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“The Trash of the Titans?”
The BBC has today announced that the British government has decided to scrap plans for the creation of so-called “Titan” prisons. These prisons – first announced in December 2007 – were each expected...
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Bullet Proof Turbans
by paulabowles Ten years after the publication of Sir William Macpherson’s report into the murder of Stephen Lawrence, and the allegation of ‘institutional racism’ still hangs heavily over British...
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“Operation Ore”: "A huge miscarriage of justice"?
by paulabowles In 2001, the British police launched “Operation Ore”, hailed as a ground-breaking opportunity to catch individuals, who had paid for and accessed child pornography via the internet. With...
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The lone survivor of British fascism?
by paulabowles Since 9/11, the world’s attention has increasingly been concentrated on the threat of terrorism and the mechanisms designed to uncover and combat it. Much of the focus has been on Al...
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The Right to Die
by paulabowles A recent British court case has highlighted the emotive issue of euthanasia, or assisted suicide. Yesterday’s ruling by the House of Lords offers opportunities to not only clarify the...
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The Tragedy of Incarcerated Children
by paulabowles The charity Barnardo’s has recently highlighted the issue of incarcerated young offenders, insisting that at any given time Britain has 400+ children aged between 12 and 14 locked up, a...
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‘Is your email really necessary?’
by paulabowles In order to read (and of course create) this post requires access to the internet, an option that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago. However, for many of us, the internet...
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“Free” Heroin on the NHS
by paulabowles The links between illegal drug use and crime, particularly acquisitive, have long been recognised as problematic. Recent statistics published in The Independent suggest that as few as...
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When Heroes Become Villains
by paulabowles For criminologists and sociologists, prison has for many decades provided a fertile environment for research. In recent decades, the focus has been on overcrowding, together with...
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Virtual Conference Report: Day One (19 Oct, 2009)
Welcome to the first day of the 2009 Compass Interdisciplinary Virtual Conference. Regenia Gagnier (University of Exeter) opened the conference by asking: ‘Why Interdisciplinarity?’ As part of her...
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Virtual Conference Report: Day Two (20 Oct, 2009)
The second day of the conference has been filled with three more interesting and innovative papers. David Crystal’s (University of Bangor) keynote lecture entitled ‘Language Death: A Problem for All’...
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Virtual Conference Report: Day Three (21 Oct, 2009)
Today’s papers have focused once more on the key motifs of the conference, that of breaking down borders and indisciplinarity. Nancy Naples (University of Connecticut) uses her paper: ‘Borderlands...
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Virtual Conference Report: Day Four (22 Oct, 2009)
The conference today has taken on a distinctly environmental feel. First up was Mark Macklin’s (University of Wales, Aberystwyth) keynote address entitled ‘Floodplain Catastrophes and Climate Change:...
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The BNP meets the BBC
by paulabowles For the past few weeks the British media and public have hotly been debating the rights and wrongs of allowing the controversial British National Party [BNP] leader to appear on the...
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Virtual Conference Report: Day Five (23 Oct, 2009)
The first week of the conference has come to an end, and the final day has included two exciting papers, as well as a publishing workshop. The first paper entitled ‘Full Disclosure of the “Raw Data”...
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Virtual Conference Report: Day Six (26 Oct, 2009)
Welcome to the second week of the Wiley-Blackwell Virtual Conference. The first day back has started with a keynote speech from Peter Ludlow (Northwestern University) entitled ‘Virtual Communities,...
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Virtual Conference Report: Day Seven (27 Oct, 2009)
The seventh day of the conference has continued with the key themes of ‘breaking down boundaries’ and interdisciplinarity. Roy Baumeister (Florida State University) began the day with his keynote...
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Virtual Conference Report: Day Eight (28 Oct, 2009)
By Paula Bowles Day eight of the conference was once again marked by some excellent contributions. The first paper ‘Cultural Sociology and Other Disciplines: Interdisciplinarity in the Cultural...
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Virtual Conference Report: Day Nine (29 Oct, 2009)
Today marked the penultimate day of Wiley-Blackwell’s first Virtual Conference. As I am sure you will all agree, thus far, each day has contained many gems, and today has been no different. Eileen...
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‘Carnage’ at the War Memorial
by paulabowles Philip Laing, the 19 year old student from Sheffield Hallam University has become the latest focus for the media. Recently photographed urinating upon a poppy wreath at a Second World...
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Wikipedia’s ‘increasing focus on quality and referencing’
Many lecturers and teachers will recognise the feeling of disheartenment when confronted by an undergraduate essay containing multiple references to Wikipedia. Despite regular exhortations for students...
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Dangerous Dogs Revisited
Following the recent sad news of the death of 4 year old John Paul Massey, after he had been attacked by his uncle’s American bull mastiff, media attention has refocused on the ownership of ‘dangerous’...
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The British National Party: ‘Still Discriminatory’?
Today, the Central London County Court has delivered its verdict in relation to the British National Party’s [BNP] membership policy. Judge Paul Collins’ decision – whilst noting the BNP’s attempts to...
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Sex Offender Rehabilitation via Friendship
Bob Howard of the BBC has recently published an article looking at a scheme to combat sex offender recidivism. Originating in Canada, friendship circles are ‘based on the premise that while some...
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NHS Heroin: A “Cure” for Crime?
The General Secretary of the Royal College of Nursing [RCN], Peter Carter, has called for the prescription of the (currently illegal) drug heroin to be prescribed on the National Health Service [NHS]....
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