Justice Matters: lifting the lid on Pandora's box

The starting point of Justice Matters is simple: criminal justice is far too big; far too costly; far too intrusive. Far from being a means of delivering social justice, it is the cause of much social injustice. The large footprint in society occupied by the combined criminal justice institutions is profoundly socially harmful.

The criminal justice process inflicts unnecessary suffering on many thousands of suspects, defendants and convictees every year. This suffering is experienced very differently depending on your position in society: for instance whether you are young or old, black or white, male or female, rich or poor.

The collateral damage of the criminal justice process is also profound. A criminal record isa life sentence for many: an ongoing obstacle to participation in work and the wider community. Families and communities whose loved ones are arrested, prosecuted, imprisoned and supervised experience deep and lasting loss. Collateral damage is also found in the stress experienced by many victims, whose traumas and distress are often left unresolved, and in the dissatisfaction of witnesses, whose experience of the criminal justice process can be so negative.

Criminal justice also crowds out other, more innovative, just and effective policy and practice solutions to the problems our society faces. It is good at punishing certain individuals and groups. It fails to prevent social problems from arising, or to resolve those that occur.

To get involved in Justice Matters visit: www.crimeandjustice.org.uk/why-justice-matters     

Skepticism and Sanction: The Benefits of Rejecting Moral Responsibility

It is sometimes objected that we cannot adopt skepticism about moral responsibility, because the criminal justice system plays an indispensable social function. In this paper, I examine the implications of moral responsibility skepticism for the punishment of those convicted of crime, with special attention to recent arguments by Saul Smilansky. Smilansky claims that the skeptic is committed to fully compensating the incarcerated for their detention, and that this compensation would both be too costly to be practical and would remove the deterrent function from incarceration. I argue that the skeptic is not committed to full compensation of the offender, and that the costs of such compensation would in any case be far smaller than Smilansky thinks. In fact, I claim, the costs of the criminal justice system to which the skeptic is committed might be very much lower than the costs ?C economic, social and moral ?C we currently pay as a consequence of our system of punishment.     

Meeting the enemy: American exceptionalism and international law

Howard Zinn has been classified in a number of ways for his many social contributions. However, despite the breadth of his work, he has never been considered a criminologist. It is likely that this is the result of the inaccurate perceptions many Americans have about crime being a predominantly street‐level social problem. Zinn maintains that the social harms caused by those in positions of political and economic power are in fact crimes against humanity that are far more destructive and violent than the actions our legal system has historically deemed criminal. He also points to the ways our criminal justice system is unjust and ineffective, and has demonstrated how social inequality ensures that the disadvantaged will be further subordinated by the criminal justice system. Zinn’s critical contributions about the most significant sources of social harm, the unjust nature of the American justice system, and the influence of social inequality offer an unorthodox criminological perspective that deserves special consideration. His unconventional criminology calls for increasing social justice by means of political dissent, social resistance, and civil disobedience.     

Expanding a traditional criminal justice curriculum into an innovative social control curriculum

Most criminal justice curricula are limited to crime and the criminal justice system. Such programs could profit from evolution into a curriculum covering all means by which behavior is controlled in society. Subject areas of such a social control curriculum would include: sources and nature of behavior; selection of behaviors for social control; criminal justice systems; non-criminal justice, legal, social control systems; and nonlegal, social control systems. Crime and criminal justice would remain major topics, but would be complemented by and blended with the topics of noncriminal behavior and non-criminal justice system controls on behavior. However, the focus would remain on social control of behavior and would not be expanded to include all community interaction.     

