This thesis is concerned with social inquiry and/or pre-sentence reports in criminal cases. These reports are compiled by probation officers, at the request of the court, to assist the court in reaching an appropriate sentencing decision in some criminal cases. This study takes place against and draws upon a wealth of material that has contributed to what is now a considerable body of knowledge but which has also left gaps in our understanding of the ways in which probation reports are constituted and constructed and the implications of this to the wider administration of justice. Empirical accounts of probation reports have largely consisted of documentary analyses or quantitative data. The inherent partiality of these approaches has meant that reports have been artifically decontextualised from their operational moorings. Probation practice has been theoretically located along a care-control continuum that has reflected the historical evolution of sentencing strategies and state intervention into welfare practice. The aim of this thesis is to present a contextualised account of probation reports. In order to unravel and reveal the processes, philosophies and strategies related to report writing and to address the impact of these in the judicial arena, the study was conducted from a grounded observational perspective that acknowledges the complexities of report compilation at the interactive, organisational and systems levels. In adopting this approach it is clear that the care-control model that has been applied to other areas of probation practice is not necessarily conducive to the practice of report compilation because whilst it applies to the role of the probation officer in relation to supervising offenders, it is not readily transferable to the relationship that exists between report writers and sentencers. This relationship is extremely important to both the impact and the content of reports, to the extent that the offender becomes incidental. as opposed to central, to the final document if not to the process. I suggest therefore that, whilst different areas of probation practice are not mutually exclusive, probation reports might be understood in terms of a role-function model. The role of the report writer and the function of the report emanate from an historical context that continues to have an impact on contemporary probation practice but which has rarely been the object of study at an operational level. This thesis attempts to redress the theoretical and empirical balance by adopting a qualitative approach that incorporates an historical perspective into the analysis.

This study considers the competence of lawyers. in carrying out the work of interviewing their clients and the value of training and experience in acquiring client interviewing skills. Literature on legal skills is first surveyed to assist in understanding the concept and help decide on methodology. Literature on client, interviewing' and the educational value of experiencee reviewed to provide background to subsequent studies. The first study provides an overall framework for solicitors' work and monitors, through observation and questionnaire, the work of a number of solicitors over a four day period. Client interviewing is found to take up a larger proportion of solicitors' professional work than other categories noted, and observation proves to be a more sound basis for studying detail than a questionnaire approach. The second study assesses the competence of 27 new trainee solicitors at interviewing clients through a detailed monitoring of their performance over thirteen tasks using eighteen different techniques and providing thirteen heads of information. Their performance exhibited many of the deficiencies recognised in the literature. The trainees were then randomly allocated to three treatment groups. One group received full training, one received training without audio-visual feedback of first interviews and the third (control) received no training at all. They all then undertook a second interview which was similarly assessed. Training was found significantly to enhance performance over the spectrum of measurement, an audio-visual feedback) especially enhanced behavioral aspects of performance. In the final study, solicitors and trainees ranging widely in experience were videotaped interviewing their clients and similarly assessed. Experience was not found to have- the expected effect of enhancing performance significantly except in some minor respects, but it did increase the feeling of confidence in interviewing ability. In conclusion, suggestions are made for stronger linking of training with experience in the production of new lawyers.

This thesis is concerned with the centrality of the confession as an item of prosecution evidence. It is also concerned with both the structures and strategies that have evolved in the criminal justice system to legitimate the confession and preserve its vitality as evidence probative of guilt. The socio-legal research evaluates the status of records of police interviews within the context of police custodial interrogations of persons suspected of involvement in crime. To this end the thesis examines the extent to which evidence is "constructed"' within a legal framework rather than elicited; how far the 1984 Police and Criminal Evidence Act (PACE) has affected police-suspect relations in interrogations; the circumstances in which suspects "elect" to cooperate with the police or decline to answer specific questions; and the extent to which records of interrogations can be said to be complete, accurate and reliable. The research comprises a number of different methodologies. The first stage involves a historical and case-based analysis of both the development of the use of confession evidence in criminal cases and of the forms of regulation that have been applied over police access to suspects. The investigation centres upon a structural analysis of the relationship between suspects, the police and the courts and examines the value systems which have conditioned the forms of regulation that have evolved. The next stage of the study involves a comparative analysis of the content and form of police interrogations and of the reporting or recording systems relating thereto in a sample of cases drawn from the period prior to the introduction of the PACE Act and from a sample generated following the implementation of the Act. This aspect of the research builds upon conceptual categories developed by psychologists, sociologists and criminologists. This systematic and comparative examination of the interrogation process of the pre- PACE era and the current PACE era is intended as a contribution to the debate surrounding police interview practices and will help resolve contradictory accounts relating to the police role in the criminal justice process. It is, in addition, also intended as a contribution to questions relating not only to the regulation of police powers over suspects but also to those. concerned with the form, nature and structure of the police suspect dynamic and, finally, to those associated with miscarriages of justice.

No description available.

No description available.

This study derives from the interest of recent years in the Irish during the late Victorian period in the smaller towns of Britain. Much work has been done on the Irish in the larger conurbations of industrial England and Scotland, particularly in the 1830s and 1840s - work that has overshadowed the experience of the Irish elsewhere, skewing the historiography and locking the migrants into a huddled mass in a northern city. However, the 'Wild Milesians' of Thomas Carlyle, living cheek-by-jowl with Engels's pig in the slums of Liverpool and Manchester, have come to be seen as less than typical of the Irish, especially the second and third generations of the migrants living in provincial towns. Furthermore, the representation of the Irish as uniformly poor, wretched and Catholic has been revised. Again, the phenomenon of 'ethnic fade' was assumed to have occurred as the nineteenth century progressed, so that after the initial troubled years, the Irish merged with the 'host' population. However, differing rates and degrees of assimilation have been revealed; indeed, religious and political differences among the Irish themselves, frequently violent in their expression, were often defining characteristics of Irishness. Following in the footsteps of micro - studies of the Irish in the regions and smaller towns, this study aims to examine the experience of the Irish in the later nineteenth century in an area hitherto neglected in the historiography, namely, North-East Wales, with particular reference to the towns of Wrexham, Mold, Holywell and Flint.

No description available.

Zugl.: Münster (Westfalen), University, Diss., 2006.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Faculty of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, University of Sydney, 2005. / Title from title screen (viewed December 11, 2009) Includes bibliographical references. Also available in print form.

Thesis (doctoral)--University of London. / Includes index. Reproduction of original from Harvard Law School Library. Includes bibliographical references (p. xi-xviii).