Co-ordinating a research project in 6 continents

The challenge and joy of coordinating a research project in 6 continents in the era of the internet

 

Vania Ceccato is a researcher at KTH Royal Institute of Technology in Stockholm, Sweden. She is also a BSC International Ambassador.

 

This story is about the challenges and potentialities of doing collaborative work in Criminology using your own computer, with no funding, but supported by a ‘gaggle’ of a highly motivated researchers, ready to work.  Back in early 2016 I was teaching undergraduates how to put together a graduation thesis and teaching them how to apply a survey to general population. I incentivized my students to explore their own mobile phones and digital devices to make the data collection. Through this I taught them how to carry out an online survey and later critically analyze the collected data. I had long wished to question Metro passengers about their safety perceptions; so I handed my students questions on sexual violence and sexual harassment in transit in particular.

That did not work very well. Students were, overall, reluctant to ask such questions and passengers were unwilling to answer them. However, I do not attribute this failure to the students or passengers.  At that time, most of us did not feel comfortable talking openly about sexual harassment, at least when compared to recent years. Therefore, it was no surprise that my students were fairly reluctant to ask transit riders about their experiences of sexual harassment while using transit. Just a year later, the appearance of the #MeToo! Movement on the internet and outside cyberspace made it easier to get information about these problematic daily-life experiences. I decided then to have another go with the survey but this time asking my own students about sexual harassment.

Things went much better—the survey was answered by more than 1500 university students in the Stockholm region. Additionally, it later gained answers from 13,323 students worldwide, in 18 cities (as shown in map below)!

What prompted this sudden change? This project originally began with the suggestion from a colleague in USA. She thought we should extend the original survey, apply it in our respective universities, and write a comparative paper. So we did. In the process, I mentioned our ideas with colleagues in a global user-list and suddenly, we were 14 universities engaged in this global project: researchers wanted to take part and apply the survey in their own universities, from Lagos- Nigeria to Vancouver-Canada, from Tokyo-Japan to Bogota-Colombia, 3 others came along during the process. It was amazing to see so many people, determined to see this project succeed. We did not have any funding to offer and I thought it would be a big of waste of everybody’s time if people would give up along the process … but it was worth it the risk.

I was lucky in having my colleague and mentor Prof Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris at UCLA coordinating this research enterprise with me. She was equally engaged and very interested in getting an overall picture on sexual violence/harassment in transit environments. Apart from the time difference (when she was waking up in Los Angeles, I was ready to go home from work!), it was lovely to have Anastasia to discuss ideas, worries, share instructions and support anyone in the group.

Of course, in a project of such global scope, there will always be incongruences and challenges when collecting and analyzing the data. This study was no exception, we faced a number of challenges: particularly when communicating over email and using various online sharing-platforms. Interestingly enough, most of the challenges we faced had nothing to do with technology or limited funding.

One of the earliest problems was the need to obtain approval from the university and/or from a special Ethical Review Board before approaching the students with the questionnaire. This process turned out to be longer than we expected and varied from country to country (taking around one to four months). I thought some of my colleagues would give up along the way, but thankfully they persevered!

Then came translation. In order to make comparisons with other cities possible, questions were later translated into seven languages (English, Portuguese, Spanish, French, Italian, Japanese and Chinese) using Google Docs. This sharing platform ended up working very well and greatly simplified the process.

More complicated, were the differences in local and cultural norms. It was impossible to standardize all questions. In some cities the ‘race’ question in the USA (‘ethnic background’ in Sweden) was substituted with “country of birth/origin question”. In certain cases, the race/ethnicity question had to be omitted because in cities, the law does not allow asking questions on race, ethnicity or religious beliefs. Similarly in some cities, it is not considered appropriate to ask about someone’s sexual orientation in surveys, and our colleagues had to omit such questions.

We exchanged information mostly by email, and during the process of data collection and analysis, we split ourselves into smaller groups. Many of our meetings were performed over Skype or the similar communication platforms. Remote meetings did not always work but ultimately, we were able to put together a schedule of tasks to accommodate time differences between Manila, Stockholm and Los Angeles.

In all but two cases, the researchers were able to gather the minimum requested sample size of 300 students (some got more than 1000 students). To do so, they often had to follow different strategies such as adding an additional university, having a raffle with small rewards of “lucky money”. The questionnaire was distributed in different ways. For the large majority of cases, the survey was distributed electronically, either using a web platform, (for example, WordPress, Google Docs, etc.) email lists, or university pages with links to social media and to external electronic questionnaires. In a few cases, researchers distributed hard copies combined with an electronic version while in two cases, the link to the survey was posted on social media. 18 cities in 6 continents resulted in 13,323 students worldwide.

With data in hand, we provided instructions to all researchers to follow a particular set of research questions. Out of 18 case studies, 10 researchers presented their preliminary results in the Conference Crime and Fear in Public Places in Stockholm in October 2018, when a proposal for an edited book was suggested (the book proposal was later approved in early 2019). In order to homogenize the analysis and presentation processes, we created a framework of analysis and shared this via email with our colleagues. They were later invited to write essays of 2,500 words discussing their findings and contextual facts about their city. Using Skype or other communication platforms, they also worked in groups in four chapters putting together data, forming statistical analysis together and then writing.

However, our broad analysis brought with it some problems. For example, why did city A have 35% while city B had 78% in a particular question? Did they understand the instructions of analysis? This process was not always straightforward. It took months until we could agree upon a minimum set of questions and answers that were the same for everyone. Together with my co-coordinator in the USA, we combined statistics, compared results, checked and double-checked numbers and references. During that time we sent hundreds of emails, back and forth, before finally writing the final chapters, often with help from my colleagues. By August 2019, the edited volume was nearly complete. Yet, it took more than a month or so for us to get all permissions and high resolution pictures into one place before we finally submitted the book. There were many complications but eventually we did it!

So what can we take away from this research? The survey showed, without any doubt, that sexual violence/harassment in transit environments is unfortunately a common occurrence globally. However, the extent of harassment, ranges considerably from one city to the other. Additionally, the omnipresence of the potential for harassment in transit settings, leads to the adoption of certain behaviors on the transit riders behalf. Avoidance strategies prompt transit riders to avoid particular times, travel routes, and settings that are deemed as, particularly risky, or even avoid using transit completely, opting for other transportation options. This, of course, demands changes in the way transit systems are built, but also long term changes in society’s values and attitudes towards mobility and safety—both being highly gendered. We finalized this research by critically drawing from the results of the empirical work and proposing recommendations on how to respond to sexual harassment and sexual assault in transit environments.

