REgulating Criminal justicE DEtention: glocal prospects for improving health and safety in detention and society

Project Information

RECEDE

Grant agreement ID: 949289

DOI

10.3030/949289

EC signature date 17 February 2021

Start date 1 May 2022

End date 31 December 2027

Funded under

• EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)

Total cost

€ 1 495 498,00

EU contribution

€ 1 495 498,00

Coordinated by

THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM
United Kingdom

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - RECEDE (REgulating Criminal justicE DEtention: glocal prospects for improving health and safety in detention and society)

Reporting period: 2023-11-01 to 2025-04-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The overuse of criminal justice detention and poor detention conditions create serious moral, social, economic and public health threats for societies. Crime rates are not rising, but criminal justice detention is expanding. 11.5 million people are now imprisoned globally, 30% of whom are unconvicted. Detention institutions concentrate criminogenic and health risks that detainees are unable to leave. Regulation holds potential to check these risks, for societal benefit. Although detention regulation mechanisms have recently proliferated internationally, their effects on practice are unknown. There is a compelling need to address this major evidence gap.

UN SDG 16 promotes justice, strong institutions and human rights. Reducing health inequalities features in SDG 10. Reoffending in England and Wales costs over €20 billion annually. Ill health correlates with recidivism, yet continues to thrive in detention, which concentrates poverty, conflict and discrimination. Prisoners worldwide disproportionately have communicable diseases, largely due to conditions. Suicide is a health concern in detention, with significant implications for staff, prisoners and bereaved families. We know that higher quality of prison life correlates with lower recidivism. We know that prison health is public health, and that most prisoners’ health needs will ultimately come into the community. It is thus vital to explore how detention could be better regulated, but there is a dearth of related scholarship.

REgulating Criminal justicE DEtention: glocal prospects for improving health and safety (RECEDE) aims to develop the first comprehensive, empirically generated model of criminal justice detention regulation, to facilitate new understandings of how detention regulation could improve health and safety – in detention and society. RECEDE’s objectives are to:

i. Theorise (quasi-)statutory and (participatory) voluntary sector regulation of detention as a system of interdependent institutions, across glocal geographical scales
ii. Conceptualise relationships between detention regulation, law and policy ‘on the books’ and ‘bottom up’ norm making in the cells
iii. Theorise how and by whom innovations in detention regulation, policy and practice are and could be brokered
iv. Produce a new comprehensive, empirically generated model of detention regulation, illustrating how criminal justice could be regulated to improve public health and societal safety.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

In the first 36 months, the team has achieved much, in: project administration; setting up empirical fieldwork, conceptual development; completing fieldwork and data coding; planning, writing up and submitting articles; and establishing a strong team. All deliverable reports have been submitted.

Re. objective i & ii, To theorise (quasi-)statutory regulation (WP1) and (participatory) voluntary sector regulation (WP2) of detention as a system of interdependent institutions, across glocal geographical scales, we have: gathered a sample of 88 voluntary organisations with a detention regulation function; analysed an unprecedented range of documents detailing multiscalar (quasi-)statutory (n=84) and voluntary sector regulation (n=172); designed the research instruments and secured University ethical approval for interviews; collected data through interviews with (quasi-)statutory (n=28) and voluntary sector (n= 61) regulators; and analysed data.

Re. objective iii, To conceptualise relationships between detention regulation, law and policy ‘on the books’ and ‘bottom up’ norm making in the cells, we have: designed the research instruments and obtained University ethical approval for research. For police custody, we have obtained all vetting approval and administrative permissions, and carried out fieldwork at three forces, obtaining 31 staff interviews, and 28 detainee interviews over 26 days of observation. For prison, we have obtained external ethical approval from His Majesty’s Prison and Probation Service, and have carried out fieldwork at three sites, obtaining 28 staff interviews and 29 detainee interviews over 15 days of observation.. For court custody, we established that undertaking interviews in court custody in England and Wales is structurally impossible. We agreed an amendment, fulfilling the aims detailed in WP3 through analysis of court custody inspection reports.

Two articles using these results have been submitted (month 36) using results from WP1,2 & 3 regarding court custody. A third article on voluntary sector detention regulation is to be submitted in month 37. Further articles on police detention and problematisation by prison regulators are also in development. We are taking great care to structure our remaining project time, tasks and outputs, seeking to maximise the quality and quantity of outputs over the remaining 24 months.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The aim is a comprehensive, critical account of criminal justice regulation in England and Wales. Our main results so far are that detention regulation is an extensive and complex undertaking, producing an important but severely under-theorised aspect of criminal justice that is ripe for development. Although literature examines the disproportionate regulation of marginalised groups through criminal justice, we know remarkably little about the regulation of criminal justice. As such, we do not know how burgeoning detention regulation does or could improve detention and in societal health and safety. Addressing this failing, the RECEDE team have undertaken novel empirical research examining the regulation of criminal justice across police, court and prison detention. Adopting this ambitious, cross-institutional lens is itself beyond the state of the art, which looks within component institutions. We have undertaken the first known academic study of court custody regulation, using document analysis. This truly groundbreaking research has potential to improve conditions for the 11.5 million prisoners globally and to address the costs and harms of reoffending and detainee suicide.

Finalised outputs go beyond the state of the art in: i) highlighting that we need to talk about court custody - an overlooked but significant site of incarceration that holds tens of thousands of individuals each year in England and Wales alone and forms a site of imprisonment and critical criminal justice transitions, although conducting interview-based research in court custody is structurally impossible in England and Wales; ii) presenting the first known study of court custody regulation, examining its regulatory framework and challenges in standard-setting, monitoring and realignment to demonstrate that current structures have limited utility for resolving persistent problems (e.g. dirty cells, staff shortages, poor risk management) and tackling bloated and unsafe detention systems; and iii) exploring the implications of voluntary organisations’ efforts to regulate prison and police detention. Mobilising neo-republican political theory, we present four antipowers through which voluntary organisations regulate domination in detention. Whilst a classic sociolegal ‘gap study’ approach or study of decentred regulation might lead us to conclude that voluntary organisations effectively regulate detention settings, our neo-republican analysis reveals that voluntary organisations may themselves contribute to domination and be subject to dominating practices from detention authorities.

Dr. Kemp presenting at SLSA Conference, April 2023

Press release from Sept. 2020 detailing the project