Respect and criminal justice: the policies and practices of policing and imprisonment

Respect is a value whose importance in contemporary criminal justice many would endorse in principle. It is well-established that every person, by virtue of his or her humanity, has a claim to respect that need not be negotiated and cannot be forfeited. As the principal means by which to recognise a person's intrinsic worth, respect is attitudinal but also requires a degree of expressive action. The core claim of the thesis is that at two defining points in the criminal process – policing and imprisonment – there is an overwhelming preoccupation with instrumental outcomes, with the result that respect is understood reductively and, at best, as a weak side-constraint on the pursuit of those outcomes. The thesis takes the form of a sustained critique of the respect deficit in policing and imprisonment. It is especially concerned with the ways in which both institutions are merely constrained and not characterised by respect. Respect shows great flexibility as a concept of critical enquiry, in particular, in its striking capacity to sharpen our critique of a diverse range of policies and practices. It swiftly emerges, for example, that both institutions appeal to the word 'respect' – relying on its inclusive ethos in official documentation when it is expedient to do so – but rarely and only superficially address the prior question of what it is to respect and be respected. Despite much criminological activity on the 'democratic design' of these institutions in recent decades, respect is more akin to a slogan than a foundational value of criminal justice practice. Yet respect is not only of analytic merit. It is also a matter of material significance. The dominant institutional approach to respect would prove difficult to correct, sustained as it is by intuitive understandings, convenient fictions and a preoccupation with outcomes. With a sense of modest realism, the thesis concludes by considering how best to embed respect in policing and imprisonment, anticipating the challenges – as well as the advances that could be made – in inscribing respectful relations between state and subject.