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news oriented sites
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Michael
Teague's 'crimlinks' website:
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very well organised site with an
orientation to criminal justice practitioners and UK news updates
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Guardian
Crime section and Guardian
Criminal Justice section
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regular updates
and in-depth articles on crime issues by a leading
UK newspaper
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Criminal
Justice Weblog.
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latest UK criminal justice news (special
Scottish site here)
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Statewatch
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the leading monitor on all matters of state
secrecy, police powers etc. in the UK and the European Union
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Wikipedia
criminology web pages
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useful starting-off point for
links to criminological theory. There is also a page on Left Realist Criminology
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Government and criminal justice agencies
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UK
Home Office
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The Home Office (equivalent to a Ministry of
Justice in most continental European Countries) The Home Office has a
large research department which conducts research into all aspects of
criminal justice.
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Policing policy
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Police
reform and reorganisation is a particular focus of the UK government at
the present time. There have been numerous publications on police
reorganisation. Home office research publications on all aspects of
policing can be found at UK
Home Office: Police
Research Another useful site is UK: Police
Reform
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UK police websites
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A list of the web sites of all UK police forces,
and other
police links can be found here.
The largest forces in the UK are the London Metropolitan
Police, Merseyside
Police and Greater
Manchester
Police. The largest force in Scotland is
Lothian and Borders. A useful starting off point for further
information on police forces and police work can be found on
the the BBC criminal justice site section on policing.
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police accountability in the UK
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In the UK
the key institution for the investigation of individual complaints
against the police is the Police
Complaints Authority. The overall effectiveness and
efficiency of
police forces is the responsibility of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of
Constabulary (HMIC).
In recent years the government's Audit
Commission has published reports on the efficiency of various
aspects of policing. The democratic input into policing in the UK is
provided by local Police Authorities. Several have web sites. Examples
are the the London Metropolitan
Police Authority (created very recently) and Greater
Manchester Police Authority.
Independent bodies which
monitor the police include the Police
Foundation. There is an American body of the same
name here.
Other sites with useful perspectives on police accountability to the
public are The
National Black Police Association the organisation for black
police
officers in the UK.
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Prosecution in the UK
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Prosecution
in England and Wales is handled by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS)
which was established in 1986 (before that, most criminal prosecutions
were handled by the police). There is also a useful section on the work
of the CPS on the BBC criminal justice web site here.
In Scotland prosecutions are handled by the Procurator
Fiscal an official who has greater powers than the English
CPS and
was established in the 16th Century. The work of the
Procurators
Fiscal is outlined on the BBC criminal justice web site here
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UK Courts
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Courts
in England and Wales are described both in the Home Office
publication A
Guide to the Criminal Justice System in England and Wales and
in the
BBC criminal justice web site here.
The working of the Scottish courts is described here.
In England and Wales The
Magistrates
Court Inspectorate A section of the Lord
Chancellor’s Department
responsible for the ‘efficiency and effectiveness’
of the
magistrate’s courts. Further material on the work of
magistrates
courts can be found here
The most recent review of
the working of the English criminal courts is the report by Lord
Justice
Auld. The Auld
Report, published in september 2001, was responded to by the
government in the form of the white paper of July 2002 'Justice
For All' (tPDF format) You
can read a brief summary here.
Many of the provisions have been enacted in the Criminal
Justice Act 2003 and the Courts Act 2003
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Community Safety websites
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Community based crime prevention has expanded in
the UK in recent years. Many local 'community safety and crime
reduction partnerships' have their own web presence. The following are
a few examples: Finsbury
Park Community Safety Action Plan (London Borough of
Islington) gives you a good flavour of what local community safety
plans involve and how they are put together (you need Acrobat
Reader to view it). Overviews of local community safety
plans can be seen at London
Borough of Brent, London
Borough of Barnet, Birmingham,
Manchester
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European Union
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The amount of collaboration between member states
of the EU on matters of police and criminal justice policy is rapidly
increasing. Important information can be found at The
European Police Office (Europol),
collaboration between criminal justice agencies of
member states is coordinated by Eurojust
and the European
judicial network.in criminal matters which is mainly
concerned with organised crime
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European
Court of Human Rights
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The ultimate court of appeal in Human Rights
matters in the EU
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US
Department of Justice
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The main web portal for the US federal criminal
justice system. Remember that most everyday crime control policy is a
matter for individual states
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District Attorney
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The District Attorney is the main prosecutor in US
states. Here are the web sites of two big city District Attorneys in
the US: New
York (Manhattan) and Los
Angeles
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US police websites
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In the United States the most well known police
departments are Los Angeles (LAPD)
and New York (NYPD).
As in the UK American police forces are local. The national (Federal)
level law enforcement agency is the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI)
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universities, individuals and independent
research institutes
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British
Society of Criminology
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The BSC is the main academic association of
criminologists in the UK. It holds annual conferences and publishes
some of the conference
papers. There are special interest groups such as the Theory network
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American
Society of Criminology
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The main association of criminologists in the US.
The society has several sub-groups to which links are provided here
The subdivision on critical criminology has its own website here
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European
Group for the study of deviancy and social control
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The
European Group has been running for over 30 years. It is a meeting
place for academics, practitioners and activists who share critical
perspectives on crime, deviance and criminal justice and other social
control institutions.
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Australian and New Zealand
Society of Criminology
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The leading criminology society in the southern
hemisphere. The Australian government also sponsors the Australian
Institute of Criminology which produces various downloadable
publications on criminology
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Cambridge
Institute of Criminology
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The Radzinowicz
library of the Istitute (at Cambridge University, UK) has a
very useful page of links to criminology and
criminal justice sites
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Florida
State University
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the criminology department
has a useful page of links
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Tom
O'Connor
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A criminologist based at North Carolina
Wesleyan College. He has an impressive page of lecture notes and links
obviously
with a US orientation. Especially worth a look is his page on The
Entire History of Criminology in terms of the major books
published since
1846!. I am pleased to say that my 2002 book Crime
and Modernity has made the hall of fame together with earlier
publications
with Jock Young and Richard Kinsey.
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Bruce
Hoffman
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Based at Ohio University, Bruce maintains a site
called CrimeTheory.com which, to quote his own words, is An Educational
Resource for the Learning, Researching and Teaching of Theoretical
Criminology
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Paul's Justice Page
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Paul Leighton at Eastern Michican
University. Paul is associated with the Critical Criminology
division of the American Society of Criminology. His website has useful
material on crime in relation to class, race and gender, corporate and
white collar crime and prisons. There is a special section on Jeffrey
Reiman's The Rich Get Richer & the Poor Get Prison
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The Red Feather Institute
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T.R.Young's famous 'red feather' institute. This
link is to his lectures on crime and criminal justice. The general web
page is here
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Charalampos M. Karagiannidis
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Mr Karagiannidis has published his interesting
online text: "Abolitionism:
Building an Avant-Garde Criminological Antitheory." Certainly
worth a read.
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Oxford Handbook of Criminology Companion Website
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This
site is
a companion to the Oxford Handbook of Criminology. It has a
very useful list of links to criminology and criminal justice websites.
It also has useful teaching aids including how to structure your
criminology essays!
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civil
liberties sites
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Liberty
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The main civil liberties organisation in the UK
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Justice
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The British section of the International
Commission of Jurists
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Journals
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British
Journal of
Criminology
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Social
& Legal Studies
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Criminal
Justice Matters
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Punishment and Society
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Internet
Journal of Criminology
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