' (Garland, 2001). These criminological accounts tend to cast the majority of policymakers -or at least political actors -as cynical and non-reflexive about the effects of their policymaking efforts. Even those who do not cast 1 The research on which this chapter draws was supported by an Economic and Social Research Council 1+3 Studentship [grant ES/GO10307/1]. Thanks to John Boswell and Ian Loader for comments on an earlier draft. The usual disclaimers apply. 2 ISBN 978-1-137-54642-5 ;

Transforming Rehabilitation as ‘policy disaster’: Unbalanced policy-making and probation reform

“…Hence the movement towards centralized marketization in the second part of the 5 For further relevant discussion see Annison (2016). 6 https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-press-conference-on-sentencing-reforms 7 We can note, for example, in 2011-12 the belated and hasty inclusion of 'tough' sanctions in the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act in order to 'balance' reforms seen as being unduly 'soft': (Annison, 2015: chapter 7).…”