Staff Profiles

Modules taught

• CRIM4002 Crime in Theory and Practice (First Year)
• CRIM5006 Applied Criminology (Second Year)
• CRIM6010 The Prison and Imprisonment (Third Year)

Tom’s research is primarily concerned with how the liberal democratic state seeks to justify, and in turn, administer an effective criminal justice system. This has generated an inter-disciplinary research agenda spanning the fields of criminology, political science and history. 

Tom was awarded the LSE School of Social Policy ‘Titmus Prize for the Best Overall Thesis’ for the originality of his doctoral research, and his first book ‘Getting Out: Early Release in England and Wales, 1960–1995’, was published in 2018 by Oxford University Press (Clarendon Studies in Criminology). This book provides the first systematic history of 'early release' in England and Wales, offering an authoritative historical account of this little understood but hugely topical area of public policy.

His article An Idea Whose Time Had Come? was published in a special edition of the Prison Service Journal to mark the 50^th Anniversary of the Parole Board and he has recently published the first detailed historical study of prison building programmes in England and Wales for the Howard Journal of Crime and Justice.

Previously, Tom has written extensively about historical criminology and co-authored a discussion paper with Jenny Earle Fair Cop: Improving Outcomes for Women at the Point of Arrest’ which explored opportunities to intervene early with women who come into contact with the criminal justice system. 

Books

• Guiney TC, Getting Out: Early Release in England and Wales, 1960-1995, Oxford University Press (Clarendon Studies in Criminology) (2018)
  ISBN: 9780198803683 eISBN: 9780191842085
  Abstract

  Getting Out explores the evolution of early release in England and Wales between 1960 and 1995. In the past three decades crime has become a highly contested political issue with implications for the humanity, fairness, and effectiveness of the criminal justice system. This book seeks to turn current crime debate on its head and examine the circumstances in which politicians and policy-makers have found it desirable to reduce the custodial element of a prison sentence and encourage the rehabilitation offenders in the community. Drawing upon a period of detailed archival research this book considers three critical moments of reform which have helped to shape the historical evolution of this secretive and little understood area of public policy. It argues that early release has always been bound up with prevailing societal justifications for punishment and the appropriate use of imprisonment within our liberal democratic system. It draws attention to the uneasy constitutional balance of power between the judiciary and the executive, and reflects upon the administrative task of governing large captive populations where the hopes and expectations of inmates do not always align with the interests of prison authorities or the community at large. This book challenges widespread assumptions about policy change and shows how the historical evolution of parole in England and Wales was shaped, to a significant degree, by the legacy of past political choices and the fluid balance of power within government.
  

  Website 

Journal articles

• Guiney T, 'Marginal gains or diminishing returns? Penal bifurcation, policy change and the administration of prisoner release in England and Wales'
  European Journal of Probation 11 (3) (2019) pp.139-152
  ISSN: 2066-2203
  Abstract

  Prisoner release has emerged as a key site of penal policy contestation in England and Wales. A series of crises have undermined public confidence in the parole system and reopened longstanding debates over the confused normative basis of prisoner release policy and practice. This paper attempts to locate current concerns within an ideational interpretation of penal policy change. It will argue that prisoner release has been fundamentally re-shaped by a bifurcated penal strategy which emerged as one possible response to the unique challenges of late-modern crime-control. Over time this strategy has provided an enduring guide to collective action and a political template for successive penal reform programmes. However, there are signs that we may now be reaching the conceptual limits of this strategy. While the logic(s) of bifurcation will continue to yield marginal political gains in the short-term, this paper concludes that the long-term prognosis is one of diminishing returns with significant implications for the legitimacy, effectiveness and administrative coherence of prisoner release in this jurisdiction.
  

  Website 
• Guiney T, 'Constructing the "rehabilitative ideal": Revisiting the legacy of the 1959 prison building programme'
  Prison Service Journal x (246) (2019) pp.35-40
  ISSN: 0300-3558 eISSN: 2046-4215
  Abstract

  It is now 60 years since the publication of Penal Policy in a Changing Society, a landmark White Paper widely regarded as the high—water mark of the ‘rehabilitative ideal’ as an expression of official policy in England and Wales. The embrace, and subsequent decline, of this policy framework has been the subject of considerable scholarly interest, drawing attention to the interconnectedness of punishment and the emergent welfare state, the influence of professional elites and the transformational potential of criminological research. In contrast, we know very little about the significant investment in prison building which became the capital expression of this ethos, or how this uncertain inheritance in steel and concrete continues to shape the prison system we experience today. 
  

  Website 
• Guiney T, 'Solid Foundations? Towards a Historical Sociology of Prison Building Programmes in England and Wales, 1959–2015'
  Howard Journal of Crime and Justice 58 (4) (2019) pp.459-476
  ISSN: 2059-1098 eISSN: 2059-1101
  Abstract

  Between 1959 and 2015 the UK government embarked upon five major phases of prison building in England and Wales. Drawing upon detailed archival research, this article offers a historical sociology of prison building programmes. It traces the evolution of prison building as a public policy concern and documents how this key site of penal policymaking was interpreted, and contested, by policy actors who were themselves embedded within deep institutional structures of power and meaning. It argues that prison building has moved from the margins to the mainstream of penal policy, shaped by strongly‐held convictions about the liberal‐democratic state, the competition for control of finite resources and the complex ‘geography of administration’ that underpins the British machinery of government.

