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This chapter aims to trace how the theoretical frameworks of actuarialism and managerialism have been slowly introduced into the Latin–American scientific debate, focusing on the Argentinian and Chilean examples. With this objective in mind, we explore the journey of these theories in our region focusing on the work. Additionally, we address other academic contributions that highlight “actuarial techniques” of risk as central features to analyze contemporary penalty, policing tactics, or criminal court outcomes and practices (Hannah-Moffat, 2013a, 2013b; Harcourt, 2007; Marutto & Hannah-Moffat, 2006), even overlapping concepts like actuarialism and managerialism (Barker, 2009; Kohler-Hausmann, 2018). Subsequently, we describe the acclimation of these theories in Argentina and Chile, characterized for a limited impact on the scientific debate. We suggest that the main reason for this little impact is the different stages of the criminal justice system between Global North and Global South countries. While in the first one, actuarialism and managerialism were born to explain especially the field of risk analysis, and secondarily, the role of the new public management; in the case of Latin America, managerialism has been observed through the criminal justice system reform developed in the last three decades. This observation has focused especially on some organizational transformations and, for this reason, the analysis about actuarialism and risk assessment have been marginals. We concluded that although the influence of the literature about actuarialism and managerialism from the Global North in Latin–American is real, it is not possible to extrapolate all its elements to the penal systems in the region.

This chapter will report on the issues that surround the coverage of police shootings in the United States. It will also look at the issue of race and policing. In particular, the events at Ferguson, St. Louis in August 2014 and other controversial incidents will be explored. The chapter will utilize theories of policing, employ a media analysis, and develop an issue history to explain the background to problems with policing in African-American neighborhoods over many decades, culminating in the rise of the Black Lives Matter movement.

Between the 6th and 10th of August 2011, a number of cities in England experienced serious civil disorders now commonly referred to as the English riots. The riots are being regarded by many as the most serious disturbances in the UK since the Brixton riots of the early 1980s, resulting in over 3,000 arrests and by mid‐September, over 300 convictions. Whilst the post‐mortem into the “causes” for the English riots continues, the Criminal Justice System (CJS) is rapidly dispensing severe punishments upon those who have been identified. Yet, despite the “informed” commentary and assertions espoused within the national and local media, there is still little information about those who were processed though the CJS as a consequence of their “involvement” in the riots. Arguably, the social, political, and media reactions have impeded a clear and considered exploration of the rioters (characteristics and previous experiences) and what factors may have contributed to their involvement.

Drawing upon a specially configured dataset, incorporating social, economic, and criminogenic information of those convicted and sentenced by the courts in the initial weeks following the riots in Manchester, this paper is concerned with providing a case study of the individuals involved. In doing so, it inevitably explores the potential limits of any data constructed through the lens of the CJS.

The emerging profile demonstrates that the individuals convicted as “rioters” are often assessed as having multiple and entrenched issues around housing, employment, finances, and mental health. Agencies such as the Probation Service must now carefully reflect upon such profile information in developing their response to this type of offending behaviour, understanding the risks such individuals may pose but also the potential for the “rioters” to establish an offence‐free life on completion of their order or prison sentence.

Whilst acknowledging its limitations, the findings from this analysis make an early contribution to an important debate regarding the response of CJS agencies supervising the “rioters”.

This paper aims to examine the policing of youth anti‐social behaviour and crime.

The paper considers the Independent Commission report, Time for a Fresh Start and argues that its analysis would be enhanced by a fuller consideration of the role of the police as gatekeepers to the criminal justice system. As such this represents something of a missed opportunity.

The paper contends that, like many other reviews of youth justice, and proposals for reform, Time for a Fresh Start says relatively little about policing. As gatekeepers and agenda‐setters for much of the criminal justice system, the police occupy a key position. This paper suggests that reform programmes must focus on the role the police play in regulating the flow of young people into the justice system and, in particular, argues in favour of a constructive reappraisal of the value of “diversion”.

Without considering the role the police play in regulating the flow of young people into the justice system, any programme of reform is incomplete. We need to rehabilitate the idea of “diversion” and to rescue it from the one‐sided picture that became dominant from the mid‐1990s onward.

Liberal democratic states have involved the use of private companies for purposes of detention and the debate is whether such involvement is only for immigration control or whether they are primarily for macro-economic benefits. This paper aims to present the argument that a State wishing to detain migrants must do so within the purview of immigration control and in conformity to international human rights standards rather than other latent reasons such as macro-economic benefits. The exponential growths of immigration detention over the years, this paper argues, smack of latent reasons with unarguably macro-economic benefits accruing to these States.

The methodology is doctrinal research focusing on immigration detention and privatization. Doctrinal research is library-based and reliance will be placed on primary and secondary materials such as legislations, case laws, soft laws on the one hand and textbooks, journals, articles, legal encyclopedia, databases and many valuable websites on the other hand.

Findings have been made of similarities in State practice between the UK, the USA and Australia and conclude that the trend is worrying given that privatization of the detention estate lends credence to the fact that growing international prison industry influences prison and detention policies.

These have portent implications for the violations of the rights of detainees and weaken the protection of rights under international human rights law.

The originality of this paper lies in its ability to unravel the legitimacy of immigration detention in the face of privatization and macro-economic benefits accruing to States, thereby querying the availability of the rights of migrants within the remit of State practice.