So what can be learnt from the experience of doing research over emails and communication platforms?

We live in a world where we can communicate with someone across the oceans with a single click! This opens a door to a new world of possibilities, whether it be contacting a family member, friend, or doing research with colleagues.  It was a long and bumpy journey, but a worthwhile one. Our experience shows that it is possible to carry out a Global study like this one.  If you want to try to do something similar in the future, make sure you have three things before you start:

1. Clear aim and objectives and some pretty good ideas how to achieve them
2. A computer, internet and some ‘basic internet knowledge’
3. (Most importantly) A great motivated group of researchers you can rely on to ensure that things are done on time, ethically, and with good care for the research process and quality of data. You might want to share the research coordination with someone senior, more experienced researcher in the area.

A book summarizes this joint efforts (Transit Crime and Sexual Violence in Cities: International Evidence and Prevention) and is coming out soon from Routledge. Country reports might be available on request.  A special issue of International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice will be available in March 2020. On behalf of my colleague Prof Anastasia Loukaitou-Sideris at UCLA, USA, I would like to thank everybody that took part in this project, and in particular, a friend from the UK who directly contributed to the original survey applied in Stockholm in 2016. Thanks!

 

Contact

Vania Ceccato, KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Email: vania.ceccato@abe.kth.se

 

Images: courtesy of the author

 

Working remotely: Criminology in a time of Covid-19

Dr Charlotte Harris and Dr Helen Jones

How is the BSC – a Society of members with shared interests but geographically disparate –  working during the COVID-19 pandemic? Like you, our sense of normality has changed enormously over the past week. Our sense of ontological security has been rocked.

Many of you will have experience of working from home. It has been part of a working pattern for academics almost since time began. But for most, shared experience was grounded in being present with students through teaching and with colleagues through research activities.  Now, this has  become a more distant set of activities.  And working from home may be even less routine for those who work as criminologists outside academia.   Life has changed perhaps less for us, the paid staff of the BSC, as we routinely work from home and, we wanted to share our experiences – and those of other criminologists – to suggest ideas that might help as we negotiate this isolated and potentially isolating landscape.

Creating a Workspace

As an academic, you might have lots of experience of working from home, or you might have done this infrequently. You might need long-term or short-term ‘fixes’ to help you work remotely. Try to get clarity from your institution of what they are providing. Will your employer pay for your internet costs, pay for an ergonomically suitable workstation (including desk, chair, lighting, webcam, headset). If you need these things immediately, it might be worth buying them now, keeping the receipts and trying to claim the cost back later. But ask first if possible.

You may not have a separate room at home that you can work in. A room divider might be useful to not only give you a blank space behind you when you are on the webcam, but also to pin things to and to screen off your workspace when you are done for the day. Creating a sense of work/home separation is vital to your mental health.

Pace yourself and prioritise. It is too easy to work beyond healthy work limits. Begin to create daily rituals that include breaks. You might be self-isolating but you can still do some stretches in front of a window, brew some tea, set a timer for regular breaks

Sharing a workspace

One thing has changed even for some of us at the BSC office – you will probably not be the only person working from home.  You may have to share workspace with family members, some of them children.  And it won’t be just the children who might struggle to differentiate work and leisure time and contact.  Have set times to take a break, make coffee, establish  a timetable for the ‘oncall’ parent but try and be flexible to spontaneity and the joyous interruption.

Keep a work journal

You might already do this: many people who work remotely do. It is easy to lose track of what you have been doing. At work our day is punctuated by teaching, visiting the library, having a meeting (that is likely to be minuted), or having a coffee with colleague. You do not get this at home, so make a note for yourself of what you have done, what you need to do (and tick those things off your list as you do them) and document decisions taken. Do this and your work doesn’t become invisible.

Communication

Communication is central of effective remote working. You will need ways of clarifying immediate questions, coupled with regular scheduled meetings.  There are a range of tools and your university is responsible for organising this. It might be Slack, Hangout Chats, Skype, Teams or some other communication tool but you shouldn’t have to figure this out for yourself. There has to be an organisational strategy underpinning communication, even in these quickly evolving times.

Your institutional IT protocols should allow you to access all necessary resources remotely.  However, this might take time to arrange and can seem insurmountable if you are not very technologically-minded, and have never had to be.   Don’t panic, most will be sortable.

It might help you (and other people) feel less isolated if you have webcam on. We are visual creatures and it helps to visually connect with others. But if a camera does not work for you, do not feel pressurised to have the camera on. Don’t give in to pressure.

Managing emails

How can we avoid the perils of endless emails? In the era of ‘reply all’ it can feel that every email needs to be responded to, and now. Well they do not. Practice what you want other people to do. If an email is for information only, put those recipients into the C.C. panel and make it clear that they do not have to reply. Just check emails twice a day and also let people know. This allows more reflection time, and you will notice that some of the ‘Urgent’ emails have already been answered. It is about managing expectations, so be clear about what you can and cannot do.

Being human

Even in these pressured and quickly changing (and challenging) days, being present to your colleagues is a good thing. A quick message (entitled ‘Good Morning’), that people know is non-urgent and they do not have to reply to can go a long way to creating a sense of camaraderie. A paragraph of what you did yesterday and what you plan to do today would suffice. Maybe something funny or a small win (‘I got what I needed from the supermarket!’): it doesn’t have to be work related.

Your message may be as small as ‘I’m here’ when you start work, but it helps to create a sense of presence and awareness that we are still here and we still matter. If you feel isolated reach out, to a colleague, to your Faculty head, to us here at the BSC (because we are human too and we have been working remotely for many, many years).

Words of Wisdom from our colleagues

Emma Milne, University of Plymouth – As much as is possible, separate work and home – don’t work on your sofa or bed, work at a table and (ideally) in a spare room. So work stays work and home stays home.