论社会管理创新中的刑事法治问题

社会管理创新是当今法学界讨论颇多的一个话题。对于社会管理创新与刑法的关系,要建立在法治的认识前提下,社会管理创新与刑法的基本原则并不冲突,刑法的天然属性使得其与社会管理存在紧密的互动关系,同时,刑法的保障法地位,又决定了社会管理创新需要刑法做坚强的后盾,保障秩序稳定。为了适应社会管理创新的要求,基于两者的契合,刑事法治发展需要从五个方面作出努力:关注社会情势,贯彻宽严相济刑事政策;保障公民权利,重视民生犯罪;"刚柔并济",坚持以人为本;革新纠纷解决机制,灵活、多样化解矛盾;落实行刑社会化,契合多元治理理念。     

Assessing Criminal Justice Practice Using Social Justice Theory

In this article, I introduce two of the leading theories of social justice put forth by John Rawls and David Miller. Then, I assess criminal justice practice, from law-making to corrections, in terms of ways in which it is consistent and inconsistent with these theories of social justice. Throughout the article, I also identify ways in which criminal justice practice is inconsistent with social justice. Finally, I make recommendations for reforming criminal justice to make it more consistent with social justice.     

Wither Criminal Justice? An Argument for a Reformed Discipline

The American criminal justice system fails to achieve justice, reduce crime, and provide equal protection to Americans regardless of their social class, race, and gender. But, criminal justice as an academic area of study has become a popular and fast growing liberal arts major in the United States, churning out tens of thousands to work in the criminal justice system. Given the demonstrable harms caused by criminal justice, which are suffered disproportionately by the least powerful people, academic criminologists and criminal justicians have the obligation to promote a reformed discipline. This article briefly summarizes the evidence of bias in the criminal justice system and then turns to how these biases relate to criminal justice as an academic discipline. Using the war on drugs as an example, I argue that the practice of criminal justice as an academic endeavor runs counter to the goal of promoting social justice in America. One of the ironic conclusions of this article is that criminal justice as an academic discipline must get smaller if we are to achieve larger goals of social justice outlined here. This revised version was published online in July 2006 with corrections to the Cover Date.     

Toward an Interpretive Criminal Justice

This paper presents the academic field of criminal justice as an interpretive social science. The opening section discusses academic criminal justice from scientific and interpretive perspectives, arguing that the terminology of “justice” is essentially contested. The second section presents the key implication of a contested core terminology: that an interpretive approach is the best way to develop the academic field of criminal justice. Section three reviews central elements of the Gadamerian tradition, with an eye towards its application to the field of criminal justice. The fourth section considers two issues pertinent to an interpretive criminal justice—the problem of interpretation in a field where professional practice is destructive to other normative systems, and the contribution of an interpretive criminal justice to public policy.     

刑事诉讼价值目标的转换与推证--一种法理学思考

刑事诉讼价值目标是立法群体对刑事诉讼法及其实现活动的基本期望,是关于刑事诉讼法的绝对超越指向的一般要求.一国刑事诉讼价值目标应与其社会现实基础相互动.当前,我国刑事诉讼价值目标顺应社会的变迁,在立法层面上已经发生了一定程度的转换,由实体正义趋向现实正义.但要在立法层面和司法层面上完全实现现实正义,还有赖于我国社会的进一步发展,尤其是社会生产关系和生产方式的进化、社会大众刑事诉讼价值观的更新和刑事司法制度体系的完善.     

从“封存”到“消灭”——未成年人轻罪犯罪记录封存制度之解读与评价

新《刑事诉讼法》第275条规定的未成年人轻罪犯罪记录封存制度是我国未成年人刑事司法制度的重要发展,对未成年犯复学、升学、就业以及顺利回归社会具有积极的现实意义.但是,该规定不仅过于原则,缺乏可操作性,而且适用对象过窄、对适用主体和适用程序也都未作任何规定.这些都将严重影响该制度的运作和实施效果,甚至可能使其沦为制度上的“花瓶”和实践中的“鸡肋”.为充分发挥该制度的重要价值和意义,应当将其“升级”为未成年人犯罪记录消灭制度.我国在制定有关未成年人的法律以及司法解释或规范性文件时需要“接力”和“合力”,但更需要“给力”.     

