Re-Situating Criminal Responsibility

Author(s):  
Arlie Loughnan

Inspired by the work of Nicola Lacey as a leading critical criminal responsibility scholar, in my chapter, I offer a reflection on time and space and criminal responsibility. I introduce the notion of interstitial space as a useful analytical device to advance the field of critical scholarship on responsibility for crime. With a study of the intellectual sphere of comparative jurisprudence at around the turn of the twentieth century, which I suggest was an historical example of an interstitial space, I argue that such interstitial spaces form part of the story of the development of ideas of responsibility for crime. In comparative jurisprudence, national laws and legal systems were viewed from a transnational vantage point, and, as such, legal analysis was simultaneously embedded and disembedded, both tied to territorial space and free-floating. My examination of the first decades of the life of a key institutional text of comparative jurisprudence, the Journal of the Society of Comparative Legislation, shows that discussion of crime, punishment, and criminal justice encompassed an informative discussion of responsibility, with the light of comparative jurisprudence revealing the connection between criminal responsibility and broader ideas about ‘civilization’ and ‘progress’, which themselves reflected power relations between states.

Author(s):  
Christopher R. J. Holmes

Concentration on God makes Reformed theology ‘reformed’, and this concentration will form the basis for the treatment of eschatology in the present chapter. I pursue three things in this chapter. First, I provide a brief account of a few of the main themes of eschatology in Reformed perspective in conversation with the leading English-speaking Reformed theologian of the twentieth century, Thomas F. Torrance. Second, I provide a distinctive and substantial interpretation of the last things from a Reformed vantage point, arguing for the importance of God for any biblically faithful eschatology. I do so in dialogue with Calvin’s commentary on 1 Corinthians 15 and, secondarily, with Barth’s commentary on the same. Third and last, I present some avenues for future research, especially the immanent life of God and the beatific vision.


Author(s):  
Lindsay Farmer

One of the most important and distinctive themes of Lacey’s recent work has been the analysis of penal practices from the perspective of political economy. However, it is arguably the case that ‘political economy’ is primarily viewed as a dimension of the context in which the criminal law develops rather than as a method of legal analysis. In this chapter I explore the meaning and critical potential of the concept of political economy—how it is used by Lacey, the different traditions that she draws on—and what the perspective and theory of political economy contributes to our understanding of criminal law. I seek to deepen the relevance of political economy to the analysis of criminal responsibility by exploring how the development of the modern conception of English criminal law in the early nineteenth century was itself shaped by contemporary understandings of political economy. Most historical work on the development of the modern criminal law has focused on the impact of utilitarianism to show how changes in penal laws and institutions were linked to new efforts to shape individual conduct in society. However, equally important to the intellectual and political culture of the early nineteenth century were understandings of the new ‘science’ of political economy. This chapter explores the ways in which theories of political economy shaped the modern criminal law in this period and thereby to open up new possibilities for exploring connections between criminal law, criminal responsibility, and political economy—and thus for critical criminal law theory.


2009 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-99
Author(s):  
Frederick S. Colby

Despite the central importance of festival and devotional piety to premodernMuslims, book-length studies in this field have been relatively rare.Katz’s work, The Birth of the Prophet Muhammad, represents a tour-deforceof critical scholarship that advances the field significantly both throughits engagement with textual sources from the formative period to the presentand through its judicious use of theoretical tools to analyze this material. Asits title suggests, the work strives to explore how Muslims have alternativelypromoted and contested the commemoration of the Prophet’s birth atdifferent points in history, with a particular emphasis on how the devotionalistapproach, which was prominent in the pre-modern era, fell out of favoramong Middle Eastern Sunnis in the late twentieth century. Aimed primarilyat specialists in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies, especially scholarsof history, law, and religion, this work is recommended to anyone interestedin the history of Muslim ritual, the history of devotion to the Prophet, andthe interplay between normative and non-normative forms ofMuslim beliefand practice ...


