Technology and Criminal Justice

The extent and use of technology in the British criminal justice system is uneven. Two areas are examined; first where technology is used in prisons or by the police, and secondly when it is used to develop new sanctions, as with electronic monitoring, or as attachments to existing sanctions such as drug testing. Technology in prisons is mainly in the form of perimeter security, and in the police through CCTV cameras or databases. In the second the emphasis is on tracker systems which gives the supervisor greater control. Technological development in criminal justice is not without its critics. Some regard existing technological developments with suspicion, seeing them as a means of enhancing control, or as an attack on traditional liberal values, or more importantly as an extension of a form of behaviourism which is concerned only with the observable act. Others note the expensive failures of technology where systems fail to work or are delivered late. It is suggested a Government study is required to examine existing technologies and its likely future impact whether on the criminal justice system generally or on those working within it or as inmates.     

全球化和刑事司法

刑事司法的全球化正在逐步成为现实。而且全球化的进程旨在在世界范围内采取联合行动预防和惩治某些特定的犯罪。然而,刑事司法全球化的构建需要建立在统一的刑事司法文化基础上,与修正的报应模式和法律与秩序模式不同的是,刑事司法全球化必须有整合一致的人权文化。提高个体、政治、社会和经济人权的整体文化,是保障建立刑事司法全球化的最佳途径,它服务于国际公共价值和秩序,同时还致力于社会公正,确保相关人员,特别是被害人和被告人的权利保障。     

联合国刑事司法准则与我国刑事法律改革若干问题

1998年10月5日,我国签署了《公民权利和政治权利公约》。该公约最为明确、集中、具体地规定了联合国刑班司法准则．我们有必要将我国的刑事立法与联合国刑事司法准则相对照．寻找差距．并提出改革、完善的具体措施。从而推动我国刑事法律向前发展。试就涉及刑法、刑事诉讼法方面的问题作了一些探讨。     

Participatory Democracy and Criminal Justice

This essay asks if there is a role for an active public in ratcheting down the harsh politics of crime control in the United States and the United Kingdom that has led to increased use of the criminal law and greater severity in punishment. It considers two opposing answers offered by political and legal theorists and then begins to develop a participatory democratic framework for institutional reform.     

复和正义和刑事调解

犯罪自产生以来 ,其恶性随着人类文明的进步而加大 ,相反 ,人类用于对付犯罪的刑罚手段却渐趋轻缓和文明。毫无疑问 ,到目前为止 ,刑罚仍是对付犯罪最为有效的手段之一 ,审判也是解决犯罪问题的主要方式。但由于建立在报应基础之上的刑罚 ,本质上是一种“以恶制恶” ,因此 ,其弊端也是显而易见的。由此 ,在处理犯罪问题时需要引入复和正义 ,并进一步扩大刑事调解范围     

American Criminal Justice Exposed

In The Ethics of Capital Punishment: A Philosophical Investigation of Evil and Its Consequences, Matthew Kramer argues that none of the standard rationales used to justify capital punishment successfully vindicates it and that a new justification, the purgative rationale, justifies capital punishment for defilingly evil offenders. In this article, it is argued, first, that a version of retributivism that adheres to the lex talionis as Kramer understands it does seem to call exclusively for the death penalty. Second, it is submitted that the purgative rationale is over-inclusive inasmuch as Kramer considers it applicable to certain offenders with abusive or deprived backgrounds, some offenders indoctrinated to adhere to pernicious ideologies that have impelled their crimes, and wrongdoers who have sincerely repented. Third, doubts are expressed about whether the purgative rationale justifies the execution of any offenders. Even if it is true that the continued existence of an extravagantly evil offender represents an affront to humanity, as Kramer suggests, a moral obligation to execute him does not follow. Since repentance is intrinsically valuable and since repentance would extinguish the affront to humanity, the community in which an unrepentant evil offender abides is duty-bound to foster repentance on the part of the offender by imposing banishment or life imprisonment, sanctions that afford the offender the most extensive opportunity for repentance. The community is therefore obligated to impose one of these sanctions instead of capital punishment.     

Justice Here and Now: A Personal Reflection on the Restorative and Community Justice Paradigms

Cuba has long had one of the lowest crime rates in Latin America and in the Americas generally. Incidents of crime against women such as rape and domestic violence, for example, appear to be lower in Cuba than in the rest of Latin America and the United States. Community organizations in Cuba play a significant role in controlling criminal activity by generating and sustaining citizen participation, generating an understanding of the nature of community crime, and helping to form partnerships for community policing. Cuba has attempted to obtain citizen participation in order to resolve social problems, including crime, by instilling a sense of community among its citizens and providing them with the structure of mass organizations that mobilize people on local, regional, and national levels. Residents attribute Cuba’s relatively low crime rate to the sense of community created and maintained by such mass organizations. This article focuses on the role that mass organizations and especially Committees for the Defense of the Revolution play in the Cuban experience of community policing and justice.     

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.     

Criminal Justice and the Liberal Polity

There are several reasonable conceptions of liberalism. A liberal polity can survive a measure of disagreement over just what constitutes liberalism. In part, this is because of the way a liberal order makes possible a dynamic, heterogeneous civil society and how that, in turn, can supply participants with reasons to support a liberal political order. Despite the different conceptions of justice associated with different conceptions of liberalism, there are reasons to distinguish the normative focus of criminal justice from other aspects of justice in a liberal polity. Given the fundamental commitments of liberalism—of whatever variant—there are reasons for criminal justice not to be assimilated to wider conceptions of justice overall. Such assimilation risks undermining some of liberalism's distinctive commitments concerning the standing of individuals as voluntary, responsible agents. Criminal justice is not independent of other aspects of justice but has a distinct focus in a liberal polity.     

论刑事司法和刑事错案的成本

与传统法律思维方法相比,法律经济学方法有其自身的优势,尤其在用于分析刑事司法和刑事错案的成本时.统计推理领域中"第一类错误"和"第二类错误"的分类方法为研究刑事错案提供了参考和借鉴.我国司法机关对刑事错案的认识经历了一个历史过程,在对实体公正与程序公正、惩罚犯罪与保障人权进行权衡,特别是对刑事司法和刑事错案的成本进行评估以后,最终确立了"宁可错放,也不可错判"的司法理念,这一理念体现了法治的进步精神.     

论刑法学方法对刑事立法与司法的意义

在刑事法治系统中,立法与司法是两个非常重要的子系统。研究刑法学方法,①对于这两个子系统的良性运转,进而促进刑事法治系统的良性运转,具有重要意义。一立法完善,对于中国刑事法治而言,是一项重要的制度建设工作。二十世纪八十年代以来的刑事立法,始终贯穿着这一主题。(一)立法完善的含义与意义完善之意,指(使之)完备美好。②立法完善,即通过立法程序使法律、法规进一步完备的过程与结果。刑法的立法完善亦然。废除、修改非正当、不合理的规定,增补与社会现实相适应的内容,是刑法立法完善工作的基本方式。制定立法解释,是刑法立法完善工作…