Representing Theory and Theorising in Criminal Justice Studies: Practising Theory Considered

The author considers the role and place of theory in criminal justice studies. The argument is that the operation and interrogation of fundamental categories is integral to social scientific enquiry and if criminal justice studies is to resist a technocratic “protective service” orientation it must promote theorising and thinking conceptually via the texts which represent the discipline to undergraduates. Although theory is situated at the core of social science curricula, there is little or no agreement on its role or place in research and pedagogy. The dominant understanding of theory within criminal justice studies (including its sociological and criminological incarnation) is that it is something to be referred to. What is seldom emphasised in theory or methods texts is the practice of theorising. Texts that are designed to be the student’s first contact with the field of criminal justice studies, and which reflect broader attitudes toward social enquiry, seldom consider the methodological and pedagogical issues related to the production and role of analytic concepts and do not present social science as an imaginative or reflexive practice. Drawing on critical realist metatheory, this paper advances a distinction between social and sociological problems and social science and protective service toward illustrating that a social science approach to the study of criminal justice demands the operation and interrogation of analytic categories and explicit consideration of issues of epistemology and ontology. Works which seek to avoid this serve only to foster a passive rather than active engagement with their subject matter.     

刑法司法公信力:从基础到进退

与司法公信力和司法公众认同之间的关系相对应,刑法司法公信力与刑法司法公众认同也互为表里,且后者构成了前者的基础。刑法司法公信力与刑法司法公众认同之间的关系有着心理学基础和规范有效性基础,并蕴藏着有效控制犯罪以达致维护社会和谐稳定的最终法治效果。如果想确保并提升刑法司法公信力,则必须致力于刑法司法公众认同,包括刑法解释公众认同、司法定罪公众认同和司法量刑公众认同。刑法司法解释公众认同、司法定罪公众认同和司法量刑公众认同先后构成了刑法司法公信力的环节性基础,从而确保了刑法司法公信力的环节性实现。刑法司法公信力以价值衡量为进,以法治底线为退。     

Lessons from the Third World for Understanding American Criminal Justice

This paper argues for and attempts to demonstrate the case for including materials related to the operation of Third World criminal justice in courses dealing with American criminal justice system. The author argues that an examination of the contexts and processes of criminal justice in Third World nations increases one's ability to understand and critique the history and operations of our criminal justice enterprises. The Third World context offers laboratories for testing assumptions about American criminal justice without the implicitly pervasive ideological overtones we come to accept unquestionably in our own system simply because it is the one in which we operate.

Within the context of poverty, “dual societies,” chronic political instability, the struggle for economic development, and colonialism, the Third World offers an opportunity to study the interaction and impact of law, politics, economics, social control, and social change on the development and operations of criminal justice. Using examples from the literature of anthropology, law and social change, and political and economic development, the author attempts to demonstrate the usefulness of this interdisciplinary approach and the Third World context in teaching about the criminal justice system.     

What happens when a reform works? The need to study unanticipated consequences of mandatory processing of domestic violence

One of the primary facets of the sociology of law is concerned with the relationships between formal rules and regulations having the force of governmental social control and the values, norms and practices of those who enforce them (or not). This “law in action” perspective enables research to test out the differential impact on legal decisions of both formal and informal aspects of social control (Hawkins, 1992). One of the limitations of recent work on domestic violence is that it focuses too narrowly on one or two negative sanctions, e.g., arrest or restraining orders, to the exclusion of the other options and the mix of formal and informal decisions in the criminal justice system as a whole (Reiss, 1974). This research attempts through a close analysis of the workings of the Quincy, Massachusetts criminal justice system in response to domestic violence, to identify the consequences, unanticipated and anticipated, of decisions made in several domains (public, police, prosecutors, and courts) of the criminal justice system. This study uses in-depth interviews with batterers, victims and criminal justice agency and related personnel as well as agency policies, training materials and records to examine possible unintended consequences of aggressive intervention in cases of domestic violence. This study will explore the impact of the Quincy Domestic Violence Program, considered to be a national model, on the lives of victims and offenders who are treated by the court. We have selected the District Court at Quincy, Massachusetts as our research site. It has a well deserved national reputation treating abusers systematically from the initial intake by arresting officers through close supervision in probation.     

