Prelims

Half Title Page

Politics and Public Protection

Series Title Page

Emerald Advances in Historical Criminology

Series Editors: David Churchill and Christopher W. Mullins

This series embraces a broad, pluralistic understanding of ‘the historical’ and its potential applications to criminology. Providing an inclusive platform for a range of approaches which, in various ways, seek to orient criminological enquiry to history or to the dynamics of historical time, the series also offers a platform both for conventional studies in the history of crime and criminal justice, but also for innovative and experimental work which extends the conceptual, theoretical, methodological and topical range of historical criminology. In this way, the series encourages historical scholarship on non-traditional topics in criminology (such as environmental harms, war and state crime) and inventive modes of theorising and practising historical research (including processual approaches and futures research). The series thus makes a valuable contribution to criminology irrespective of disciplinary affiliation, theoretical framing or methodological practice.

Title Page

Politics and Public Protection

By

Mike Nash

University of Portsmouth, UK

And

Andy Williams

University of Portsmouth, UK

United Kingdom – North America – Japan – India – Malaysia – China

Copyright Page

Emerald Publishing Limited

Emerald Publishing, Floor 5, Northspring, 21-23 Wellington Street, Leeds LS1 4DL

First edition 2025

Copyright © 2025 Mike Nash and Andy Williams.

Published under exclusive licence by Emerald Publishing Limited.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 978-1-83753-529-3 (Print)

ISBN: 978-1-83753-528-6 (Online)

ISBN: 978-1-83753-530-9 (Epub)

Dedication

Mike: For Joe and Margot

Andy: For Eve, Ella, Grace, Poppie, Issy, Maisy and Bella

Epigraph

Our boys did not stand a chance. There were clear warnings of Saadallah's extremist risk and becoming a ‘lone wolf’ attacker. We have been sat in court demoralised, bewildered and disillusioned by the agencies' failure to effectively communicate, assess the risk and protect the public. It is clear to us that the boys were failed by the agencies that were entrusted to protect them. The failings of the state exposed by this inquest sicken and disgust me. Those who failed in their duties are responsible for David's, James's and Joe's deaths.

Relatives of three men murdered in a Reading terror attack speaking after the Coroner's Inquest. The Guardian, 27 April 2024.

List of Figures and Tables

About the Authors

Mike Nash has been the Head of Department and a Professor of Criminology at the SSCJ, University of Portsmouth. With colleagues, he worked on a range of higher education courses for serving police and probation officers. As a former Senior Probation Officer, he worked in a lifers' prison and a maximum-security category A prison. He worked on the early development of what were to become the multi-agency public protection arrangements (MAPPA). He has written and published on public protection matters for over 30 years.

Andy Williams is a Principal Lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice at SCCJ, University of Portsmouth. Having completed his doctorate in 2003, which consisted of an ethnography of the Paulsgrove demonstrations in 2000, he has developed academic courses and practitioner training in understanding risk and dangerousness for violent and sexual offenders. He is the co-author (with Mike Nash) of The Anatomy of Serious Further Offending (2008, with Oxford University Press) and The Handbook of Public Protection (2010, with Routledge). His recent books are The Myth of Moral Panics (2014, Routledge with Bill Thompson) and Forensic Criminology (2015, with Routledge). He has undertaken numerous evaluations of public protection systems including an evaluation of the Integrated Management IRIS model for Avon & Somerset Police and Probation services (2014), Hampshire's Violent Offender Intervention Programme (2016 for Hampshire's Police and Crime Commissioner) and Aurora New Dawn's DVA Cars™ initiative (2018 and 2023). His current research is an online ethnography of grooming and online child abuse activist groups (‘Paedophile’ Hunter).