The magazine of the european research area European Commission Copenhagen, a missed chance?

PRISONS

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 research

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eu No. 63 | APRIL 2010 

37

escalating responses to crime and to what are 

seen as threats to public and social order.” This 

includes a fear of young people. Nevertheless, 

according to various British studies, only a very 

small proportion of rising crime is committed 

by minors. 

 

Gilded ghettos 

Taken together, all of these fears and the 

responses to them increase social exclusion and 

reorganise the urban space. ‘Ghettoisation’ 

does not happen only in the poorest districts. 

Gated  communities (secure housing with 

guards, surrounded by fences or walls) have 

been springing up the world over since the 

1960s. In Europe, they are concentrated mainly 

in the United Kingdom, France and Portugal, as 

well as in some former Communist countries. 

Although this form of self-protection pro-

vides a measure of prevention, it is certainly 

not the best option. Some European countries 

have implemented more concrete attempts 

at prevention in recent years, experimenting 

with collaboration between the public and 

private sectors, associations, non-governmental 

organisations and local police. The idea has 

rarely achieved the desired effect though, as 

social workers do not wish to be turned into 

informers. Adam Crawford (Leeds University, 

UK), a Crimprev partner, admits that these 

initiatives show that the levers and causes of 

crime are beyond the traditional scope of the 

criminal justice system, adding that over the 

years successful preventive partnerships have 

proven obstinately illusory. 

How about abolition?

Prison sentences therefore continue to be 

used extensively, even though substitute solu-

tions have been implemented for several years. 

They include electronic surveillance (a bracelet 

fitted with a chip to track an individual’s 

movements), used mainly in northern Europe; 

community service instead of short sentences 

(work with an association, hospital or environ-

mental service, for example); and open-prison 

regimes where a detainee works outside the 

prison during the day and returns in the evening.

Joe Sim says: “The societal problem of pris-

ons could be solved by what Angela Davis terms 

‘abolitionist alternatives’. I believe that these 

alternatives could include a halt to prison build-

ing, a reduction in the budgets allocated to 

punishing crime in favour of prevention, the 

creation of more humane regimes for people 

in prison, taking into account the damage caused 

by those in power, and an end to the social 

divide. Contrary to popular and political belief, 

the abolitionists are not calling for the walls to 

be torn down. They are seeking a less hypo-

critical approach to crime and criminality and the 

implementation of radical policies that offer 

genuine public protection to all European 

citizens, whatever their social status.”