Research archive
Find out more about our past research projects and events.
Our past research projects and events are listed below. Click on the links, or use the navigation bar to the right, to access more information about them.
Researching the history of the Howard League
The University of Leicester, together with the Howard League as a collaborative partner, has secured funding for an ESRC Doctoral Studentship to produce the first history of the Howard League for Penal Reform.
The persistence of the Victorian prison
In England and Wales today, more than a quarter of prisoners live in Victorian-era prison accommodation. We want to understand what these prisons are like to live and work in, and how this has changed over time.
This project explores the implications of the continued operation of Victorian-era prisons for the contemporary prison service, and aims to inform policy development.
A policy briefing is available here.
Hope, legitimacy and carceral citizenship
Research has shown that hope can be a driving force behind individuals’ efforts to desist from offending. However, little research has sought to understand what people on probation or released from prison hope to get from their sentence, nor how probation services might work to support people who occupy the position of ‘carceral citizen’.
This study will employ peer researchers as well as using walking and photo elicitation methodologies to generate data with people on probation, probation staff, and external stakeholders. The aim of the research is to develop our understanding of hope in this context and how this may translate into effective probation practice.
The Commission on Crime and Gambling Related Harms
The Howard League established the Commission on Crime and Gambling Related Harms in 2019. It aimed to answer the following questions:
- What are the links between gambling related harms and crime?
- What impact do these links have on communities and society?
- What should be done?
The Commission undertook an extensive programme of research, the details of which can be found here.
Crime, Justice, and the Human Condition
In September 2022 we held a two-day hybrid international conference at Keble College Oxford. The conference sought to examine key questions in penal reform using the lens of the human condition.
PTown Bay MMXXX
PTown Bay MMXXX is a co-produced artwork that takes the form of a board game, co-created with young people at the Nacro Education and Skills Centre in Peterborough, who are learning outside the mainstream education system. The game explores the current and near future aspirations of young people faced with multiple disadvantages.
The game is a Season For Change Common Ground commission, a collaboration between socially engaged artist Hwa Young Jung, Nacro, the Howard League for Penal Reform and Liverpool John Moores University.
Probationary: The Game of Life on Licence
A pilot project between The Centre for the Study of Crime, Criminalisation, and Social Exclusion at Liverpool John Moores University, the Foundation for Creative Technology, Liverpool (FACT), and the Howard League for Penal Reform.
Produced through workshops with men on licence, Probationary explores the lived experience of being on probation. Taking the form of a board game, it takes its players on a journey through the eyes of four playable characters as they navigate the complexities of the probation process.
Board games, from Monopoly to the Game of Life, contain within them the structures and values of the society in which they are produced, presenting back to us the world in which we live. Taking this as a starting point, Probationary reflects real experiences of being subject to the criminal justice system and presents us with an opportunity to collectively play, understand and discuss such systems within our contemporary society.
Supervisible
The Howard League funded a pilot study in England, Scotland and Germany that used photography to understand the experiences of those subjected to community supervision.
What if?
The Howard League for Penal Reform and the Mannheim Centre at the London School of Economics worked in partnership to establish a pamphlet series that challenged conventional thinking on penal issues.
We worked with thinkers, academics and practitioners to develop innovative, and perhaps controversial, ideas that could work as a stimulus to new policy initiatives and ultimately achieve change.
What is justice?
A Howard League symposium that sought to develop innovative, credible and challenging ideas that can be built into models to change penal practice and outcomes.
Redesigning justice conference 2018
A two-day international conference at Keble College, Oxford, which focused on promoting civil rights, trust and fairness.
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