Criminal Justice, Risk and the Revolt against Uncertainty


Book Description

This book examines the impact and implications of the relationship between risk and criminal justice in advanced liberal democracies, in the context of the ‘revolt against uncertainty’ which has underpinned the rise of populist politics across these societies in recent years. It asks what impact the demands for more certainty and security, and the insistence that national identity be reasserted, will have on criminal law and penal policy. Drawing upon contributions made at a symposium held at Victoria University of Wellington, New Zealand in November 2018, this edited collection also discusses the way in which risk has come to inform sentencing practices, broader criminal justice processes and the critical issues associated with this. It also examines the growth and making of new ‘risky populations’ and the harnessing of risk-prevention logics, techniques and mechanisms which have inflated the influence of risk on criminal justice.




The Future of Mental Health, Disability and Criminal Law


Book Description

This book brings together contributions from twenty-three world-leading scholars and commentators that address a range of contemporary and pressing international themes in mental health, disability and criminal law. The authors use the work of internationally renowned academic, Emeritus Professor Bernadette McSherry, as a springboard to reflect on recent developments in these areas of law and to anticipate the future directions they may take. In doing so, they aim to inform and inspire a new generation of mental health, disability and criminal law scholars, advocates and reformers. The book is divided into four substantive sections: reforming mental health and disability law; regulating coercion and restrictive practices; improving access to justice and the criminal law; and transforming mental health law. It also includes an introduction from the editors and an afterword from Emeritus Professor McSherry. The book is aimed at regulators, policymakers, lawyers, clinicians, consumer advocates and academics who are interested in the urgent and contentious issues surrounding the reform and development of mental health, disability and criminal law. It will help them understand the key issues and problems and presents suggestions for reform. The book is interdisciplinary and international in its focus.




Law, Insecurity and Risk Control


Book Description

This book examines our contemporary preoccupation with risk and how criminal law and punishment have been transformed as a result of these anxieties. It adopts an historical approach to examine the development of risk control measures used across the US, UK, New Zealand, Australia and Canada - particularly since the 1980’s - with the rise of the "security sanction". It also takes a criminological and sociological approach to analysing shifts in criminal law and punishment and its implications for contemporary society and criminal justice systems. Law, Insecurity and Risk Control analyses the range and scope of the ‘security sanction’ and its immobilizing measures, ranging from control over minor incivilities to the most serious crimes. Despite these innovations, though, it argues that our anxieties about risk have become so extensive that the "security sanction" is no longer sufficient to provide social stability and cohesion. As a consequence, people have been attracted to the ‘magic’ of populism in a revolt against mainstream politics and organisations of government, as with the EU referendum in the UK and the US presidential election of Donald Trump in 2016. While there have been political manoeuvrings to rein back risk and place new controls on it, these have only brought further disillusionment, insecurity and anxiety. This book argues that the "security sanction" is likely to become more deeply embedded in the criminal justice systems of these societies, as new risks to both the well-being of individuals and the nation state are identified.




The Routledge International Handbook on Decolonizing Justice


Book Description

The Routledge International Handbook on Decolonizing Justice focuses on the growing worldwide movement aimed at decolonizing state policies and practices, and various disciplinary knowledges including criminology, social work and law. The collection of original chapters brings together cutting-edge, politically engaged work from a diverse group of writers who take as a starting point an analysis founded in a decolonizing, decolonial and/or Indigenous standpoint. Centering the perspectives of Black, First Nations and other racialized and minoritized peoples, the book makes an internationally significant contribution to the literature. The chapters include analyses of specific decolonization policies and interventions instigated by communities to enhance jurisdictional self-determination; theoretical approaches to decolonization; the importance of research and research ethics as a key foundation of the decolonization process; crucial contemporary issues including deaths in custody, state crime, reparations, and transitional justice; and critical analysis of key institutions of control, including police, courts, corrections, child protection systems and other forms of carcerality. The handbook is divided into five sections which reflect the breadth of the decolonizing literature: • Why decolonization? From the personal to the global • State terror and violence • Abolishing the carceral • Transforming and decolonizing justice • Disrupting epistemic violence This book offers a comprehensive and timely resource for activists, students, academics, and those with an interest in Indigenous studies, decolonial and post-colonial studies, criminal legal institutions and criminology. It provides critical commentary and analyses of the major issues for enhancing social justice internationally. The Open Access version of this book, available at www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.




