Confidence or contrivance

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Confidence or contrivance?

• Daniel Gilling
• University of Plymouth
• November 2008

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The talk

• My task exploring confidence in the context of
  determining local priorities
• My research expertise CDRPs and community safety
• My problem
• CDRPs havent had much to do with confidence
  (until recently)
• (although nominally local) CDRP business has been
  driven strongly from the centre (until recently)

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Thinking about confidence

• Uncertainty/insecurity/risk are dominant features
  of late-modern societies can we be confident
  about anything? aim of raising confidence
  arrives precisely when foundations of confidence
  are at their most shaky
• The solution to crime lies largely beyond
  criminal justice, so can we ever be confident
  about criminal justice outcomes if conceived in
  global crime reduction terms?
• Is confidence always a good thing?
• Always a danger of unrealistic expectations
• Raising confidence is fraught with difficulty
• Confidence in what?
• Abstract principles, processes or outcomes
• Confidence of whom?
• Vicarious experience the influence of third
  parties (including the media)

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The structure of the talk

• How has confidence been operationalised by
  others?
• How has confidence been made governable?
• What sorts of interventions have resulted?
• What have been the major trends?
• How can these trends be explained?
• What observations can we make (particularly
  regarding the determination of local priorities)?

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How has confidence been made governable?

• Government has also struggled to understand
  confidence, but it has done so through
• Performance management aims, targets (PSAs)
  measurement
• Measurement through BCS, LGUSS etc. confidence
  questions identification of quantitative trends
  over time
• Interventions intended to act on confidence
  have evolved out of
• Targets (e.g. victim witness satisfaction)
• Statistical analyses of BCS (e.g. discovery of
  reassurance gap)
• Other research studies (placement of BCS
  confidence question) reports (e.g. Casey
  Reports proposal re. community payback)

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What sorts of interventions have resulted?

• Informing citizens about crime and criminal
  justice
• Community engagement especially through
  neighbourhood policing
• Consumerist measures the policing pledge
• Attempts to demonstrate or improve service
  outcomes
• Symbolic reassurance visible patrolling
• Delivering justice community payback
• Reducing crime tackling ASB

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What have been the major trends?

• From a national system-wide confidence aim to a
  local aim addressing local concerns
• From an aim owned by the whole CJS to an aim
  prioritizing Home Office performance
  particularly police performance
• From a consumerist model of internal service
  quality (fair treatment, victim witness
  satisfaction etc.) to a model of external
  performance (reassurance, problem-solving crime
  reduction)
• From an add-on (CPA 1998) to core business
  (policing green paper 2008)

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How can these trends be explained?

• The scientific element
• Discovering the determinants of confidence
• Greater at the local level than at the national
  level
• Most closely related to assessment of police
• Improved by knowledge
• Affected by personal experience of agencies
• Affected by visible reassurance, problem-solving
  performance

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How can these trends be explained?

• The political element
• Fitting confidence into the political agenda
• Enduring mistrust of provider interests tamed
  by charges of control freakery governmental
  mistrust has been shifted from above (targets,
  PIs, etc.) to from below (direct accounting via
  face-the-people, call-to-action, PACT etc.)
• Populism research shows public are on song
  with punitiveness toughness (Louise Caseys
  common sense)
• Is confidence being re-cast as an expectation for
  tough local performance?

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Some observations

• My focus is on one emergent construction of
  confidence it co-exists with others
• My attempt is to understand how confidence makes
  sense to governing bodies
• Confidence as tough local performance may be
  problematic
• Public concerns can be fuelled by a popular media
  that government is reluctant to challenge
• Public concerns expectations may be unrealistic
• It creates tensions for practitioners local
  responsiveness continues to conflict with other
  influences top-down performance pressure (esp.
  if headline crime rates go up) professionalised
  crime management (e.g. NIM)
• Public agencies still not good at democratic
  listening better at telling and partial
  hearing of community voices

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Two contrasting views of popular common sense

• The public are not daft. They know whats wrong
  and they know whats right, and they know what
  they want on crime and justice
• (Louise Casey)
• We are the angry mob. We like who we like and we
  hate who we hate, and were also easily swayed.
• (The Kaiser Chiefs)

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The way forward

• The need for an honest dialogue
• Between agencies and the public
• listening beyond the loud voices of the
  spatialised community the tyranny of the
  majority
• Managing expectations criminal justice is not a
  cure-all
• Between agencies and government
• With criminological research a public criminology

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Contact details

• In due course this presentation will be turned
  into an article. For further details and other
  queries
• D.Gilling_at_Plymouth.ac.uk