The State of Florida v Fortune Ferguson, Jr: the death penalty and legal change in Florida, 1924–1927

Through the rapid modern growth of private security as a form of “internal” policing, and the preference of many large organizations for handling problems “internally” which might previously have b...

Criminal Justice in Transition: The Northern Ireland ContextA.‐M. McAlinden and C. Dwyer (Eds.). Oxford: Hart (2015) 386pp. £49.50hb ISBN 978–1849465779

Response: A Sensible Division of Labor

New Models of Collaboration Between Criminal Justice and Mental Health Systems

Improving Health Equity for Women Involved in the Criminal Legal System.

Revisiting packer’s models: Examining Nigeria's criminal justice system in the COVID-19 and post-COVID-19 era

Since Kant, ethics has been synonymous with moral law, grounded in Reason. As Kant’s heirs, we are still grappling with a tension he sought to resolve through his appeal to a rational God, namely, between ethics and politics. “Politics says, ‘Be ye wise as serpents,’” remarks Kant: “Morality adds (as a limiting condition) ‘and guileless as doves’” (1795, 338). For Kant, both the serpent of politics and the dove of ethics are bound by the same moral duty that has its source in the freedom of our sovereign rational will. The perfection of this good will is possible not as individuals but only from the perspective of what Kant calls “Universal History from a Cosmopolitan Point of View,” which it turns out is a view from the cosmos, more specifically, from the perspective of the “dwellers from other planets” whom Kant imagines viewing us from their own place in the universe (1784, n. 2). As we know, Kant insists that the concept of duty cannot be in conflict with doing our duty—or that ought implies can: “It is patently absurd, having granted this concept of duty its authority, to want to say that one nevertheless cannot do it. For in that case this concept would of itself drop out of morals. . . . [H]ence, there can be no conflict of politics as doctrine of right put into practice, with morals, as theoretical doctrine of right” (1795, 338). But what if the reverse were true? What if ought implies cannot? What if our obligations always outstrip our intentions? What if the sovereign will is fundamentally beholden both to other people and to the Other The Plight of Ethics

Law & psychiatry: slowing the revolving door: community reentry of offenders with mental illness.

The responses of the criminal justice system to victimisation and in particular the operation of the criminal trial retain an enormously symbolic position in the public’s consciousness around criminal victimisation (Kirchengast, Victims and the Criminal Trial. London: Palgrave, 2016). From a cultural perspective then the criminal justice process has enormous significance. The trial itself is the most publicised component of the criminal justice process, and we know the majority of people still base much of their opinion of the justice system on knowledge obtained though media portrayals of it: both fictional and non-fictional accounts (Dowler, Journal of Criminal Justice and Popular Culture, 10:109–126, 2003). This chapter will turn its attention to the criminal justice process itself, offering an evaluation of substantive changes made to that system since the coming to power of the 2010 coalition government. In so doing, the chapter will highlight the extent to which reforms made in the criminal justice process might reflect the cultural and political contexts outlined in Chaps. 1, 2 and 3.

Although studies reveal substantial mental health treatment needs among youths in the juvenile justice system, far less is known about young offenders transferred to adult criminal court. This statewide study examined the mental health needs of young offenders who committed serious crimes and were transferred to adult court and subsequently incarcerated in a prison for adults. Sixty-four boys aged 16 and 17 years who were incarcerated in the Texas adult correctional system completed the Massachusetts Youth Screening Instrument-Version 2 (MAYSI-2), a mental health screening measure widely used in the juvenile justice system. Scores from the youths in adult prison were compared with those of a matched sample of youths in juvenile correctional facilities, drawn from the MAYSI-2 normative data. Youths in adult prison reported substantial symptoms of mental health problems. Most youths surveyed (51%) scored above the highest clinical cutoff (the "warning" range) on at least one MAYSI-2 subscale. For every clinical subscale except suicide ideation, the majority of youths (54% to 70%, depending on the subscale) scored above the "caution" range. Juveniles in adult prison reported higher rates of symptoms than did those in juvenile correctional facilities (effect sizes ranged from d=.18 to d=.65, depending on the subscale). Although the mental health needs of youths in the juvenile justice system are well documented, this study reveals that mental health treatment needs appear to be even more pronounced in the small subgroup of youths transferred to the adult criminal justice system and incarcerated in adult prison.

Historically, victims once had an active participatory role in the criminal justice process and were responsible for not only initiating but also for prosecuting offenders. In common law countries, victims were gradually sidelined and by the 20th century, their role was reduced to that of a witness to a crime against the state. The exclusion of victims from the criminal justice process is a major source of dissatisfaction for victims as many of them want to participate in the criminal justice process. This has fuelled initiatives with restorative justice that claim to more fully include victims than conventional criminal justice. This paper examines three different approaches found in the literature on how to let victims participate. One view is that victims should leave the criminal justice system and that criminal justice should be replaced by alternative, restorative justice schemes in which victims are granted full recognition and respect for their dignity. A second approach is to integrate restorative practices such as victim-offender mediation in the criminal justice process. The third approach is to integrate victim participation and respect (so-called restorative values) in the criminal justice system. These three approaches are discussed and compared with one another. The paper closes with recommendations for criminal law reform.