Sanders and Young's Criminal Justice


Book Description

'Sanders and Young's Criminal Justice' is an engaging account and a rigorous critique of the criminal justice system, drawing on a wide breadth of research in the field.




Rethinking Community Sanctions


Book Description

Based on insights from interviews with key participants in 3 Australian jurisdictions, this book demonstrates the importance of connecting criminal legal system struggles with broader movements for community control, self-determination, and sovereignty.




Punishment, Probation and Parole


Book Description

Punishment, Probation and Parole brings together leading scholars to explore the various dimensions and emerging concepts of community-based penalties and models for their future.




Policing Nightlife


Book Description

Nightlife is a place of both real and imagined risk, a ‘frontier’ (Melbin 1978) where apparent freedom and transgression are closely linked, and where regulation of leisure and collective intoxication has been diffused throughout an expanding network of state and private actors. This book explores Sydney’s contemporary night-time economy as the product of an intersection of both local and global transformations, as policing comes to incorporate more and more ‘private’ personnel empowered to regulate ‘public’ drinking and nightlife. Policing Nightlife focuses on the historical and social conditions, cultural meanings and regulatory controls that have shaped both public and private forms of policing and security in contemporary urban nightlife. In so doing, it reflects more broadly on global changes in the nature of contemporary policing and how aspects of neoliberalism and the ideal of the ‘24-hour city’ have shaped policing, security and night-time leisure. Based on a decade of research and interviews with both police and doorstaff working in nightlife settings, it explores the effectiveness of policies governing policing and private security in the night-time economy in the context of media, political and public debates about regulation, and the gendered and highly masculine aspects of much of this work. An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, policing, sociology and those interested in understanding the debates surrounding security, policing and contemporary urban nightlife.




Parole on Probation


Book Description

This book explores key issues in relation to parole and public opinion, including the relevance of public opinion to parole boards decision-making and strategies for increasing public confidence in parole. It presents the findings of semi-structured interviews with 80 members of parole authorities in 12 jurisdictions, across Australia, New Zealand, Canada and Scotland. Unlike judicial processes, which are open to the public, there is little awareness of and research on the work of parole authorities. This book therefore shines a light on a little-understood, but hotly-contested, aspect of the criminal justice system. Specifically, it explores differences across the study jurisdictions and considers how parole authorities in the four study countries view public attitudes, as well as the role of the media in shaping public attitudes towards parole. The book also considers whether public reaction matters for parole board decision-making and the interplay between informing the public and offender reintegration. It explores a range of strategies which may improve public confidence in parole and therefore the criminal justice system more broadly. This includes consideration of the value, definition and possibility of public confidence. The authors then discuss both passive forms, such as parole authority websites, publication of decisions and social media, before examining active forms of engagement, including an information/liaison officer, roadshows and community fora.




Navigating Fieldwork in the Social Sciences


Book Description

This edited collection of first-person stories about risk in the field offers an arsenal of practical examples where fieldworkers have attempted to negotiate the complexities and risks of field research. Field research can be a risky and dangerous journey where the line between safety and danger can be crossed in quick time, often with little warning. These risks manifest in diverse and novel ways. They can be physical and psychological, ephemeral and enduring. They can impact the researchers, participants, collaborators and interviewees. Indeed, they can condition the very foundation of our processes of knowledge production. Fieldwork is no small stakes game. Covering research from Afghanistan, Chad, DR Congo, Greece, the Horn of Africa, Iraq, Laos, Lebanon, Palestine, India, Indonesia, Mexico, The Netherlands, Vietnam and Australia, each chapter highlights diverse, eclectic, raw and vulnerable narratives about risks experienced before, during and after the conduct of this research. This book is of great value to inexperienced and experienced fieldworkers alike.