Tim Newburn, LSE – On the issue of extended periods at home trying to write etc, I think the greatest dangers of remote working relate to the absence of (a) structure, and (b) human contact. I try (and often fail, but still try) to have a sense of the shape of the day. It is easier to keep going, ironically, if one has regular breaks. So, dividing the day into chunks tends to help. Then, regular checking in with others is crucial (another thing I’m only too good at letting slide). I think in the coming weeks and months we’ll discover that Skype/Zoom/FaceTime etc and going to be essential tools for keeping in touch with colleagues as well as friends and for looking after our own, and others, mental health. Other than that, I recommend both listening to lots of music and reading lots of fiction. Both are extraordinarily good for the soul.

Vicky Canning, University of Bristol – Time: the amount of time which goes into effective – quality – online teaching should not be underestimated and will shift the current workload model. Online teaching also opens up issues on both the delivery of sensitive materials and copyright with regard to use of online materials and images. Online institutions generally have legal teams to consider potentially libellous claims (such as when discussing corporate crime). This puts individuals at serious risk (I have 3 colleagues taken through court for this) so this should be considered. Also, from a worker rights perspective, we differ from other countries in that our institution owns copyright to our work. Whilst replay actually legally requires our permission to be reused under performance rights (so universities can own it, but not play it without our explicit permission) however this is not the case for lecture slides. As such, it would be good to have a formal agreement in kind from the University that we can delete our materials at the end of term so we are not at risk of writing ourselves out of jobs.

James Treadwell, Staffordshire University –  Firstly, this is not something to fear, and my big lesson is, regardless of your mode of delivery, that a real passion for subject of criminology and a love of debate and teaching cuts across all forms of delivery. I really do believe that. Secondly in the early days it is easy to get concerned about how people react to you when you can’t see them, and that for me is often the big change between in person and online. In my experience many engage with webcams off in live sessions. Do not be too phased by it. Also, do not let recorded sessions make you try and adopt a style that is not you. After a while it becomes second nature. I really like the live online forum because it can actually help to be even more topical, post articles, news stories and things in the message board and be contemporary and you will not have too much to fear about the shift to online.  But as you spend more time delivering in these new ways, find time to do the simple things too, stretch your muscles, do some exercise, spend half hour with a book in the sun in the garden to make up for the time you would walking to and from lectures. It is still important you enjoy your job, but it is a job and it is now coming into a different part of your world. But it is a job. Now more than ever it is vital you do not let it take over that home world.

Emma Williams, Canterbury Christchurch University – Make a call to a colleague every day and talk.

Marian Duggan, University of Kent – Make a (realistic) schedule of the day / week where possible. I have this on a whiteboard, broken into hourly chunks. It is a helpful frame of reference for what I should be doing and when. I also use the Pomodoro Technique (time allocation system) to keep tasks to their allocated time. Info about this is available online. For people (like me) who are unable to keep their working space separate from their general living space, try to get in a routine of setting up and packing away your work stuff to mentally break between ‘work’ and ‘home’.

Lizzie Seal, University of Sussex – Don’t have a 5 year old.

Do you have any other tip that you can share?   Tweet us @BritSocCrim and use the hashtag #WorkingFromHome

 

Copyright free image courtesy of: https://www.lostandfoundinedtech.org/

Unmasking Ineffectiveness: The UK’s Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007

Sharon Hartles was awarded a Master of Arts in Crime and Justice (with distinction) from the Open University in December 2019. She has an interest in crimes of the powerful, including state and state-corporate crime.  In an explicit attempt to move beyond criminology, she draws upon a zemiological approach to evidence the social, political and economic context in which crime is produced and interwoven into society via socio-economic inequalities.

 

The Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 (CMCH Act) has never been as visibly under the spot-light or as open to public scrutiny as it is currently. The reason this is the case is the loss of life of 72 individuals (and subsequent contempt) which occurred during a preventable and foreseen fire that took place at the Grenfell Tower. This fire occurred on Wednesday 14^th June 2017, and has been labelled amongst other things as ‘Britain’s worst fire in a century’. If an event such as this was not tragic enough, it resulted from the failures of a plethora of companies and large organisations fuelled by cost-cutting measures in the pursuit of profiteering.

On Monday 10^th June 2019, Scotland Yard announced its intention to pursue suspects for offences of corporate manslaughter and gross negligence manslaughter. However, due to the delayed public inquiry, a 2021 timeframe was given as a date for formal charging decisions. This reveals the clear links to corporate manslaughter and provides the grounding for why this law is now centre stage of media interest. A more recent headline on Thursday 6^th February 2020 by the BBC News entitled: ‘Grenfell Tower inquiry backs protection for refurbishment firms giving evidence’ reveals an additional layering of contempt taking the form of ‘protection’ granted to those potentially suspected under the CMCH Act. It is apparent, that such ‘protection’, in the form of impunity, is deeply ironic given the fact that, had ‘protection’ – in the form of health and safety of the Grenfell residents – been the driving force behind the Grenfell Tower refurbishments, ‘protection’ against incrimination would not be required by those who now find themselves facing possible corporate manslaughter charges.

Critical academics with an interest in crimes of the powerful, particularly corporate crimes, are well versed in the ineffectiveness of the CMCH Act. Within this field of study, a large body of data can be readily drawn upon to evidence that in its first ten years only a paltry total of 26 companies have been successfully prosecuted under the CMCH Act. What is even more noteworthy, is that 25 of these companies could have been prosecuted under the previous law. The law of Involuntary Manslaughter was underpinned by the unlawful killing of a human being without malice aforethought. Gross Negligence Manslaughter was a subsidiary element under which successful corporate prosecutions took place. However, this was not without its flaws because it did not reflect the way modern organisations operate, which may have been a factor behind the significant lack of its implementation.

In the 50 years prior to 1998 there were a total of four cases, where individual directors and business owners faced manslaughter charges. Each of these cases was successful because they were small organisations where the management had a more ‘hands on’ involvement. Between 1998 and the introduction of the CMCH Act the number of cases rose to approximately 20 due to a joint protocol between the Police, the HSE and the Crown Prosecution Service. All of these prosecutions had something in common and that was they all concerned small businesses (and not large corporations). In part, this was because it is easier to identify an individual such as the senior manager or director as being ‘a controlling mind’ in small companies, and therefore relatively easier to prosecute. Unlike the previous law, the CMCH Act was designed to encompass the failure of health and safety management, the degree of that failure should determine the corporate and individual charges laid.