  Website 
• Guiney T, 'Excavating the archive: Reflections on a historical criminology of government, penal policy and criminal justice change'
  Criminology and Criminal Justice 20 (1) (2018) pp.76-92
  ISSN: 1748-8958 eISSN: 1748-8966
  Abstract

  This article makes the case for greater use of systematic archival research as a methodological tool of criminology. Drawing upon insights from the author’s 2018 historical study of ‘early release’ in England and Wales, it reviews the legal framework underpinning the current ‘right of access’ to official records and demonstrates how greater engagement with this underused public resource can reveal a richer understanding of penal policy making and the continuities and dislocations within contemporary criminal justice. It goes on to consider the methodological challenges of gaining access to historical sources in criminological settings and concludes with a number of reflections upon the evolution of the discipline at a time of digital abundance and significant changes in government record keeping.
  

  Website 
• Guiney, T, 'An Idea Whose Time Had Come? The Creation of a Modern System of Parole in England and Wales, 1960-1968'
  Prison Service Journal x (237) (2018) pp.14-17
  ISSN: 0300-3558 eISSN: 2046-4215
  Abstract

  It is more than half a century since a system of parole was introduced in England and Wales. This was a significant milestone in the evolution of British penal policy, but little is known about the complex chain of events that culminated in the Criminal Justice Act 1967. Drawing upon a range of archival sources this article will explore the competing ideas, trade-offs and moments of political controversy that defined the emergence
  of parole in England and Wales between 1960 and 1968.

  
  

  Website 

Reviews

• Guiney T, review of Crime Control & Everyday Life in the Victorian City: The Police & the Public / by David Churchill., in Crime, Media, Culture (2019) ISSN: 1741-6590 eISSN: 1741-6604
  Website 
• Guiney, T, review of On the Parole Board: Reflections on Crime, Punishment, Redemption, and Justice / by Frederic G. Reamer (ISBN: 9780231177337), in British Journal of Criminology 58 (6) (2018) pp.1526-1528ISSN: 0007-0955
  Website 

Reports 

• Guiney, T and Earle, J (2017) Fair Cop: Improving Outcomes for Women at the Point of Arrest. With foreword by Dame Vera Baird QC. London: Prison Reform Trust
  Website: here 
• Guiney, T. (2014) The Penal Crisis and the Clapham Omnibus: Questions and Answers in Restorative Justice by David J Cornwell (Waterside Press, 2009). Howard League of Penal Reform ECAN bulletin. Issue 22, February 2014.
  Website: here

Public Engagement

• Guiney, T (2020) Historical criminology, theory building and the importance of social ontology: A (short) reply to Yeomans, Churchill and Lawrence, BSC Historical Criminology Network, 13 February 2020. Website: here
• Guiney, T (2019) Growing pains? Penal reform and the challenge of prison building programmes, Howard League of Penal Reform Policy Insights Blog, 15 October 2019
  Website: here
• Guiney, T (2019) Boris Johnson’s ‘crime week’ and the Conservative politics of law and order, British Politics and Policy, 27 August 2019.
  Website: here
• Guiney, T. (2018) ‘After Worboys: what next for the parole system in England and Wales?’ British Politics and Policy
  Website: here
• Guiney, T. (2018) Why Are More Women Being Returned To Prison Than Ever Before? The Huffington Post, 13 February 2018
  Website: here
• Guiney, T. (2017) ‘The number of female arrests has risen by 50 per cent. Our research shows prisons aren't the answer’. The Daily Telegraph, 17 March 2017
  Website: here
• Guiney, T. (2016) ‘Total Recall: Why More Women Are Being Returned to Prison than Ever Before’. Justice Gap, 11 November 2016
  Website: here

Membership of professional bodies

• Higher Education Academy (HEA)
• British Society of Criminology
• European Society of Criminology

Conferences

• ‘Marginal gains or diminishing returns? Politics, penal bifurcation and the administration of prisoner release in England and Wales.’ European Society of Criminology Annual Conference 2019, University of Ghent, September 2019
• “Thatcherism, law and order, and the legacy of the 1981 Conservative Party Conference”. Thatcher Network Annual Conference 2019. University of Derby, 6 June 2019.
•  ‘It was not what they wanted’: Thatcherism, law and order, and the legacy of the 1981. Conservative Party Conference. Historical Criminology Conference 2019, University of Plymouth, 10 April 2019
• “Prison: Is it working...?” Keynote address to U3A, Buckinghamshire Branch, 28 March 2019
• “How to release? Statecraft, legitimacy and the evolution of parole as a public policy concern”. Institute of Criminal Justice Research Seminar Series, University of Southampton, 20 February 2019
• ‘Betwixt and Between’: A History of the Parole System in England and Wales. With a response from Professor Nick Hardwick. Paper presented to the LSE Mannheim Centre / British Society of Criminology Seminar Series. 31 October 2018
• Monuments in stone: a comparative historical analysis of prison building programmes in England & Wales. Paper presented to the Howard League of Penal Reform Annual Conference, 22 March 2018
• The state we’re in: the challenges facing our penal system. Paper presented to the University of Leicester, Centre for Criminology, 1 December 2017.
• The creation of a modern parole system in England and Wales, 1960-1968. Paper presented to the Parole Board Annual General Meeting, 29 September 2017.
• Inside the Home Office: Organisational Factors in the Development of Criminal Justice Policy and Administration’. Paper presented to the British Society of Criminology Annual Conference, 5 July 2017.
• Criminal Justice Reform in an Age of Localism. Paper presented to the University of Essex Criminology Seminar Series, 8 November 2016