2020 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 99-104
Author(s):  
E. V. Markovicheva ◽  

In the 21st century, the concept of restorative justice has become widespread in criminal proceedings. The introduction of special compromise procedures into the criminal process allows for the restoration of the rights of the victim and reduces the level of repression in the criminal justice system. The traditional system of punishment is considered ineffective, not conducive to the purpose of compensating for harm caused by the crime. Restorative justice enables the accused to compensate for the harm caused by the crime and is oriented not towards their social isolation, but towards further positive socialization. The introduction of the ideas of restorative justice into the Russian criminal process requires the introduction of special conciliation procedures. The purpose of the article is to reveal promising directions for introducing special conciliation procedures into the Russian criminal process. The use of the formal legal method provided an analysis of the norms of criminal procedure legislation and the practice of its application. Comparative legal analysis revealed common features in the development of models of restorative justice in modern states. Conclusions. The introduction of conciliation procedures into the Russian criminal process is in line with the concept of its humanization and reduction of the level of criminal repression. The consolidation of the mediator»s procedural status and the mediation procedure in the criminal procedure legislation will make it possible to put into practice the elements of restorative justice.


Author(s):  
Thomas Hartvigsson

AbstractThe aim of this paper is to present a solution to a problem that arises from the fact that people who commit crimes under the influence of serious mental disorders may still have a capacity to refuse treatment. Several ethicists have argued that the present legislation concerning involuntary treatment of people with mental disorder is discriminatory and should change to the effect that psychiatric patients can refuse care on the same grounds as patients in somatic care. However, people with mental disorders who have committed crimes and been exempted from criminal responsibility would then fall outside the scope of criminal justice as well as that of the psychiatric institutions if they were to refuse care. In this paper, I present and develop a solution to how society should deal with this group of people, called Advance criminal responsibility. The basic idea being that if a person with a potentially responsibility exempting psychiatric condition refuses care, that person is responsible for any future criminal acts which are due to the mental disorder.


2002 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 330-339
Author(s):  
Keith Soothill

Somerset Maugham's writings had huge audiences in the first half of the twentieth century. In much of his work the focus is on people behaving badly. What effect did his work have on his readers? This article examines his short stories, of which approximately one-fifth of the major ones have murder as their theme. Focusing on the murders that Maugham ‘creates’, the claim is that Maugham is subversive, challenging some readily made assumptions. In Maugham's scheme of things, the criminal justice system is usually inappropriate, irrelevant or produces injustice, with ‘rough justice’ usually the best that is on offer. The resourceful can get away with murder. Murder is not the most serious crime for many. Instinct rather than rationality is the best judge. Maugham also emphasises the importance of fate, thus implying we are not in control of our destinies. The article argues that popular authors, such as Maugham, may have contributed much more than is generally recognised to the developing unease about the ‘status quo’ that ultimately led to the landslide victory of the Labour government in 1945.


Author(s):  
Gabriel Solis

Ethnomusicology has often had an ambivalent relationship with technology: we owe our discipline to mid-twentieth-century developments in recording technology. Nevertheless there is a strong counter-modern streak that characterizes ethnomusicologists as a group. This essay investigates the reasons for ethnomusciologists’ mistrust of certain kinds of music technology and interprets ambivalence as a mode of critical engagement. It surveys turning points in the field from comparative musicology to the critical turn and from the critical turn to the new digital humanities. I conclude that digital humanities needs ethnomusicological ambivalence in the form of critical engagement. Good data analytics needs a skeptical view from the vantage point of music scholars and contextual knowledge-bearers in the cultures of study.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 454-468
Author(s):  
David Gurnham

AbstractThis paper analyses the visualisation of rape and sexual assault in legal and scholarly language. It begins with a critique of the Court of Appeal ruling inR v. Evans (Chedwyn)and its forensic examination of the details of a female rape complainant's consensual sexual activity with other men. The case is analysed in light of a visual metaphor used by Ellison and Munro to describe the removal of popular misconceptions about rape. The paper contextualises that discussion with reference to the idea of the male gaze and its affirmation of a phallocentric cultural and social world in which the objectification of female difference is entrenched. The paper finally challenges that assessment, however, sketching an alternative approach to visual-critical scholarship that embraces interdisciplinarity and a literary sensibility to break (or at least to loosen) the association between the prurient eye of the male voyeur and the criminal justice gaze.