Thinking about the future in criminal justice administration: Trends and implications

This paper utilizes the technology of Futures Research to discuss issues that may confront the criminal justice system in the year 2000. Conceptually, the criminal justice agencies are viewed as a social system which is open to external influence both in terms of organizational design and operation. The specific model of criminal justice agencies is based on the work of Lyman Porter and recognizes three primary factors: 1) contextual factors; 2) structural factors; and 3) behavioral consequences. The specific administrative issues discussed are derived from a series of long term social trends identified by futurist Herman Kahn of the Hudson Institute.     

Literature in criminal justice education

Although generally accepted as an interdisciplinary field, criminal justice has focused on the social sciences. Criminal justice education, if it is to remain vital and growing, has to experiment with courses involving material beyond the social sciences. Using examples found in many law schools, criminal justice instructors can employ the art or humanity of literature in their classes. Fiction, especially short stories and one-act dramas, can be inserted into core courses or used as the basis for a special course on criminal justice and literature. The new approach offered by literature encourages students to reexamine various aspects of the criminal justice system.     

Criminal justice theory: A case of trained incapacity?

Theories are scientific tools which give meaning to the social and physical reality that scientists study. They also play a crucial role in generating and storing the information of a discipline. The academic field of criminal justice has a wealth of facts but a dearth of theory. As a result, this field is still only partially developed. This article is a call for greater attention to theory so that the analysis of the criminal justice system and its components can be more fruitful.A survey of 25 criminal justice textbooks published since 1975 shows that the analysis of criminal justice retains a facts-without-theory flavor. For criminal justice as an academic field of study to grow, theory must be integrated much more into criminal justice research and education than has been the case. The theoretical frameworks of such social theorists as Durkheim, Marx, and Weber, among others, are suggested as sources to draw upon to develop an integrated comprehensive theory of the criminal justice system.     

刑事司法裁量的边际均衡——从枪支认定标准与赵春华案切入

立足于真实的社会生活实践而不是想象的概念语词,能更好地厘清涉枪案件刑事司法面临的困境。经由枪支认定标准,刑事司法权力突兀地介入普通民众的正常社会生活,打破司法权力与公民权利的基本边际均衡,造成了刑事司法裁量的尴尬。刑法意义上的具有高度危险性的枪支,不应该与普通民众生产、经营、游艺所使用玩具枪、仿真枪的正常活动发生关联。刑事司法不侵扰普通民众的日常生活,这是刑事司法权力与公民社会利益的基本边际均衡。以一个侵扰公民正常社会生活的枪支认定标准为基础对涉枪案件进行“综合考量”,只会增加刑事司法的内部复杂性,进而造成刑事司法正当性的严重削弱。只有直面真实的社会生活实践,摒弃迷恋语词的法律形式主义思维,看重刑事司法的系统性后果,确定适宜的枪支认定标准,维护刑事司法裁量的基本边际均衡,才能有效化解涉枪犯罪司法治理的困境。     

宽严相济刑事政策与和谐社会

宽严相济刑事政策是我国刑事政策的新发展,同时也是对实行20多年的"严打"政策的反思和纠正.宽严相济刑事政策与和谐社都"以人为本",因而内在地联系在一起.构建和谐社会需要实行宽严相济刑事政策,因为它能满足和谐社会化解社会矛盾的需要、节约社会资源和刑事司法资源的需要;宽严相济刑事政策能促进和谐社会构建,因为它能有效地维护社会稳定,促进社会和谐,协调社会利益.所以,在构建和谐社会过程中,必须采取有效措施认真贯彻宽严相济刑事政策.