Criminal Law and Crime Policy

Abstract

Although the institutions of criminal justice around the world vary substantially in form and function, patterns can be discerned in what is expected of them at the millennium. Whether the society is democratic or authoritarian, its police and courts are expected to deal harshly with law-breakers (particularly those who have committed violent offenses). The spread of community policing and heightened awareness of police misconduct are raising expectations for protective state police forces even as policing by private security and volunteer groups becomes the norm for businesses and affluent neighborhoods. Recognizing that developments in transportation, communications, and trade have provided new opportunities for transnational crime and that local crime increasingly reflects and feeds global events, the nations of the world are trying to coordinate strategies to address crimes like drug trafficking, arms smuggling, and fraud that cross national borders. The spread of constitutional democracies on several continents and the breakdown of traditional mechanisms of informal social control in the Third World are introducing a culture of rights in nations where it has previously been unknown. Finally, the evolution of two new perspectives—actuarial justice and restorative justice—is challenging the offender-based paradigm of criminal justice in the modern, liberal state.