Royal commissions are approached not as exercises in legitimation and closure but as sites of struggle that are heavily traversed by power holders yet are open to the voices of alternative and unofficial social groups, social movements, and individuals. Three case studies are discussed that highlight the hegemony of the legal methodology and discourse that dominate many inquiries. The first case, involving a single-case miscarriage inquiry, involves a man who was accused, convicted, and served a prison sentence for the murder of his wife. Nineteen years following the murder another man confessed to the crime. The official inquiry found that nothing had gone wrong in the criminal justice process; it had operated as it should. Thus, in the face of evidence that the criminal justice process may be flawed, the discursive strategy became one of silence; no explanation was offered except for the declaration that nothing had gone wrong. The fallibility of the criminal justice system was thus hidden from public view. The second case study examines the Wood Royal Commission into corruption charges within the NSW Police Service. The royal commission revealed a bevy of police misconduct offenses including process corruption, improper associations, theft, and substance abuse, among others. The author discusses the ways in which the other criminal justice players, the judiciary and prosecuting attorneys, emerge only briefly as potential ethical agents in relation to police misconduct and corruption and then abruptly disappear again. Yet, these other players are absolved of any responsibility for police misconduct. The third case study involves a spin-off inquiry into the facts surrounding the Leigh Leigh rape and murder case. This case illustrates how official inquires can seek to exclude non-traditional viewpoints and methodologies; in this case, the views of a feminist criminologist. The third case also illustrates how the adversarial process within the legal system allows those with power to subjugate the viewpoints of others through the legitimate use of cross-examination. These three case studies reveal how official inquiries tend to speak from an “idealized conception of justice” and downplay any viewpoint that questions this idealized version of the truth.

Applying Procedural Justice Theory to Law Enforcement's Response to Persons With Mental Illness

Crime occurrence has a serious impact on its victims; the toll is even greater when it concerns children. They have to undergo severe physical, psychological and emotional trauma in the aftermath of a crime. When children interact with the criminal justice system, they are put through the gruelling processes of the police investigation, recording statements, medical examination, appearance in courts, cross-examination and so on. Each component has its own impact on the children, with studies suggesting that participation of children in the ‘adult’ criminal justice process can be confusing, distressing and even re-traumatizing. With international efforts to put victims as salient to the criminal justice discourse, things have changed. Recognizing the ineptness of the adult processes in their application towards justice to child victims, States have modified the complexities and attempted to establish a parallel system of justice dispensation that is more ‘child-friendly’. India, on its part, has passed the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act, 2012, to redefine the processes in its application to children, especially in matters of child sexual abuse. Thus, special courts are set up, incorporating special measures to ensure the privacy, confidentiality and comfort of the child victims who appear before them. Based on an observational study of ‘special’ and ‘designated’ courts in the State of West Bengal, the present article indicates that Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (POCSO Act) directives are still not in place. The insufficient number of fast-track courts, unavailability of dedicated personnel, infrastructural inadequacies and inappropriate processes still mar the justice system. The article forwards suggestions that are imperative to improve the overall experience of child victims.

This book examines the criminal justice decisions of the Rehnquist Court era through analyses of individual justices' contributions to the development of law and policy. The Rehnquist Court era (1986-2005) produced a period of opportunity for the U.S. Supreme Court's judicial conservatives to reshape constitutional law concerning rights in the criminal justice process. It was an era in which the Court produced many hotly-debated decisions concerning such issues as capital punishment, search and seizure, police interrogations, and prisoners' rights. The Court's most conservative justice, William H. Rehnquist, ascended to the key leadership position of Chief Justice and he was joined on the Court by two new appointees, Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas, who were equally supportive of both greater authority for police and limited definitions of constitutional rights for suspects, defendants, and criminal offenders. The Rehnquist Court era decisions refined and narrowed many of the rights-expanding decisions of the Warren Court era (1953-1969). However, the Supreme Court did not ultimately eliminate the Warren era's foundational rights concepts in criminal justice, such as the exclusionary rule and Miranda warnings. As the leading liberal voices of the Warren era, William Brennan and Thurgood Marshall, retired early in the Rehnquist era, the Court experienced continued advocacy of broad conceptions for many rights through the increased assertiveness of Republican appointees Harry Blackmun, John Paul Stevens, and David Souter as well as the arrival of new Democratic appointees Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. In many important cases, the justices advocating the preservation of constitutional protections could prevail, even on a generally conservative Court, by persuading one or more of President Ronald Reagan's appointees to support a particular right for suspects and defendants. Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony Kennedy, in particular, shaped outcomes within a divided Court as they determined which of the Court’s wings with which they would align in a particular case. The contributors to this volume identify and highlight the unique perspectives and influential decisions of individual justices as the means for understanding the Rehnquist Court’s imprint on criminal justice.