Text Matters ◽  
2018 ◽  
pp. 386-410
Author(s):  
Abdolali Yazdizadeh

Hyperreality is a key term in Jean Baudrillard’s cultural theory, designating a phase in the development of image where it “masks the absence of a profound reality.” The ambiance of Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 (1961) closely corresponds to Baudrillard’s notion of the hyperreal as images persist to precede reality in the fictional world of the novel. Since for Baudrillard each order of simulacra produces a certain mode of ideological discourse that impacts the perception of reality, it is plausible that the characters of this fictional context should be ideologically impacted by the hyperreal discourse. From this vantage point it is possible to have a new critical assessment of Yossarian’s (protagonist) antiheroic stance and study the role of the “business of illusion,” whose ideological edifice is based on the discourse of the hyperreal, on his antiheroic stance and actions. By drawing on Baudrillard’s cultural theory this paper aims to read Heller’s novel as a postmodern allegory of rebellion against the hyperreality of the twentieth-century American life and trace its relevance to modern-day U.S.


2020 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
pp. 59-68
Author(s):  
A. Iashchenko

The article is devoted to the research of measures of criminal justice response to prohibitions in the field of traffic safety and vehicle operation. It is noted that the primary role in state response to violation of criminal justice prohibitions in the field of traffic safety and vehicle operation is given to punishment, but no less important role is paid to other alternative to prohibition measures of criminal justice nature based on the concussion (special confiscation) or the encouragement (exemption from criminal responsibility or serving a sentence). It is concluded that the normative regulations of threats of application of certain punitive measures of criminal justice nature in sanctions of the articles of this section of the Special part in which the legislator defines the threat of application of various types of punishment for committing the crimes stipulated in crimes’ dispositions, needs specification from the point of view of the system interconnection, along with the provisions of the General Part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, whereas the practice of application of special confiscation its further distribution and development, considering the proposed recommendations of its delimitation with the so called criminal procedural confiscation as means of criminal procedural concussion. In particular, it is noted that such clarification may be implemented either by enforcing additional penalties specified in the sanctions of Part 1, 2, 3 of Article 286, part 1 of Article 287 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, to the common list of types of punishments, with their separate meaningful definition in the corresponding articles of the section X of the General part of the Criminal Code of Ukraine, or by covering normative definition in sanctions of the specified articles of section XI of the Special part of threats of application of such additional types of punishments according to the existing parts of the Criminal Code of Ukraine. In this regard the sanctions of Article 286 and 287 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine propose to make appropriate changes. As for the practice of applying special confiscation for committing crimes in the field of traffic safety and vehicle operation, it is recommended that the question of its implementation should be based on the fact that the subject of special confiscation may be defined in paragraph 1 of Part 1 of Art. 96-2 of the Criminal Code - items 6, 6-1 part 9 of Art. 100 of the Criminal Procedure Code, paragraph 2, part 1 of Art. 96-2 of the Criminal Code - item 2 part 9 of Art. 100 of the CPC, paragraph 3, part 1 of Art. 96-2 of the Criminal Code - item 5 part 9 of Art. 100 of the CPC, paragraph 4, part 1 of Art. 96-2 of the Criminal Code - item 1 part 9 of Art. 100 of the CPC items of the material world that possess a certain property value, and are usually considered as physical evidence in criminal proceedings initiated on the fact of committing certain crimes in the field of traffic safety and vehicle operation.


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