Exploring the Ministry of Justice, Explaining Penal Policy<\/p>\n
Dr Harry Annison<\/a><\/p>\n Southampton Law School<\/p>\n Much of my research, and my teaching, explores issues of penal policy and in particular the political and policymaking processes that are involved in criminal justice policy. Issues relating to prisons, punishment, policing and so on are often highly emotive, technically complex and subject to fierce political debate.<\/p>\n As part of this ongoing work, in a recent paper<\/a> I considered the history of the UK Ministry of Justice and what it \u201cis\u201d: what are the traditions (the collections of beliefs) that underpin the ongoing activities of those within the department\u2019s concrete obelisk home? I suggest that understanding what the department \u201cis\u201d in this way, is an important consideration when trying to understand particular policy developments such as those highlighted above. (Note that while the Ministry of Justice is part of the UK government, responsibility for criminal justice in Scotland is a devolved matter: the MoJ is therefore responsible for policy in England and Wales).<\/p>\n Drawing on \u2018elite\u2019 research interviews conducted with nearly 100 policy participants (including ministers, senior civil servants, MPs, and many more), I argued that there exist four \u2018Ministries\u2019:<\/p>\n For some the Ministry of Justice is (or was) the \u2018balancing department\u2019, \u2018the ones who did the checks and balances\u2019 (research quotes from civil servants). For others, public protection is the dominant paradigm: avoiding high profile, serious incidents in the community, and ensuring \u2018security of the [prison] estate\u2019 (research quote from special adviser) is the overriding concern.<\/p>\n For others still, rehabilitation was the raison d\u2019etre<\/em> of the department (those parts tasked with prisons and probation policy, in particular). While often operating more at the level of rhetoric than reality, it was a \u2018noble aim\u2019 that sustained the department (civil servant), and indeed recurs in public debate with striking frequency<\/a>.<\/p>\n Finally, for some managerialism had come to dominate, with aspirations for \u2018an end-to-end criminal justice system\u2019 (Lord Falconer, evidence to Constitutional Affairs Committee, 2007) flowing into benchmarking of prison services against the private sector, and talk of \u2018capability gaps\u2019, \u2018business critical requirements\u2019 and \u2018doing better for less\u2019.<\/p>\n These traditions \u2013 ideas about what the department is<\/em>, and what it is for<\/em>, collide and combine; they compete. In turn the department has been buffeted by a series of dilemmas \u2013 questions that raise profound questions about its nature and role. These include:<\/p>\n These concerns, and developing such \u2018internal\u2019 narratives of a government department, may seem inward-looking, self-regarding, and to pale into insignificance compared to the serious concerns identified at the beginning of this blog post.But as I have argued in a recent paper for the Therefore, if one seeks to understand developments in a particular policy area \u2013 and as importantly, to consider how to achieve positive change in that field \u2013 a crucial part of this enterprise requires understanding this \u2018internal\u2019 aspect of policymakers\u2019 concerns.<\/p>\n The working paper \u2018Decentring the UK Ministry\/s of Justice\u2019 is available here<\/a><\/p>\n The finalized paper is published as a chapter entitled \u2018What is Penal Policy? Traditions and practices in the UK Ministry of Justice\u2019, in Narrative Policy Analysis: Cases in decentred policy<\/em><\/a>, edited by RAW Rhodes and published by Palgrave Macmillan in May 2018.<\/p>\n The paper \u2018The Policymakers\u2019 Dilemma: Change, continuity and enduring rationalities of penal policy\u2019 is published in the British Journal of Criminology <\/em>and available here<\/a><\/p>\n A longer version of this blog post is available at the BSC (British Society of Criminology) Blog site: https:\/\/thebscblog.wordpress.com\/2018\/06\/13\/exploring-the-uk-ministry-of-justice-explaining-penal-policy\/<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Exploring the Ministry of Justice, Explaining Penal Policy Dr Harry Annison Southampton Law School Much of my research, and my teaching, explores issues of penal policy and in particular the political and policymaking processes that are involved in criminal justice policy. Issues relating to prisons, punishment, policing and so on are often highly emotive, technically … Continue reading Exploring the internal dynamics of the Ministry of Justice<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2830,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[41],"tags":[35,34,36],"class_list":["post-139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-criminal-justice","tag-criminal-justice","tag-penal-policy","tag-politics"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2830"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=139"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":187,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/139\/revisions\/187"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/generic.wordpress.soton.ac.uk\/southamptonlawschoolblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nBritish Journal of Criminology<\/em><\/a>, the activity in any department is characterized by a complex interplay between perceived conditions \u2018out there\u2019 (austerity, election cycles, and so on), \u2018internal\u2019 considerations (informed by the traditions and dilemmas identified above) and work on specific policy areas.<\/p>\n