The CMCH_Act, defined corporate manslaughter in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, and corporate homicide in Scotland, and was given Royal Assent on Thursday 26^th July 2007, coming into force on Sunday 6^th April 2008, and was fundamentally devised to hold both small and large organisations to account. Yet none of those, aforementioned 26 companies prosecuted under the CMCH Act have been large organisations. In contrast to the 26 prosecutions under the law of corporate manslaughter in England, Wales and Northern Ireland, in almost twelve years there have been no prosecutions in Scotland under the law of corporate homicide. For this reason, Claire Baker, Member of the Scottish Parliament put forward a proposal for a Bill to reform the law to ensure ‘where loss of life is caused by the recklessness or gross negligence of individuals, companies or organisations that, where proved, the wrongdoer can be convicted of the offence that reflects the appropriate seriousness and moral opprobrium of what occurred’. The final proposal was lodged with The Scottish Parliament on Tuesday 12^th November 2019.  This Private Member’s Bill has since received the right to be introduced and subject to the three-stage scrutiny process.

The ineffective nature of implementing corporate law can be seen globally and is not localised to the UK. This can be illustrated through the SNC-Lavalin scandal that demonstrates how: ‘Canada is weak on corporate crime’. The law is manipulated to favour ‘powerful interests, and the unprecedented power of multinational corporations’. Such crafting leaves ‘ordinary people exposed to the harms that result from corporate greed taking precedence over the rule of law’. According to Professor Gary Slapper, ‘Justice is mocked if an important law goes unenforced‘ and this has certainly been exemplified by the lack of successful prosecutions under the CMCH Act, when compared to the thousands of fatalities, resulting from gross breaches of a duty of care.  A key criticism of this law is the loophole in the form of the inclusion of section 18, which explicitly states ‘No individual liability’.

On Friday 21^st July 2006, in response to the government publishing the Corporate Manslaughter Bill, Dorothy Wright, a founder member of Families Against Corporate Killers (FACK) stated:  “Having read it I don’t feel the bill is worth the paper it is written on”.  Furthermore, Hazards Campaign noted that FACK met with Labour Government ministers and argued without success, for individual Directors Duties and Responsibilities to be included in a bid to tighten up the Bill. In the light of this, FACK openly claim that the CMCH Act was a betrayal of families as soon as it was passed. Thirteen years in the making (between the initial proposals in 1994 and the introduction of the CMCH Act) its legacy is that companies which kill will never be anything more than symbolically ‘at risk’ of a corporate manslaughter conviction. Therefore, this leads to multiple questions including: what was the purpose of enacting an ineffective law? and: Who stands to benefit from it?

It has taken the death of a further 72 people (increasing the corporate death toll rate) and the high profile nature of the Grenfell Tower tragedy to yet again unmask the ineffectiveness of the CMCH Act.. Almost fourteen years after the government published the Corporate Manslaughter Bill, FACK’s response proved to be predictively accurate. ‘A fine however large is not an appropriate or a proportionate penalty for the crime of killing a person by flouting health and safety law which is in fact criminal law. Larger corporations will pay the fine and carry on killing and maiming as usual’.

The Grenfell survivors, those bereaved and the community, should not have to play a pivotal role in pursuing truth, justice and accountability. However, their publicised plight may serve to save other families from suffering the same fate at the hands of large organisations/corporations whose actions appear to be beyond the reach of the CMCH Act. The legislation has to be reviewed. Adopting Claire Baker’s Proposed Culpable Homicide (Scotland) Bill which encompasses an appropriate sentence for the wrongdoer is a fairer form of justice. For this reason debate around enacting reform into the UK’s Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide laws must be prioritised.

Originally posted on:  sharonhartles.weebly.com

Direct link: https://sharonhartles.weebly.com/unmasking-ineffectiveness-the-uks-corporate-manslaughter-and-corporate-homicide-act-2007.html

 

Contact

Sharon Hartles, Open University

Email: sh28739@ou.ac.uk

Twitter: @shartles1

Images: courtesy of the author

Women, History, Invisibility and Prisons

Women, History, Invisibility and Prisons: A contribution to the Women’s History Month

Susanna Menis is a Lecturer in Law at Birkbeck London University, School of Law. Her recent book provides a revisionist prison history which brings to the forefront the relationship between gender and policy. It examines women’s prisons in England since the late 18^th century to the beginning of the 20^th century.

Historical criminology research on prisons in England comes across as genderless. Yet, these histories reflect the story of male prisons (Naffine, 1997) – not least because, there have been many historical records to draw upon. When we say the ‘invisibility’ of female prisoners, it is meant to suggest that the experiences and needs of women have been ignored. Many have argued that prisons are ‘a man’s world; made for men, by men’, and as a consequence, women have been subjected to regimes designed to deal with the needs faced by the larger prison population, that of men (Heidensohn and Silvestri, 2012; Priestley, 1999; Heidensohn, 1985). When attempts are made to examine the history of female prisons, because, as put by Zedner (1994:100) ‘to suggest that they [women prisoners] were simply “not foreseen” is patently implausible’ – requests are made for comparative analysis (Garland, 1993; Wiener, 1993). It is this sort of intellectual chastisement that has fostered the reproduction of theoretical frameworks shaped upon ‘a masculinist vision of the past’ (Spongberg, 2002:3).

The historiography of women in prisons in England is small (e.g. Smith, 1962; Heidensohn, 1985; Dobash et al., 1986). These (hi)stories however, have used at face value traditional and/or revisionist prison historiography to contextualise the history of female prisons: hence, failing to reclaim women’s subjectivity to a great extent (with the exception of Zedner, 1994). Instead, historical primary sources evidence that despite their small numbers in comparison to men, penal policy was as concerned, proportionally, with female prisoners as it was with the male prisoner (Menis, 2020).

The discourse of the invisibility of female prisoners has lots to do with the taking at face value, the (hi)stories told about the separate and the silent systems. These were prison regimes imported from America in the 1840s because they were financially convenient, requiring minimal contact with the prisoner. They were adopted inconsistently and interchangeably, initially, in the three national penitentiaries: Pentonville, Millbank and Brixton (Menis, 2020). We know lots about these regimes, because volumes have been written on them. However, what is missing from such narratives is that the few women sentenced to the national penitentiaries were subjected to a specific female-version of the regime; also, the majority of women, because of the nature of their offence, were sent to local prisons, where the two American prison regimes were applied unsystematically.

