Editorial

Citation

Birch, P. and Ireland, J.L. (2015), "Editorial", Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, Vol. 1 No. 2. https://doi.org/10.1108/JCRPP-04-2015-0008

Editorial

Article Type: Editorial From: Journal of Criminological Research, Policy and Practice, Volume 1, Issue 2.

We commence the second edition with a very novel and thorough paper exploring the experiences of the more colourful end of community safety practices – the “Masked Crusader”. At first sight this may seem like an anecdotal foray into a script more suited to film production but as you proceed through the paper the reader will quickly realise the core academic underpinnings of this work. The authors, Vladislav louchkov and Philip Birch, talk us through the process by which an individual decides to adopt a crusader persona and the link between this and community-based policing. It is an excellent outline of the academic underpinnings for this work and handling of qualitative data. What is particularly captivating about this paper is its focus on the development of a Real Life Super Hero (RLSH) community and the process associated with this, with the authors referring to the proponents of this as “social actors”. This captures their presence well. Readers familiar with the classic psychological experiments where identity was hidden, allowing for depersonalisation to take place, will be interested in how the hidden nature of identity furthers an ability to become involved in such practices and can, potentially, remove the limitations on the actions that someone can decide to take.

Movements also often commence with positive and noble intentions, such as the famous “Fathers for Justice” movement in the UK where disengaged fathers would dress as superhero’s, hiding their identity, to bring attention to a cause. That movement became infiltrated by those with less noble intentions, leading to its eventual cessation. The RLSH community we would hope remains distinct from this but the development of this over time will be of considerable interest, particularly when consideration is given to the core message of relevance to criminal justice policy makers, namely the importance of social movement in the management of community problems.

Moving from organised crime fighting to organised crime, the ensuing paper in this edition, is offered again by one of the co-editors, Philip Birch, with Angeleke Elfes, focuses on sex trafficking and police responses to this. The paper explores the understanding of the police concerning sex trafficking regarding both its nature and extent and the role they perceive themselves to have in managing and preventing organised crime of this nature. Using a qualitative methodology the paper examines the perceptions of the police and highlights how they considered sex trafficking to not always be fully recognised as such despite its appeal to criminal organisations in terms of its financial gain.

What was particularly interesting from the findings was the focus on reactive policing, with a view that it was those procuring the sexual services which needed to be targeted. This was interesting in that such individuals are essentially the market for such crime but they are not the managers of this industry. It would seem that they would represent the “softer” target for policing whereas the direct intervention into the supply and distribution of these trafficked individuals was the ultimate aim but perhaps less achievable in terms of short-term gains. Markets will always exist, even if they are closely monitored and moved on. The approach in this way appeared rather limited and readers may question what more should be done to remove trafficking and more clearly distinguish it from non-abusive sex work (such as the decriminalised sex work in New South Wales).

The paper ends, however, with some clear and pragmatic indications of how this area of difficulty can be addressed. This includes clearer communication across police forces and integrated learning, more support on how trafficking can be managed without inadvertently infringing on other laws (i.e. immigration), increased resources and more learning from the effective practices in the arena of child protection which appears to have taken a lead in the protection of vulnerable others.

Remaining with the issue of children, this paper is then followed by the David La Rooy et al. piece on training forensic interviewers who work with children, specifically using the NICHD protocol. This protocol is an evidence-based approach to training which seeks to avoid the difficulties with the less evidence-based and discursive approaches to interviewing children. This topic will be of considerable interest to those working forensically with children, particularly those handling issues of abuse, who are concerned by the variations in practice that they may see when trying to extract information from children. Unfortunately we continue to see poor practice in this area where leading questions are used with children, failing to account for their raised suggestibility levels, and memories are suggested to children at risk of confabulation. We also continue to come across interviews that insist on using aids to recall such as dolls and images without allowing for free recall of retained memory.

The protocol outlined here by La Rooy is consequently of significance since it not only has a clear empirical basis but it also brings some degree of standardisation to this sensitive area of practice. The well-meaning amateur in this area would do well to read this paper and critically appraise their current practice to ensure that any information obtained from a child is done so with attention to the empirical literature and does not risk the mishandling of recall and potential miscarriage of justice which would do little to protect children. There is certainly no excuse not to do this; the protocol is freely available and the paper offers an excellent summary as to its basis.

The ensuing paper by Mai Sato and Mike Hough moves us beyond issues prior to the detection or management of an offence to exploring what impacts on sentencing decisions. It is always of interest when you conduct a study which does not support what was originally expected since it does allow us to revisit our rather firmly held conclusions; it is the anomalies in our research that can prove the most valuable in reminding us how fluid conclusions actually are. This applies directly to this study which, interestingly, found that allowing additional discussion concerning sentencing and disposal did not lead to a more lenient outcome for the perpetrator and that punitive attitudes remained.

The study was also extremely novel in its approach in that it was able to take advantage of a broadcast programme on the topic and sample the audience from this directly. The authors readily accept that the validity of their experiment and the self-selecting audience may have impacted on the results and that their counter-academic finding may therefore have been an artefact of design. Nevertheless, they offer interesting alternatives, namely that it may be the type of case which is interacting with the amount of information provided (e.g. mitigating factors) and subsequent attitudes towards sentencing. This may be obvious to some but the reality is that research has not routinely captured differences in sentencing, certainly not when accounting for victim impacts. Indeed, the authors comment on how the salience of the victim factors may have produced this finding in part and furthermore that if the crime is consistent with the stereotype of that crime then any effect of reducing punitive attitudes is reduced. This is a key element to retain since the importance of accounting for the victim is playing an increasing and statutory role in our understanding of sentence delivery where focus has really primarily resided with the perpetrator and their mitigating factors.

The concluding paper in this edition, offered by the co-editor Jane L. Ireland along with Elizabeth Hansen, focuses on how we proceed following sentencing in terms of treatment, with a focus on personality difficulties. It focuses on the importance of integration and the need to adopt a more novel approach to treatment. In this sense it brings the edition full circle to the initial paper where there was a novel approach to intervention prior to crime management (RLSH) to a novel approach to intervention following detection and sentence. The final paper achieves this by outlining a need for practitioners to move away from their preferred options for treatment of those with complex personality challenges in forensic settings to accepting that taking elements from parts of effective therapy and integrating them into a whole is more supported by the theoretical literature. The paper illustrates the integrated approach by outlining a treatment programme called ASSIST which is a Multi-Modal Integrated Therapy (MMIT) which does not claim to be any one single approach but a combination of what we know is effective, presented in one package. This may seem to some readers as an obvious approach to take and yet it has not actually been done; then of course what can seem an innovation idea can often represent the most simple. This paper is offered as a means for stimulating discussion in this important area of forensic practice and encourages a move away from seeking a complex approach just because the problem (i.e. personality disorder) is arguably complex.

Indeed, in the infamous principles of Occam’s razor you would argue that in the event of two equal solutions to a problem, you should always opt for the most simple. This principle is a recurrent theme of the current edition and evidenced by all papers. Thus, the simplicity of an approach can be the most effective; perhaps therefore it is not complex systems of management that we require for all of our social problems but that of an individual principled man in a simple mask.

Philip Birch and Jane Ireland