How do you solve a
problem like
cJustice?
Community Chaplaincy
Workshop
October 2014
The premise
Finding a solution … but what is the problem?
Session content
● My interest
● ‘McJustice’
o
o
Policy
 Value for money
 Payment by results
Practice
 Implications for offending
 Implications for
relationships
● Faith as an alternative
discourse
Session ethos
This is a politically driven topic
analysed using sociological
and theological tools:
● Be critical
● What do you agree with?
● What makes sense?
● What conflicts with your
perspective?
● What should be disregarded
and what pursued?
Introduction
Bauman and the riots:
● “These are riots of
defective and
disqualified
consumers”
● Anomie theory
● “All consumers now,
consumers first and
foremost”
Exercise 1
What are your initial thoughts
on consumerism and
commodification as concepts
within the criminal justice
system relevant to community
chaplaincy?
Defining terms - McJustice
McDonaldisation offers:
●
●
●
●
Efficiency
Predictability
Calculability
Control
Weber’s rationalisation of
Western society:
● Irrationality of rationality
● Humanity denied
Confession
Mmmm!
Application problems
Supersize Me … health problems
Exercise 2
Discussion point:
● Have you observed any of
these trends within your
role?
● How reasonable an
analytical tool is the
concept?
Policy
Swift and Sure Justice
● Magna Carta
● Swift - prompt and
efficient
● Sure - reliable and
commanding public
confidence
● Public perception
Swift - prompt and efficient
●
●
●
●
Early guilty pleas
Longer opening
More public
Better value and use of
technology
London riots an example
but ...
Sure - reliable and
commanding confidence
“firm grip on offenders”
● Prisons place of work
● More and tougher
community sentences
● Focus on communities
rather than targets
Achieved through a mixed
economy of provision
McJustice in Swift and Sure
● Is prompt justice good justice?
● Rational systems becoming
unreasonable
● Increasingly public,
increasingly confident?
● Increased reliability, decreased
individuality
● Community engagement or
controlled bureaucracy?
● Replacement by technology
Policy - Swift and Sure
My Conclusions
Common sense?
● Value for money
● Payment by results
Faith sense?
● Value - Imagio Dei
● Results - Common
good
Exercise 3
● How reasonable is the
analysis?
● What would this mean for
the expectations of services
which might be provided by
community chaplaincy?
● What would a faith
informed response look
like?
Considering the impact of
the consumer society
We are, “all consumers
now, consumers first and
foremost.”
Bauman (1998)
Consumerism and the
offender
Offending:
● Consumerist anomie
● Exclusion from success
criteria for a consumer
lifestyle
● McDonaldised
interventions &
desistance
Exercise 4
● How does this fit in with a
faith perspective of
understanding criminal
behaviour?
● What does this mean in
informing our responses to
crime?
Consumerism and the
offender
Relationship to criminal
justice staff:
● Consumer as king
● Consumer as victim
● Consumer as criminal
● Consumer as anticonsumer
● Consumer as voyeur
Consumerism and the
practitioner
Area’s at risk from
commodification:
●
●
●
●
●
Respect
Compassion
Equality
Security versus justice
Security versus
branding
Exercise 5
● How have ‘value for money’
pressures impacted on your
practice in community
chaplaincy?
● How can any of these
concerns be addressed?
How do you solve a
problem like
cJustice?
Developing an alternative
discourses:
● Do we want an efficient
business model of criminal
justice?
● How can we design an
alternative?
● How can we communicate
the value of an alternative?
Conclusion
Some leaving reflections
● Be aware of potential
disenfranchisement
● Encourage personal
transformation
● Challenge social
transformation and
values
● Moral and not just
economic issue