During 1992-93, the public and political mood changed dramatically. Criminal justice has always, and rightly, been political, but political parties did not make it part of their appeal to the electorate until 1979 (Downes and Morgan, 2007), and political parties did not seriously contend with one another over criminal justice issues until 1992/93 (Loader and Sparks, 2010). Even then, the difference between the parties was more about the scale on which they could promise more prison places, more police officers and more punitive legislation than about differences of approach. Arguments were driven more by considerations of political advantage than by appeals to evidence or to political or social values (Blair, 2010, pp 54-7).

The reasons included the fact that rising crime meant that more people (and more middle-class people) had direct experience of offences such as burglary and car crime, and communicated their feelings to MPs in their constituencies. Police and local communities complained of children being out of control, and of anti-social behaviour that they seemed powerless to prevent or punish. Anger reached a climax in the reaction to the murder of Jamie Bulger by two young boys in 1993, revived 17 years later in some newspapers’ reporting of the arrest of one of those convicted of the murder for a breach of his parole licence. Other factors may have included the fragmented state of the Conservative Party at the time and the need to unite it around a subject on which the government could find general support. It is difficult to tell how far the media, and some politicians, were reporting and responding to a genuine crisis of public confidence, or how far they themselves contributed to it. Older people recalled an earlier time when they could leave the doors unlocked and feel safer on the streets. Increased fear of crime was fuelled by publicity given to rare but extremely serious offences or instances of persistent offending, and fears over the effects of drug and alcohol abuse.

All this was taking place in a wider context of what has been called ‘late modernity’ – the fragmentation of communities and relationships; shifting boundaries between the public and private spheres; changing attitudes and expectations towards the role and capacity of the state; globalisation; neoliberal economics; and the increasing significance of race, ethnicity and gender.