Category Archives: COVID Criminology

On 14 July 2020, I wrote a blog here on COVID-19 and accountability, thinking through how we monitor real-time and later review governance of the pandemic. I wrote elsewhere about the difficulties of securing compliance with COVID laws. I would not have imagined at that time that the UK Prime Minister himself would be foundContinue reading “25-Apr-22 Accountability Re-visited”

This week with my first year Criminology students, we are looking at protest and resistance through art and we have been reading, amongst other things, about border walls.  From the Berlin Wall to the Derry walls, from the US-Mexico border to the West Bank wall, border walls are sites where people have come to protest,Continue reading “8-Nov-20 Containment”

Like all significant social events, COVID-19 has its own lexicon of words and phrases that we find ourselves hearing and using – ‘test, track and trace’, ‘a V-shaped recovery’, ‘asymptomatic’, ‘lockdown’, ‘second spike’, and so on. One word doing the rounds currently is ‘marshal’. To ensure that the public are following social distancing rules, BorisContinue reading “27-Sept-20 Marshals and Police”

While media and public attention has understandably been focused on the NHS and education, the already strained criminal justice system is now struggling to address the backlog of court cases delayed by the pandemic. As a result, the number of prisoners on remand has increased 25% since this time last year to around 11,500, aroundContinue reading “11-Sept-20 Prisoners on Remand”

For those UK citizens who have not lived through conflict, authoritarianism, pandemic or social unrest, coronavirus has presented us with a novel legal context. Since March 2020, we have experienced multiple changes to our ability to meet with friends and family, to go to work and school, to buy and sell goods and move aroundContinue reading “4-Aug-20 Changing Laws”

Two interesting developments at the end of this week which relate to earlier posts here under COVID Criminology. First, in my blog post 14-Jul-20 COVID-19 and Accountability, I talked about the role of a public inquiry in understanding the successes and failures of the UK Government’s handling of the pandemic.  On 15 July 2020, underContinue reading “17-July-20 COVID Politics”

Initially there was scepticism from the UK Chief Medical Officer and his colleagues about the value of wearing face masks.  People might not wear them correctly, may become complacent and forget to prioritise handwashing and social distancing.  In the US, Trump said in April 2020 that he would not wear a mask and mocked hisContinue reading “14-July-20 COVID-19 and Accountability”

This was first published by the author on 8 June 2020 in LSE COVID-19 Social Policy, a blog by the London School of Economics and Political Science. In 2019, I co-authored a Home Office-commissioned report with colleagues at the University of Bristol on the nature and prevalence of prostitution and sex work in England andContinue reading “8-June-20 The Impact of COVID-19 on Sex Workers”

A very interesting story in this fortnight’s Private Eye magazine (No. 1521, p.10) about the use of private companies Sodexo, G4S and Serco running the drive-through COVID-19 test-centres.  There are currently 27 centres running, with plans to expand to around 50.  The article focuses on the recruitment of temporary staff to train as swab testersContinue reading “12-May-20 Outsourcing”

Today it was reported that “The UK’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and US Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) have seen large-scale ‘password spraying’ campaigns against healthcare bodies and medical research organisations” (NCSC, 5 May 2020).  ‘Password spraying’ is an attempt to access a large number of accounts using commonly known passwords.  Apparently, theseContinue reading “5-May-20 Password-Spraying”

The court system is not known for its speed (due process, rather than crime control, remember) and the pandemic will exacerbate this further.  The Institute for Government (IfG) reports that “the coronavirus lockdown has seen courtrooms closed for all but a small number of priority cases and jury trials are suspended altogether”.  Their research suggestsContinue reading “30-Apr-20 Court System Under Lockdown”

Continuing in the vein of transnational crimes this week, it is worth noting how criminals are responding to the pandemic and switching into counterfeit PPE and medical supplies.  In normal times, there are established suppliers and distribution chains to manage, for example, the respirator mask needs of the health and social care sector.  But sinceContinue reading “29-Apr-20 Counterfeiting”

There has been much media coverage about the impact of the global lockdown on the environment. Satellite pictures are showing dramatic declines in air pollution; wildlife is repopulating clearing lakes and canals; animals have started to reclaim urban streets and towns; flights have been grounded and the price of crude oil has plummeted as demandContinue reading “22-Apr-20 COVID-19 and Green Criminology”

A slight digression into politics (or ‘harms of the powerful’, you could say), but I have been rather taken today with this phrase ‘entanglement’.  It comes from a lecture I gave this week on cybercrime and describes a form of cyber-attack deterrence. Entanglement is a situation where the cost of an action exceeds the benefits,Continue reading “21-Apr-20 Entanglements”

Two items have caught my eye this week.  Yesterday, I got an email from a leading UK supermarket updating me where they are on online deliveries and making sure that food gets to the older and most vulnerable.  There was one sentence of particular interest: At the end of last week we received the governmentContinue reading “8-Apr-20 Surveillance”

In-person sex work is under lockdown at the moment (unsurprisingly, there has been a spike in camming and other online services), but this is difficult for those for whom sex work is their main income.  Many individuals selling sex are carers (for children, partner, parents); may be managing long term mental or physical health issuesContinue reading “2-Apr-20 Policing Sex Work”

I have been thinking recently about social order and how fragile that always is.  Thank goodness, we have seen umpteen instances of kindness and human spirit in recent days.  There are always those, however, who will seek to exploit the situation (perhaps we all will in some way).  The National Police Chiefs Council has reportedContinue reading “25-Mar-20 The Social Order”

I mentioned in our last lecture that the current situation of containing people at home would have particular implications for victims of domestic abuse.  See, for example. While many associate domestic abuse with physical abuse (which can certainly feature) and perhaps sexual abuse (less often talked about), abuse is always defined by control, known asContinue reading “24-Mar-20 Domestic Abuse”

Today, I thought it would be interesting to think about behaviour in the current context.  The papers have been full of stories of people profiteering from COVID-19.  See for example here and here. Authorities are looking at enforcing regulation, including competition rules. But it’s not just smaller actors seeking to flog handwash or toilet rollsContinue reading “23-Mar-20 Corona Profiteers”