Social reformers such as Mary Carpenter, clearly acknowledged the importance of having in female prisons a different penal regime than in male prisons because ‘there is a very great difference between the inmates’ (1864: 207). Partly, this was informed by the understanding that imprisonment for women was recognised as a hindrance to social integration and the regaining of respectability for work and marriage purposes. Indeed, female convicts were transferred, towards the end of their sentences, to Fulham Refuge. This was aimed at ‘erasing the considerable stigma of being recognised as a female ex-convict’ (Zedner, 1991:171). As explained by Fulham Refuge’s governor, they hoped that people who might be intimidated by the idea of employing female ex-prisoners could ‘be induced to take them from a benevolent institution such as a refuge’ (Revd J.H. Moran (1854), quoted in Zedner, 1991:182). Also Du Cane (1885:170) considered that ‘these “refuges” were not prisons either in appearance or in discipline—they were homes and intended to afford the advantages of a treatment approaching in its characteristics to that of home influence’. However, from 1888 Fulham was reinstated as a ‘prison’, and for the next eight years female convicts were accommodated only in Woking prison; from 1896 it was only Aylesbury prison housing the small numbers of female convicts: on an average day in 1897, 202 women were recorded as present, having the yearly average reception standing at less than 50 (Report of the Commissioners of Prisons and Directors of Convict Prisons for the year 1896-1897, 1897:10, 43).

Most women, however, were sent to the 65 local prisons around the country. The second Prison Commission report for 1879 and Susan Fletcher’s memoir (1884) provide a valuable insight into the regime applied in these local prisons. By the end of 31 March 1879, only 63 prisons also housed women, and only Westminster gaol was a female-only prison. These prisons could have had a daily average population of as few as one woman (e.g. Southwell) and as many as 500 women at one time (e.g. Westminster and Liverpool). The Report tells us that only Lancaster goal employed women in gum breaking and cotton picking; otherwise, policy informed by (as we identify it now) stereotypical understanding of femininity and womanhood, meant that female prisoners were subject predominantly to employment in housekeeping. Susan confirms that also later in the century, the ‘hard labour’ she was sentenced to was ‘rather a myth’; as far as she was concerned, she ‘did a little knitting’ because she liked it, ‘but not an hour’s hard labour during the twelve months’ (1884:337).

Historical records evidence that the development of female prisons is closely related to the development of male prisons (Menis, 2020); however, denying a history of female prisoners in its own right fosters a stagnation in the discipline. The uncritical assertion of women’s ‘invisibility’ has led researchers to neglect the contribution of policy specifically concerning the female prison population in the shaping of mainstream prison policy. However, let us not confuse ‘bad’ with ‘different’; prison regimes have left much to be desired for, whether you were (are) a man or a woman. When first arriving to Westminster gaol, Susan Fletcher was faced with the ‘filthy horrors of the reception’. She describes in her memoir how ‘all wash from one tank, and wipe on one towel, and the poor women, wild with grief, or crazy with delirium-tremens, are screaming in the reception-cells’. Despite still being served bacon and beans during her stay (in 1879 the Prison Commission requested for these items to be removed), Susan thought that the food was not nutritious; her ring, which ‘fitted so tightly’ when she had just arrived to prison ‘came off very easily’ after only a week in custody. While waiting to progress to a position of trust (e.g. work in the kitchen and laundry), Susan had to spend 23 hours of the day in her cell. In that regard, she said (1884:320-1, 329):

A saint might grow more saintly by such a discipline, perhaps; but even a saint’s body could hardly get more healthy. Common men and women, social beings, with all their best instincts unsatisfied and blighted, must be made worse in every way by such unnatural conditions.

Women’s History Month raises awareness by documenting, acknowledging and celebrating women’s lives; it is about reclaiming historical ownership for experiences which have been kept muted. To find out more including relevant events:

Women Making Waves https://www.rmg.co.uk/see-do/women

Alternative arts http://www.alternativearts.co.uk/womens-history-month/4581216304

Women’s History Network https://womenshistorynetwork.org/

 

References

Carpenter M (1864) Our convicts. London: Longman, Vol 2.

Dobash RP, Dobash ER and Gutteridge S (1986) The Imprisonment of Women. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.

Du Cane E (1885) The Punishment and Prevention of Crime. London: Macmillan and Co.

Fletcher SW (1884) Twelve months in an English prison. Boston: Lee and Shepard.

Heidensohn F (1985), Women and Crime. London: Macmillan.

Heidensohn F and Silvestri (2012) Gender and Crime. In Maguire M, Morgan R, and Reiner R (ed.) The Oxford handbook of criminology. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 5^th edn, pp.336-361.

Menis S (2020) A History of Women’s Prisons in England: The Myth of Prisoners Reformation. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.

Naffine N (1997) Feminism and Criminology. Cambridge: Polity Press.

Rafter NH (1983) Prisons for Women, 1790-1980. Crime and Justice 5: 129-181.

Priestley P (1999), Victorian prison lives. London: Pimlico.

Smith A (1962) Women in Prison. London: Stevens & Sons.

Spongberg M (2002) Writing Women History since the Renaissance. Palgrave Macmillan.

Zedner L (1994) Women crime and custody in Victorian England. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Second Report of The Commissioners of Prisons (1879). London: HMSO.

Report of the Commissioners of Prisons and Directors of Convict Prisons for the year 1896-1897 (1897). London: HMSO.

 

Contact

Susanna Menis, School of Law, Birkbeck, University of London

Email: s.menis@bbk.ac.uk

 

Images: courtesy of the author and permission given by artist, for Woman in a cell © Noriko Hisazumi 2019

‘From villain to hero’: a new approach in pedagogy and rehabilitation?

Liam Miles is a Criminology student at Birmingham City University and has a passion for writing from a range of topics including structural inequalities, systematic violence, conflict in the Middle East, and various theoretical paradigms to crime and deviance. He also works in the Student’s Union as  Vice-President for Academic Experience.

