Layla Skinns
Biographic Data
| ID | 5238611 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Layla Skinns |
| GIVEN NAMES | Layla |
| FAMILY NAME | Skinns |
| SIGNATURE | SKINNS L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Sheffield |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-2919-1181 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 21 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 41 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 20 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2024 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Shifting logics in criminal justice’
In this piece, we introduce a special issue celebrating Professor Joanna Shapland’s 40-year contribution to criminology and criminal justice. It is derived from an international conference hosted by the Centre for Criminological Research at the University of Sheffield on ‘Shifting Logics in Criminal Justice’, which took place on 12–14 April 2023. In the introduction, we reflect on Joanna Shapland’s contributions to the fields of victims, restorat…
The moral and emotional world of police informants
The global pattern of implementing proactive policing to address crime and insecurity continues to drive undercover techniques, including the deployment of police informants. Our aim in this article is to reflect upon research on informants policing, setting out a more comprehensive agenda that appreciates the moral significance and power dynamics at play. Our starting point is that this practice embodies immense moral and emotional tension, both…
Come on mate, let's make you a cup of tea’
In this article, we examine detainee experiences of dignity in police detention through the lens of materiality. To do this, we draw on sociological and anthropological literature on the ‘material turn’ and its application to criminal justice settings, and a mixed-methods study of police custody in England and Wales. First, we conceptualise different dimensions of materiality in police custody. Second, we show how some forms of materiality, in co…
Researching inside police custody in four jurisdictions
As a unique criminal justice organisation, the police present challenges, but also opportunities for those who research them. These are examined, in terms of getting in, getting on, getting your hands dirty and getting through it, using data collected as part of a comparative multi-method study of police custody in large cities in Australia, England, Ireland and the United States in 2007 and 2009. As this research took place on the cusp of the pr…
Sanders & Young's Criminal Justice
Criminal Justice provides a comprehensive overview of the criminal justice system in England and Wales (excluding punishment), as well as thought-provoking insights into how it might be altered and improved and research that might be needed to help accomplish this. Tracing the procedures surrounding the appre-hension, investigation, trial and appeal against conviction of suspected offenders, this book is the ideal com-panion for law and criminolo…
My best day will be my last day!’
Appreciative Inquiry is a methodology originating from organisational psychology, though it has since been used in criminal justice research including police studies. It is used to identify the actual and potential strengths of an individual or an institution, with a view to building on these strengths in the future. The primary purpose of this paper is to assess the value of Appreciative Inquiry for police research, where its use is potentially …
Fragile alliances
Background Police–academic partnerships have developed significantly over the past decade or so, spurred on by the expansion of the evidence-based policing movement, the increasing value attached to impactful research in the academy, the ascendance of the professionalisation agenda in the police, and the growing necessity of cross-sectoral collaborations under conditions of post-financial crisis austerity. This trend has given rise to a burgeonin…
Pain in police detention
In this paper, we analyse pain in police detention and the extent to which Sykes’ pains of imprisonment framework usefully informs this. This analysis is based on extensive in-depth qualitative research in four custody facilities in four English police forces. In parallel to Sykes, we found that detainees felt cut-off, as if they had nothing and had lost control, which were respectively akin to the deprivation of liberty, the deprivation of goods…
Treat them as a human being”
Here, we examine the factors influencing whether those detained by the police feel treated with dignity. We develop a human rights-oriented conception of dignity rooted in the equal worth of human beings, encapsulated in detainees’ desire to be ‘treated like a human being’. The predictors of this are examined using multilevel modelling of survey data collected from 371 detainees in 27 custody facilities in 13 police forces in England and Wales in…
The role of emotion, space and place in police custody in England
Police custody is a complex environment, where police officers, detainees and other staff interact in a number of different emotional, spatial and transformative ways. Utilising ethnographic and interview data collected as part of a five-year study which aims to rigorously examine ‘good’ police custody, this paper analyses the ways that liminality and temporality impact on emotion in police custody. Architecture has previously been noted as an im…
Preliminary findings on police custody delivery in the twenty-first century
Since the 1980s, police custody in England and Wales has seen the civilianisation and privatisation of key roles formerly performed by police officers and changes to how police custody suites are managed and owned. These changes have been encapsulated in a five-pronged typology of custody suites identified by Skinns et al. Drawing on theories about ‘good’ policing as well as quantitative and qualitative data collected as part of an ongoing study …
Just Authority? Trust in the police in England and Wales
Since the police are once again an institution in crisis (Skinns 2014), it heightens the necessity of debating the nature and future of police-public relations. This book makes an important contrib
Risk
Recent events from the economic downturn to climate change mean that there has never been a better time to be thinking about and trying to better understand the concept of risk. In this book, prominent and eminent speakers from fields as diverse as statistics to classics, neuroscience to criminology, politics to astronomy, as well as speakers embedded in the media and in government, have put their ideas down on paper in a series of essays that br…
To snitch or not to snitch? An exploratory study of the factors influencing whether young people actively cooperate with the police
The death of Adam Regis in March 2007 and subsequent murder investigation highlighted the difficulties of encouraging young people to cooperate with the police by providing information that could lead to a successful conviction. ‘Snitching’, as it is known, is currently an under-explored area of research in the UK with most extant research having been conducted in the US. Therefore this paper attempts partially to fill this gap in the research. D…
