New draft report on social control and human rights 05 February 2010

The Council is happy to publish a draft of its latest report, The Widening Web of Control: A Human Rights Analysis of Public Policy Responses to Crime, Social Problems and Deviance for comments and review. This is the draft report of a research project on social control and human rights. The multidisciplinary project involved research in five different policy areas: public health/infectious diseases control; city and urban poor; punishment and incarceration; policing and surveillance; controls over migrant and non-citizens. In addition, a case study of the Roma in Europe was also undertaken.

The report examines the human rights implications of the steady expansion of the power of public authorities and private entities to exercise control over different aspects of life through social policy. The draft discusses developments in areas such as social welfare and the impact of the discourse of risk and traces continuities and changes in criminalisation, segregation and exclusion, surveillance etc., across different areas of social policy. Highlighting the challenges facing human rights advocates, it identifies key areas in which human rights theory and practice need reorientation to respond effectively to the contemporary landscape of control.