 

From villain to hero delves into the more insightful and inclusive elements of Criminology. The comic recently published by Kevin Hoffin and Adam Lynes answers some questions around rehabilitative practices for offenders who have faced high levels of institutionalism and incapacitation. The narrative explores a typical criminal offence which is realistic in today’s social and economic climate, a jewellery shop heist.  The heist takes place and the comic critically explores the mental and personal conflictions between the offenders, in terms of their rationale and reasonings for the crimes they had committed. These thoughts underpin several theoretical paradigms which are regularly contested within Criminology and they include rational choice, differential association, relative depravation and strain theory. The ontological frameworks have been made accessible for not only a non-academic audience, but possibly individuals who may not have an academic background in reading and writing due factors such as barriers to access education, learning challenges and years of institutionalism. It can be argued that this newly founded mechanism for education provides a fresh approach to learning, teaching and rehabilitation. The theoretical paradigms of criminality have been simplified throughout this comic and gives a space for those learning about these theories to digest them in an interactive and applied manner. I believe that there is immense potential for this comic to play a role in the process of rehabilitation of offenders, particularly of those who have committed violent crime and have inflicted harm onto others. The comic uses graphically designed imagery to display the criminological theory and accurately portray the perspectives and social realities of both the offender and victim. These range from the motives and structural dynamics which arguably led the offenders to commit a jewellery shop heist, following to the victim and their trauma from the experience and exposure to violent crime. These collective narratives can produce didacticism and potentially even rehabilitation of offenders in prison. This approach can help students digest and understand the basic frameworks and theoretical paradigms such as ultra-realism, which itself is a challenging idea to comprehend.

These narratives can be further supported by exploring the teachings embedded within the comic. One scene shows the interviewing of the victim/witness. The witness was told to take her time and to relax whilst she recollected the traumatic events from the robbery. The next scene explored the offenders being interviewed. The rationale and reasoning behind the offender’s motives came to light, and arguably to the reader this revelation subconsciously unmasks the offender and adopts a more humane perspective. This compilation of both offender and victim-based perspectives underpin the critical teachings of ultra-realism. Realism has a subjectivity engrossed heavily in socio-economic climates and the empiricisms contained within builds its ontological frameworks. Exploring crime and justice policy, from a circumstantial lens often produces conflictions amongst ultra–realists as to which is the most appropriate response to tackling crime and punishment. Arguably these concepts are abstract notions and finding one-size which fits all is a regular contest. The conflictions between left and right realism and its approaches to crime and punishment were simplified by the context supplied by the responses to the crime which took place. In one scene, the narrative explored a member of the public who had called for the offenders of the jewellery shop heist to be immediately imprisoned and described offenders as being ‘benefit scroungers’. Upon reflection, this phrase has often been thrown around within the right-wing tabloids, and is an ideological strand embedded within right realism. Examples can include the headline produced by the Daily Express on September 2^nd, 2011 titled: ‘4m Scrounging families in Britain‘, adjacent to an article titled: ‘London’s no longer an English City’ says John Cleese’.

It can be argued that these narratives produce a divide between those who are employed and prosperous, and those who are unemployed and are having to receive support from the state to maintain a basic standard of living, these narratives are fixed and continuously aim to marginalise, stigmatise and segregate those who are impoverished. In relation to the links between impoverishment and criminality, the simplification of the narratives throughout the comics, allows the reader to understand the ways in which these beliefs are perpetuated, particularly through the lens of the media.

On the flip side, the values embedded within left realism were also explored and simplified. The comic displayed another member of the public who was debating with the right realist, and argued that criminality is fuelled by poverty, structural inequalities and the failures within some individuals to economically and socially fit into this neoliberal, consumer capitalist society, whose values endorse competition, narcissism and raised expected aspirations in an unattainable society. A left realist would argue that these issues are out of the control of the offender, and they would be driven to commit crime as an only solution to escape from impoverishment. The principles and implementation of rehabilitation, local state funding, and investment into both the labour market and public sectors would play a vital role in steering individuals away from crime through increased opportunities to live a ‘normal’ life. Of course, the constructs within ultra-realism go a lot further than that which have been drawn upon in this blog however the wider understandings of criminological theory have been contextualised and simplified throughout the comic.

Upon reflection of our own values and approaches, the debate in the comic as to how the offenders should be dealt with, paves room for personal reflection upon our own morals and judgements. It is worth noting these constructs were complimented by the incredible use of imagery and design which draws readers in from the very start. This marks the start of a very inspiring and promising tool within pedagogy, rehabilitation and leisure interests for those who are looking to get inspired, learn new concepts and engage with their discipline in ways which go far and beyond reading papers and journals.

If you would like to receive a copy of the comic, please email Kevin Hoffin at: Kevin.Hoffin@bcu.ac.uk

 

Contact

Liam Miles, Birmingham City University

liam.miles@mail.bcu.ac.uk

 

Images: courtesy of the author

 

 

Bhopal State-Corporate Crime continues to unfold, (1984 – Present), 35 years and counting

Sharon Hartles has recently completed her MA in Crime and Justice with the Open University. She has an interest in crimes of the powerful, including state and state-corporate crime. In an explicit attempt to move beyond criminology, she draws upon a zemiological approach to evidence the social, political and economic context in which harm (including crime) is produced and interwoven into society via socio-economic inequalities.

 

On the 3rd December 1984, part of the Union Carbide Corporation (hereafter UCC) chemical plant in Bhopal, a city of Madhya Pradesh, India, exploded. Within three days of the gas leak up to 10,000 people (men, women and children) died and hundreds of thousands more were poisoned. The UCC plant in Bhopal was built and run by Union Carbide India Ltd (hereafter UCIL) an Indian public company in which Union Carbide, an American company, had a majority shareholding. An Operations safety survey was conducted by UCC technicians for the UCIL in May 1982 (thirty-one months prior to the gas leak), which noted various lapses in safety regulations. Three months before the gas leak, (September 1984) an operational safety/health survey raised concerns about a possible runaway reaction; pointing out that water from an identified leak would hasten this reaction resulting in catastrophic failure.

This state-corporate crime (the spillage of large quantities of methyl isocyanate (MIC), a very toxic substance, into the atmosphere from the pesticide plant) was preventable, insofar as it was a consequence of foreseeable and alterable social conditions. UCC ‘was aware of the possibility of a potential runaway reaction that triggered the MIC leak in Bhopal‘ and ‘was aware right from 1982 that the Bhopal plant suffered from serious safety problems‘. In addition, recommended follow-up action was overlooked. Therefore these capitalist harms were not inevitable, but were determined by the (in)actions of powerful states and corporations or crimes of the powerful. This evidences how the Bhopal ‘disaster’ was not an accident, because an accident by definition is an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally. Instead, “it was caused by law-breaking, and involved the complicity of a multinational company and Governments”.

