Criminal justice in an age of austerity: The London Bridge killings

Abstract

In late November 2019, two weeks before the UK general election, a terrorist attack was carried out against attendees at a London rehabilitation conference involving released prisoners, killing two participants and seriously injuring others. The event and aftermath raise a number of issues including: the politicisation of the killings; responsibility for failings in a range of criminal justice processes; the effects of austerity policies on criminal justice; rehabilitation and the selective hailing of released prisoners among those citizens fighting back against the attacker as ‘heroes’.