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Public Confidence in Criminal Justice pp 77–101Cite as

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Genealogy: How the Public Confidence Agenda Got Its ‘Hooks’ into Criminal Justice

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Part of the book series: Critical Criminological Perspectives ((CCRP))

Abstract

Turner argues that the social and political context from the late 1970s onwards allowed ‘public confidence’ to ‘hook’ into criminal justice discourse. The events and issues described are: (1) revelations about police misconduct and tense police-community relationships; (2) political debates about how to alleviate overcrowding in prisons taking place against the backdrop of Thatcherite authoritarian populism; (3) miscarriages of justice exposed during the late 1980s; (4) intense political contest between the ailing Conservative government and a resurgent Labour opposition during the 1990s; and (5) the debate about sentencing and minimum tariffs for murderers. The idea of public confidence was frequently invoked by groups competing for power and influence within the criminal justice arena, and the researchers themselves, responding to the increased opportunity to disseminate knowledge in this area, were not disinterested participants in the struggle for power and influence.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    For more information on the method used, see Appendix 2.

  2. 2.

    See Royal Commission on the Police (1962).

  3. 3.

    Although, in an indication of the Conservative government’s bifurcated strategy, Brittain signalled that punitive sentencing for violent criminals required that less serious offenders be kept out of prison where possible.

  4. 4.

    Although as Bosworth (2011) points out, one can identify many examples of initiatives and innovations which buck this punitive trend.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Liverpool, Liverpool, UK

    Elizabeth R. Turner

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  1. Elizabeth R. Turner
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Turner, E.R. (2018). Genealogy: How the Public Confidence Agenda Got Its ‘Hooks’ into Criminal Justice. In: Public Confidence in Criminal Justice. Critical Criminological Perspectives. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67897-9_5

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-67897-9_5

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-67896-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-67897-9

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