Contemporary criminal justice systems (the Indian Penal Code, the official criminal code of India) recognised parts of this ‘disaster’ (Union Carbide’s gassing of Bhopal) as ‘criminal offences’ under the law of culpable homicide (not murder and not negligent manslaughter). However, in June 2010, seven executives of UCIL were found guilty of criminal negligence (not culpable homicide). What is interesting, but not surprising, is that all seven of those (junior officers and senior officials of UCIL) successfully convicted individuals were Indian. This makes visible the stark inequalities in the application of justice administered by the criminal justice systems. Different social groups, for example the relatively poorer, Indian people prosecuted experienced the Indian criminal justice system differently to the American businessman Warren Anderson. Warren Anderson the Chairman and CEO of the UCC at the time of the Bhopal disaster in 1984, on arriving in Bhopal was arrested and formally charged with culpable homicide, punishable by 10 years to life imprisonment and a fine. Although this is a strictly non-bailable offence, meaning the granting of bail would be unlawful, Warren Anderson posted bail, left the country and absconded from justice (he died in September 2014 and never faced trial).

Lawyers representing UCC and Warren Anderson, argued that neither American nor Indian laws applied due to the globalised nature of the state-corporate nexus.  UCIL reported to Union Carbide Eastern Inc (UCE), a wholly owned subsidiary of UCC incorporated in the USA (however, this operated in Hong Kong). Moreover, the intricate globalized network continued because the Bhopal plant reported through another wholly owned USA subsidiary of UCIL, the Union Carbide Agricultural Products Company.

As a consequence of these global economic processes, representatives were able to take advantage of the globalised space in-between the laws, rendering the crimes of the powerful (state and corporations) beyond the reach of the law. In effect, they used the  letter of the law to defeat it’s spirit. With this in mind, it is clear to see how contemporary crime and justice systems focus their wrath on the ‘players’ with less power, (junior officers and senior officials of UCIL) as tokenistic involuntary lambs sacrificed for the slaughter. Whilst those ‘players’ with elite power (Warren Anderson and UCC) elude punishment and exist to commit further state-corporate transgressions.

Multinational corporations are well versed in ‘creative compliance’: using professional advisers with knowledge of the law to take advantage of legal loopholes and UCC is no exception. In 1994, UCC conveniently sold its stake in UCIL and so no longer has assets in India. Practices such as this promote the evasion of accountability and allows UCC to hide-in-plain-sight, but always just out of the reach of justice. In this regard UCC has concealed its actions to be ‘perfectly legal or at least not expressly illegal’.

Seven years later (2001), UCC merged with Dow Chemical Company, and as such it is completely owned by Dow which means Dow (as the parent company) holds all of UCC’s ‘common stock’. In 2002, Greenpeace stated that under US legislation, as ‘parent’ company of UCC, Dow should incur liability to clean up Bhopal. In a series of statements addressing the disaster, Dow (which in September 2017 merged with DuPont) noted its purchase of UCC excluded clean up liabilities from Bhopal.  ‘The chemical industry learned and grew as a result of Bhopal – creating the Responsible Care program with its strengthened focus on process safety standards, emergency preparedness, and community awareness.’ A critical response might question why a morally Responsible Care programme has not been implemented for Bhopal?

Dow celebrated its success of developing ‘ECOFAST’ technology (November 2018) which it claims will reduce environmental harms. A statement which is ironic given the human, non-human and environmental devastation still taking place in Bhopal. Approximately 25,000 people have died, to date, from the gas leak/gas-related illnesses. Thousands of others suffer from chronic debilitating illnesses, and a staggering 570,000 people were exposed to damaging levels of toxic gas. In addition, year-on-year, children are born with congenital malformations evidencing inter-generational trauma.

​In 2018, in stark contrast to Dow whose primary focus was to promote its ECOFAST pure technology, a world away in Bhopal, reality and priorities differ vastly. The abandoned UCC plant remains full of toxic waste, the soil is 100 per cent toxic and pools of mercury are visible on the ground. Ground water at the site, which provides a drinking water supply for approximately fifteen communities is contaminated because untreated chemicals continue to leach through the soil into the aquifer.

​In 1989, thirty years ago, UCC paid out a sum of $470 million in full settlement and never looked back; leaving the residents of Bhopal exposed to ongoing contamination from their abandoned factory site. This worked out to each gas-exposed victim receiving an amount of $500 for life-long debilitating injuries and to pay for decades of medical bills. The next generation of children (afflicted by Union Carbide’s poison) of gas-affected parents received no financial aid. Activists have been fighting ever since to get more compensation for those affected, to get the site cleaned up and to prevent the devastation from spreading. The state of Madhya Pradesh has declared itself unequipped to deal with the Bhopal clean up and for these reasons claim that the 1989 settlement was inadequate. In a curative petition Dow have been requested by the federal government to pay an amount of $1.2 billion.

Bhopal, has demonstrated how it is the most vulnerable members of society who continue to ‘pay the price’ for the crimes of the powerful or state-corporate crime-waves. Thirty five years after the preventable gas leak at Bhopal, its harms are still manifesting. All of this as a direct result of cost-cutting measures and failure to enforce health and safety regulations. The 3rd December 2019 is the thirty-fifth anniversary of the Bhopal state and corporate crime. It also marks thirty-five years of continuing trauma inflicted upon the Bhopali people and thirty-five years in which the Bhopalis continue to fight for justice and accountability.

As part of this continued fight for justice against the state-corporate massacre which took place in Bhopal the Indian courts yet again summoned Dow chemical to attend a court date, on 13th November 2019, to face criminal charges for the part Union Carbide played in the Bhopal state-corporate crime. However, as the Department of Justice (DOJ) (USA) did not serve the summons to Dow Chemical Company, the likelihood of them appearing was negligible, and Dow Chemical did not appear in court demonstrating disdain for previous negligence. Such incontrovertible evidence illustrates why the unending aftermath of the world’s worst industrial disaster resulting from state-corporate crime has continued to unfold across decades and generations, incurring new victims’ year on year, as the battle for justice for Bhopal endures.