Stop the clock? Predictors of detention without charge in police custody areas
The recent consultation exercise, used to review the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, highlighted that that the detention clock (used to detain suspects without charge) does not allow the police sufficient time to conduct their investigation, especially in complex cases. In this review it was suggested that the detention clock — which normally allows detention without charge for 24, 36 or in exceptional circumstances 72 hours — should be st…
Choice, Privacy and Publicly Funded Legal Advice at Police Stations
Section 58 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 confers on all suspects held in police custody a right to consult a solicitor in private. The free legal advice which suspects arrested for certain minor offences can request is restricted to telephone advice from a call‐centre operated by CDS Direct. It is lawful for the Legal Services Commission to restrict the delivery of legal advice in this way. Empirical research, however, reveals that…
Let's get it over with’
This paper explores why detainees in police custody decline free and independent legal advice whilst they are in police custody. To do this, I draw on three kinds of data (participant observation, interviews and custody records) collected in a predominantly privatised police custody area in the South-East of England. Detainees’ decisions to decline legal advice were shaped by their perceptions of it (e.g., how long they would have to wait to cons…
I'm a Detainee; Get Me Out of Here
This article examines anew the factors that predict whether detainees in police custody request legal advice, a due process right, and whether those requests are met. It is primarily based on quantitative data collected from custody records, in one public and one privatized custody area in England and Wales, which are analysed using logistic regression. By comparing these two types of custody area, I was able to develop new insights into a neglec…
A prominent participant? The role of the state in police partnerships
In this paper I review three books on the notion of partnership working. In Problem-oriented policing and partnerships and Crime reduction partnerships the authors explore partnership working in an informative way for practitioners, whereas in the edited collection. Fighting crime together, the authors combine empirical, theoretical and methodological understandings of the notion of security networks. The books provide a useful starting point for…
Making People Behave
Cullompton : Willan ( 2005 ) 200pp. £40.00hb ISBN 1-84392-138-3 £17.99pb ISBN 1-84392-137-5 The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 was the first of New Labour's legislative changes to the criminal justice system. It introduced, amongst other things, the anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) and it defined anti-social behaviour (ASB) as that behaviour ‘likely to cause harassment, alarm and distress’, although not necessarily harm. The definition of ASB is a…
Flotilla or armada? Interpreting the practices and politics of three Community Safety Partnerships
To snitch or not to snitch? An exploratory study of the factors influencing whether young people actively cooperate with the police
The death of Adam Regis in March 2007 and subsequent murder investigation highlighted the difficulties of encouraging young people to cooperate with the police by providing information that could lead to a successful conviction. ‘Snitching’, as it is known, is currently an under-explored area of research in the UK with most extant research having been conducted in the US. Therefore this paper attempts partially to fill this gap in the research. D…
Pain in police detention
In this paper, we analyse pain in police detention and the extent to which Sykes’ pains of imprisonment framework usefully informs this. This analysis is based on extensive in-depth qualitative research in four custody facilities in four English police forces. In parallel to Sykes, we found that detainees felt cut-off, as if they had nothing and had lost control, which were respectively akin to the deprivation of liberty, the deprivation of goods…
The role of emotion, space and place in police custody in England
Police custody is a complex environment, where police officers, detainees and other staff interact in a number of different emotional, spatial and transformative ways. Utilising ethnographic and interview data collected as part of a five-year study which aims to rigorously examine ‘good’ police custody, this paper analyses the ways that liminality and temporality impact on emotion in police custody. Architecture has previously been noted as an im…
A prominent participant? The role of the state in police partnerships
In this paper I review three books on the notion of partnership working. In Problem-oriented policing and partnerships and Crime reduction partnerships the authors explore partnership working in an informative way for practitioners, whereas in the edited collection. Fighting crime together, the authors combine empirical, theoretical and methodological understandings of the notion of security networks. The books provide a useful starting point for…
Fragile alliances
Background Police–academic partnerships have developed significantly over the past decade or so, spurred on by the expansion of the evidence-based policing movement, the increasing value attached to impactful research in the academy, the ascendance of the professionalisation agenda in the police, and the growing necessity of cross-sectoral collaborations under conditions of post-financial crisis austerity. This trend has given rise to a burgeonin…
Preliminary findings on police custody delivery in the twenty-first century
Since the 1980s, police custody in England and Wales has seen the civilianisation and privatisation of key roles formerly performed by police officers and changes to how police custody suites are managed and owned. These changes have been encapsulated in a five-pronged typology of custody suites identified by Skinns et al. Drawing on theories about ‘good’ policing as well as quantitative and qualitative data collected as part of an ongoing study …
Let's get it over with’
This paper explores why detainees in police custody decline free and independent legal advice whilst they are in police custody. To do this, I draw on three kinds of data (participant observation, interviews and custody records) collected in a predominantly privatised police custody area in the South-East of England. Detainees’ decisions to decline legal advice were shaped by their perceptions of it (e.g., how long they would have to wait to cons…
Flotilla or armada? Interpreting the practices and politics of three Community Safety Partnerships
Come on mate, let's make you a cup of tea’
In this article, we examine detainee experiences of dignity in police detention through the lens of materiality. To do this, we draw on sociological and anthropological literature on the ‘material turn’ and its application to criminal justice settings, and a mixed-methods study of police custody in England and Wales. First, we conceptualise different dimensions of materiality in police custody. Second, we show how some forms of materiality, in co…
My best day will be my last day!’
