This study, based on a sample of offenders coming before the summary court in Birmingham, 1867-77, looks at the processes of ostracism, exclusion, deprivation and punishment accorded to the lowest strata of society in the late Victorian city. It is argued that the identification and labelling of a criminal class was part of the effort to deny the relevance of class conflict by insisting on the relevance of moral distinctions. The first chapter seeks to plot the social ecology of crime through a comparison of a number of contrasting 'social areas' ranging from a high crime to a no-crime area. Differences in the social characteristics of the population living in these areas form the basis for explanations about differences in levels of reported crime, and of police attention. The second chapter deals with the law enforcement agencies of magistrates, Watch Committee and police - describing their personnel and their different priorities and strategies. In Part II we turn for the first time to the offenders. Chapter 3 concentrates on juvenile offenders, their of fences and social characteristics, and on the policy and provision made for them, as well as on sentencing practice, as carried out in Birmingham in the period. • Chapter 4 looks at the legislation for, and the definition of, the Habitual Criminal. In this section the main categories of offence under the Habitual Criminals Act are described as they occurred in Birmingham, as well as the trends in sentencing practice for these offences. The last chapter discuøses assault and other violent crimes, with particular attention to the rise in Street disorders and assaults on the police. The conclusion points out that a Strategy of exclusion was implemented by the urban elite for their 'criminal class' since this class presented no real political threat, while it came to serve a diminishing economic function.

Previous research has shown that negative experiences, such as abuse and neglect, early in infants' lives can have a long-term detrimental impact on their mental health and development. A number of early intervention programmes and initiatives have recently been implemented by the government in order to try to prevent such problems. The first chapter of this thesis provides a review of the findings of current research into early intervention programmes, in terms of the reported benefits to infant mental health. The review identifies four areas of impact: social development, behaviour, cognitive development and the parent-child relationship. There is critical consideration of the research in each area, and direction suggested for programme designers and future researchers. The second chapter reports a research study using interpretative phenomenological analysis to explore mothers' experiences of their relationships with community health professionals who were providing early intervention for their children's difficulties. The study provides a unique insight into mothers' perceptions of the process of seeking help and aspects of the therapeutic relationship that they consider important. The third chapter details a research study using a deductive qualitative methodology to analyse mothers' reports of health visitors' use of psychological theories underpinning an early intervention programme (the Solihull Approach). The findings reveal variations in the reporting of the different theories. Possible reasons for these variations are discussed. Ideas considered are relevant to professionals who provide inter-disciplinary training, and to future researchers studying clients' experiences of psychological approaches. The fourth chapter is a reflective paper that discusses further methodological issues, the process of conducting the thesis, and the resulting changes to the main researcher's professional practice.

There has been concern, since the 1970s, that the education of children in the care of local authorities had been severely neglected. Reports into social services for children, such as Utting (1991), recognised this problem, and in 1994 a joint guidance circular was issued by the Departments for Health and Education. As recently as 1995, however, a joint report issued by the Social Services Inspectorate and the Office for Standards in Education stated that the care and education systems, in general, were still failing to promote the education of children in care. The Social Exclusion Unit's report (SEU, 1998) again recognised the problem and set targets for educational attainment. It was, however, the Health Select Committee (House of Commons, 1998) who drew attention to the pointlessness of setting targets when the Government itself acknowledged that there was a lack of data on the educational circumstances and achievements of children in care. This action research prOgram set out to address this lack of data by collecting educational information on a significantly larger scale and in a more comprehensive way than any previous study (i.e. by covering all looked after children of school age in one authority); by being longitudinal (i.e. to follow the progress of individuals for up to four years); and by incorporating care histories of the young people. It was designed with the aim of informing practice and raising attainment. The major findings were that children in care underachieve at all stages of their education and that disproportionate numbers have special educational needs; have poor school attendance; and are excluded from school. The analysis also indicated that the relationship between care experiences and academic attainments was more complex than suggested by the targets being set for local authorities in National Priorities Guidance.

This thesis starts with a critique of existing sociological and criminological studies. The major argument here is that, although interactionist studies are an improvement upon their positivist counterparts, they suffer from the inherent weaknesses contained in their astructural bias. Thus, although observational studies have been able to describe the effects of the process of interaction within the courtroom, they have been unable to explain why magistrates' justice is characterised by a relative lack of due process. In the main body of the thesis, we offer a structural analysis of the functions of magistrates' courts through an examination of the historical development of the magistracy culminating in its transformation in the middle of the nineteenth century. We show that the magistracy was created in its modern form as a lower court of summary justice specifically to act as an efficient method of punishing petty offenders with a conscious disregard for rights of due process. This did not simply reflect the interests of the industrial bourgeoisie but rather it was a product of the class struggle resulting from the particular formation of British capitalism, in which the gentry retained a powerful position. The central argument is that the particular form of justice that is administered in the lower courts of England and Wales reflects the compromise that was reached between these two sections of the ruling class in the period in which the modern magistracy was forged.

No description available.

This study examines the relationship between economic and monetary integration culminating in Economic and Monetary Union (EMU) and welfare state trajectories focusing on the cases of Belgium, Italy, and Greece in the 1990s. The conventional wisdom on this relationship expected that EMU would lead to across-the-board downsizing of the European welfare states through imposing macroeconomic austerity in general and budgetary restraint in particular. The study questions the validity of this prediction which is represented by the austerity hypothesis. Based on an analysis of social expenditure data in the run-up to EMU the study reveals that spending levels remained largely stable and therefore that the welfare states of the EMU-candidates largely escaped radical retrenchment. Avoiding significant and systematic expenditure retreat was possible not only in the face of powerful fiscal pressures but also during a period when policymakers had the opportunity to justify even the most draconian measures in the name of achieving EMU membership. Hence the study addresses the following puzzle: How could Europe's welfare states largely avert across-the-board downsizing during the 1990s despite fiscal pressures they faced on the road to EMU? Through an examination of episodes of welfare reform in three critical cases (Belgium, Italy, and Greece) which needed to go through drastic budgetary cutbacks for EMU membership, the study shows that the Maastricht criteria did compel successive governments in these member states to propose radical welfare reforms, vindicating the conventional wisdom's expectations. In episodes of welfare reform, however, governments discovered that their reform capacities were largely limited due to domestic opposition from an alliance of entrenched interests. The convergence period was marred with recurrent mass mobilization of unions against welfare reforms which forced governments to scale back their original ambitions or scrap them altogether. This shows that the expectations of the conventional wisdom that EMU would actually lead to massive retrenchment of Europe's welfare states, however, are not borne out by the evidence on welfare state trajectories in the 1990s.

Thesis (MIntStud)--University of South Australia, 2001

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2007. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (S.J.D.)--University of Toronto, 2005.

Thesis (M.A.)--Ohio University, June, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. Includes bibliographical references.