​Justice for Bhopal is an international campaign: a global coalition of environmental and social justice groups led by survivors of the ongoing disaster in Bhopal. There are many ways to support Bhopal, the three listed are just a few of those suggested by the Justice for Bhopal group:

• Send a letter to your elected representative, asking them to contact the DOJ on behalf of Bhopal survivors! (Applies to US citizens only)
• Demand that the Government of India and Madhya Pradesh revise the numbers of death and injury
• Start a Local ICJB chapter or Campus Group​​

Further campaign resources can be found here:

• Bhopal campaign resources

Alternatively, The Bhopal Medical Appeal is a health fund which provides appropriate response for the Bhopal survivors – because Bhopal matters.

 

Originally posted on:  sharonhartles.weebly.com

Contact: Sharon Hartles

Email: sh28739@ou.ac.uk

Twitter: @shartles1

Images: courtesy of the author and Wikimedia Commons CC-BY- 3.0

 

The Uses of Historical Criminology

David Churchill is Associate Professor in Criminal Justice in the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, School of Law, University of Leeds. His research focuses on policing, security and crime control in modern Britain.

 

Henry Yeomans is Associate Professor in Criminology at the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, School of Law, University of Leeds. His research focuses on the regulation of alcohol and drinking in historical perspective.

 

Paul Lawrence is Asa Briggs Professor of History, and Head of History, at The Open University. His research focuses on the history of crime, policing and justice from c.1750.

 

Over the past several years, the term ‘historical criminology’ has slowly and quietly entered the criminological lexicon. Its arrival, without fanfare, signals at least interest in engaging with historical themes and problems in criminological research. But it might also gesture towards a fuller integration of historical approaches and ways of thinking into criminology. If so, it would seem to evoke promising new directions for criminological scholarship: broadening its chronological frame of reference; historicizing its core topical concerns; infusing previously marginal disciplinary perspectives. Yet the potential of historical criminology remains underdeveloped. Explicit discussion of the issues it might raise has been confined hitherto largely to reflective essays derived from specific research projects (Bosworth, 2001; Cox, 2011), or to broader surveys of the relationship between crime history and criminology as fields of enquiry (Godfrey et al., 2008; Lawrence, 2012). At present, there is a lack of broader theoretical and conceptual work on what it might mean to do criminology in an historical way (though see Garland, 2014; Churchill et al., 2018; Churchill, 2018).

In a recent thematic issue of Criminology & Criminal Justice, we have attempted to reach beyond existing work and develop original theoretical insights on the uses of historical research in criminology. This issue arises from an international conference hosted by the Centre for Criminal Justice Studies, University of Leeds, in 2015, which brought together criminologists, historians and socio-legal scholars to address connections between past, present and future across criminal justice topics. This event highlighted the wealth of inventive historical work taking place across disciplines, but also the challenges of establishing fruitful interdisciplinary dialogue around historical criminology without a secure theoretical underpinning. Our three papers result from sustained, critical engagement with these issues at the conference and in subsequent discussions over the intervening years. With reference to the conference itself, we would like to take this opportunity to thank all those who participated in the event, including Adam Crawford, Francis Dodsworth, Markus Dubber, Louise Jackson, Paul Knepper, Stuart Lister, Clifford Stott, Chris Williams and Sarah Wilson.

Our papers focus on three distinct (yet overlapping) values of historical research in criminology: to explain, characterise or contextualise contemporary formations of crime and justice. But in doing that, we develop several common lines of argument, which cut across the separate papers. First, we suggest that historical research must contribute to understanding crime and criminal justice in contemporary society. Criminology as a field is preoccupied with the present and with new developments, and we take this as our starting point, recognising that most criminologists will find history of interest insofar as it helps make sense of present concerns. Second, we contest the notion that the past should serve simply as a foil against which to establish what is new in the present. Given the ‘epochalist’ framing of much prominent work in contemporary social science (Savage, 2009), we are especially concerned to argue that historical approaches might break down (rather than to reinforce) the sense of separation between past and present. Third, we stress the advantages of going beyond the approach of much existing historical research, which uses focused study of a delimited period to provide a fresh perspective on contemporary problems. While recognising the value of such studies, we stress the virtues of long-term, diachronic research which links past and present in a continuous chain. Such a long-term perspective, we argue, is vital in using historical research to explain (Lawrence, Yeomans) or to characterize (Churchill) contemporary crime and justice. Finally, our papers (especially those by Churchill and Lawrence) emphasize the need for collaboration across disciplines to fully realise the potential contribution of historical criminology. In-depth interdisciplinary engagement, through teams spanning history and the social sciences, is perhaps the most viable means of using long-term historical research to make meaningful and lasting interventions in contemporary criminological debates.

The history of crime and criminal justice is a thriving area, and such work seems increasingly to find an audience within criminology. Furthermore, new networks and fora – notably the British Society of Criminology Historical Criminology Network, founded last year – seek to bring together established and emerging scholars interested in historical criminology. Such initiatives, in turn, are posing broader questions about the nature, purposes and future directions of historical research in criminology. We hope this thematic issue of Criminology & Criminal Justice will provide some foundations for more sustained engagement with historical approaches, perspectives and data in criminology, and thus help pave the way toward a more fully historical criminology.

 

References

Bosworth M (2001) The past as a foreign country? Some methodological implications of doing historical criminology. The British Journal of Criminology 41(3): 431-442.

Churchill D (2018) What is ‘historical criminology’? Thinking historically about crime and justice. British Society of Criminology Newsletter 82: 8-11.

Churchill D, Crawford A and Barker A (2018) Thinking forward through the past: prospecting for urban order in (Victorian) public parks. Theoretical Criminology 22(4): 523-544.

Cox P (2011) History and global criminology: (re)inventing delinquency in Vietnam. The British Journal of Criminology 52(1): 17-31.

Garland D (2014) What is a ‘history of the present’? On Foucault’s genealogies and their critical preconditions. Punishment & Society 16(4): 365-384.

Godfrey BS, Williams CA and Lawrence P (2008) History & Crime. London: SAGE.

Lawrence P (2012) History, criminology and the ‘use’ of the past. Theoretical Criminology 16(3): 313-328.

Savage M (2009) Against epochalism: an analysis of conceptions of change in British sociology. Cultural Sociology 3(2): 217-238.

 

Contact

David Churchill, University of Leeds

d.churchill@leeds.ac.uk

@dchurchill01

Paul Lawrence, The Open University

paul.lawrence@open.ac.uk

Henry Yeomans, University of Leeds

h.p.yeomans@leeds.ac.uk

@yeomans_henry

 

Copyright free images courtesy of authorsand Dreamstime