Appreciative Inquiry is a methodology originating from organisational psychology, though it has since been used in criminal justice research including police studies. It is used to identify the actual and potential strengths of an individual or an institution, with a view to building on these strengths in the future. The primary purpose of this paper is to assess the value of Appreciative Inquiry for police research, where its use is potentially …
Making People Behave
Cullompton : Willan ( 2005 ) 200pp. £40.00hb ISBN 1-84392-138-3 £17.99pb ISBN 1-84392-137-5 The Crime and Disorder Act 1998 was the first of New Labour's legislative changes to the criminal justice system. It introduced, amongst other things, the anti-social behaviour order (ASBO) and it defined anti-social behaviour (ASB) as that behaviour ‘likely to cause harassment, alarm and distress’, although not necessarily harm. The definition of ASB is a…
Flotilla or armada? Interpreting the practices and politics of three Community Safety Partnerships
A prominent participant? The role of the state in police partnerships
In this paper I review three books on the notion of partnership working. In Problem-oriented policing and partnerships and Crime reduction partnerships the authors explore partnership working in an informative way for practitioners, whereas in the edited collection. Fighting crime together, the authors combine empirical, theoretical and methodological understandings of the notion of security networks. The books provide a useful starting point for…
Let's get it over with’
This paper explores why detainees in police custody decline free and independent legal advice whilst they are in police custody. To do this, I draw on three kinds of data (participant observation, interviews and custody records) collected in a predominantly privatised police custody area in the South-East of England. Detainees’ decisions to decline legal advice were shaped by their perceptions of it (e.g., how long they would have to wait to cons…
I'm a Detainee; Get Me Out of Here
This article examines anew the factors that predict whether detainees in police custody request legal advice, a due process right, and whether those requests are met. It is primarily based on quantitative data collected from custody records, in one public and one privatized custody area in England and Wales, which are analysed using logistic regression. By comparing these two types of custody area, I was able to develop new insights into a neglec…
Stop the clock? Predictors of detention without charge in police custody areas
The recent consultation exercise, used to review the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984, highlighted that that the detention clock (used to detain suspects without charge) does not allow the police sufficient time to conduct their investigation, especially in complex cases. In this review it was suggested that the detention clock — which normally allows detention without charge for 24, 36 or in exceptional circumstances 72 hours — should be st…
Choice, Privacy and Publicly Funded Legal Advice at Police Stations
Section 58 of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 confers on all suspects held in police custody a right to consult a solicitor in private. The free legal advice which suspects arrested for certain minor offences can request is restricted to telephone advice from a call‐centre operated by CDS Direct. It is lawful for the Legal Services Commission to restrict the delivery of legal advice in this way. Empirical research, however, reveals that…
Risk
Recent events from the economic downturn to climate change mean that there has never been a better time to be thinking about and trying to better understand the concept of risk. In this book, prominent and eminent speakers from fields as diverse as statistics to classics, neuroscience to criminology, politics to astronomy, as well as speakers embedded in the media and in government, have put their ideas down on paper in a series of essays that br…
To snitch or not to snitch? An exploratory study of the factors influencing whether young people actively cooperate with the police
The death of Adam Regis in March 2007 and subsequent murder investigation highlighted the difficulties of encouraging young people to cooperate with the police by providing information that could lead to a successful conviction. ‘Snitching’, as it is known, is currently an under-explored area of research in the UK with most extant research having been conducted in the US. Therefore this paper attempts partially to fill this gap in the research. D…
Preliminary findings on police custody delivery in the twenty-first century
Since the 1980s, police custody in England and Wales has seen the civilianisation and privatisation of key roles formerly performed by police officers and changes to how police custody suites are managed and owned. These changes have been encapsulated in a five-pronged typology of custody suites identified by Skinns et al. Drawing on theories about ‘good’ policing as well as quantitative and qualitative data collected as part of an ongoing study …
Just Authority? Trust in the police in England and Wales
Since the police are once again an institution in crisis (Skinns 2014), it heightens the necessity of debating the nature and future of police-public relations. This book makes an important contrib
