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Criminal Justice Professionals (criminal + justice_professional)

Distribution by Scientific Domains
Law and Criminology75%

Selected Abstracts

Intrapsychic Dynamics, Behavioral Manifestations, and Related Interventions With Youthful Fire Setters

JOURNAL OF FORENSIC NURSING, Issue 2 2007
Dian L. Williams
Fire setting in youth has often been overlooked and misunderstood as a coping skill for expressing rage. The act of deliberate fire setting, if uninterrupted, may continue throughout an individual's lifetime. Forensic examiners, mental health care providers, and criminal justice professionals can help guide referral and treatment through better understanding of behaviors and intrapsychic dynamics. [source]

Street-Level Bureaucracy, Interprofessional Relations, and Coping Mechanisms: A Study of Criminal Justice Social Workers in the Sentencing Process

LAW & POLICY, Issue 4 2009
SIMON HALLIDAY
This article builds on the work of Michael Lipsky and develops an argument about the significance of interprofessional working for street-level bureaucracy. It presents an ethnographic analysis of criminal justice social workers writing presentence reports for the Scottish courts. Social workers' report writing for judges brought into relief issues of relative professional status. Social workers were uncertain of their place within the legal domain and concerned about their credibility as criminal justice professionals. Reports were written, in part at least, as a way of seeking esteem and credibility in the eyes of judges,a motivation that undermined the policy objectives of social enquiry in sentencing. Applying the conceptual tools of Bourdieu to our findings, we argue that street-level bureaucrats who have to work across bureaucratic "fields" may find, or fear, that the cultural and symbolic "capital" they retained within their own field is undervalued in the symbolic economy of new fields, putting them in a position of relative inferiority. This issue of relative professional status, and how officials respond to it, is significant for our understanding of street-level bureaucracy. [source]

Towards Desistance: Theoretical Underpinnings for an Empirical Study

THE HOWARD JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, Issue 4 2004
Anthony Bottoms
It is argued that significant crime-free gaps appropriately form part of the subject matter of desistance. An interactive theoretical framework is presented, involving ,programmed potential', ,social context' (structures, culture, situations) and ,agency'. It is argued that agency, while rightly attracting increasing interest within criminology, needs to be used with greater precision. Aspects of the social context of the research subjects' lives are summarised, with special reference to their age-transitional status and the relevance of ,community' in their lives. Since most criminal careers, even of recidivists, are short, the implications of subjects' movement from conformity to criminality and back to conformity require greater thought among criminologists and criminal justice professionals. However, these broad movements contain significant oscillations, and ,crime' is not a unidimensional concept in the lives of the research subjects. Capturing and explaining the complexity of these matters longitudinally is a significant challenge for the research. [source]

A Community Justice Dimension to Effective Probation Practice

THE HOWARD JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE, Issue 2 2000
John Harding
This article builds on earlier articles by McWilliams and Pease in suggesting that the probation service requires a transcendent justification for its activities. The author supports the need for greater links between prison and probation services in promoting effective practice and public protection but asserts that probation' authority also derives from its understanding of crime in a community context. In developing a community justice framework for the probation service the author discusses three principles: justice, penance, and community, particularly as they might impact on the most marginalised and vulnerable in our inner cities. The case for a community justice dimension to effective practice is further endorsed by a recent Home Office study of the social factors most associated with reconviction. Best outcomes in relation to crime reduction are most likely to be achieved by a bridge-building effort between criminal justice professionals and the involvement of communities most at risk. [source]