The role of emotion, space and place in police custody in England
Police custody is a complex environment, where police officers, detainees and other staff interact in a number of different emotional, spatial and transformative ways. Utilising ethnographic and interview data collected as part of a five-year study which aims to rigorously examine ‘good’ police custody, this paper analyses the ways that liminality and temporality impact on emotion in police custody. Architecture has previously been noted as an im…
Fragile alliances
Background Police–academic partnerships have developed significantly over the past decade or so, spurred on by the expansion of the evidence-based policing movement, the increasing value attached to impactful research in the academy, the ascendance of the professionalisation agenda in the police, and the growing necessity of cross-sectoral collaborations under conditions of post-financial crisis austerity. This trend has given rise to a burgeonin…
Pain in police detention
In this paper, we analyse pain in police detention and the extent to which Sykes’ pains of imprisonment framework usefully informs this. This analysis is based on extensive in-depth qualitative research in four custody facilities in four English police forces. In parallel to Sykes, we found that detainees felt cut-off, as if they had nothing and had lost control, which were respectively akin to the deprivation of liberty, the deprivation of goods…
Treat them as a human being”
Here, we examine the factors influencing whether those detained by the police feel treated with dignity. We develop a human rights-oriented conception of dignity rooted in the equal worth of human beings, encapsulated in detainees’ desire to be ‘treated like a human being’. The predictors of this are examined using multilevel modelling of survey data collected from 371 detainees in 27 custody facilities in 13 police forces in England and Wales in…
Sanders & Young's Criminal Justice
Criminal Justice provides a comprehensive overview of the criminal justice system in England and Wales (excluding punishment), as well as thought-provoking insights into how it might be altered and improved and research that might be needed to help accomplish this. Tracing the procedures surrounding the appre-hension, investigation, trial and appeal against conviction of suspected offenders, this book is the ideal com-panion for law and criminolo…
My best day will be my last day!’
Appreciative Inquiry is a methodology originating from organisational psychology, though it has since been used in criminal justice research including police studies. It is used to identify the actual and potential strengths of an individual or an institution, with a view to building on these strengths in the future. The primary purpose of this paper is to assess the value of Appreciative Inquiry for police research, where its use is potentially …
Researching inside police custody in four jurisdictions
As a unique criminal justice organisation, the police present challenges, but also opportunities for those who research them. These are examined, in terms of getting in, getting on, getting your hands dirty and getting through it, using data collected as part of a comparative multi-method study of police custody in large cities in Australia, England, Ireland and the United States in 2007 and 2009. As this research took place on the cusp of the pr…
The moral and emotional world of police informants
The global pattern of implementing proactive policing to address crime and insecurity continues to drive undercover techniques, including the deployment of police informants. Our aim in this article is to reflect upon research on informants policing, setting out a more comprehensive agenda that appreciates the moral significance and power dynamics at play. Our starting point is that this practice embodies immense moral and emotional tension, both…
Come on mate, let's make you a cup of tea’
In this article, we examine detainee experiences of dignity in police detention through the lens of materiality. To do this, we draw on sociological and anthropological literature on the ‘material turn’ and its application to criminal justice settings, and a mixed-methods study of police custody in England and Wales. First, we conceptualise different dimensions of materiality in police custody. Second, we show how some forms of materiality, in co…
Shifting logics in criminal justice’
In this piece, we introduce a special issue celebrating Professor Joanna Shapland’s 40-year contribution to criminology and criminal justice. It is derived from an international conference hosted by the Centre for Criminological Research at the University of Sheffield on ‘Shifting Logics in Criminal Justice’, which took place on 12–14 April 2023. In the introduction, we reflect on Joanna Shapland’s contributions to the fields of victims, restorat…
Political science (21 works) · Law (20 works) · Criminology (18 works) · Sociology (16 works) · Criminal Justice and Corrections Analysis (14 works) · Law (14 works) · Policing Practices and Perceptions (14 works) · Crime Patterns and Interventions (10 works) · Psychology (10 works) · Public relations (9 works)