The Elementary Epistemic Arithmetic of Criminal Justice

Episteme ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
pp. 282-294 ◽  
Author(s):  
Larry Laudan
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
The Political ◽  
Innocent Person ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Standard Of Proof ◽  
Political Morality ◽  
Serious Crime ◽  
Epistemic Arithmetic

This paper propounds the following theses: 1). that the traditional focus on the Blackstone ratio of errors as a device for setting the criminal standard of proof is ill-conceived, 2). that the preoccupation with the rate of false convictions in criminal trials is myopic, and 3). that the key ratio of interest, in judging the political morality of a system of criminal justice, involves the relation between the risk that an innocent person runs of being falsely convicted of a serious crime and the risk of being criminally victimized by someone who was falsely acquitted.

Instrumental and Symbolic Politics in Policing

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cheryl Allsop
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Police Legitimacy ◽  
Symbolic Politics ◽  
Political Background ◽  
Cold Case ◽  
Police Practices

This chapter considers the development of, and growing interest in, cold case reviews, distinguishing between the instrumental and symbolic politics which surround their development. What becomes clear in this chapter is that the rise in interest can be attributed to a number of individual and interlocking events, including changes in police legitimacy, the introduction of a number of police reforms, and initiatives resulting in changes to police practices, pressure from victims’ rights groups for more attention from the criminal justice system, and advances in scientific techniques and technologies with increasing uses found for them. The chapter briefly considers the political background to cold case reviews, and how this connects with the broader politics of policing along with the instrumental politics of maintaining major crime review teams and the symbolic politics which helps to justify expenditure in cold case reviews.

Murder and Maugham: A Neglected Subversive?

2002 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 330-339
Author(s):  
Keith Soothill
Keyword(s):  
Twentieth Century ◽  
Short Stories ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Status Quo ◽  
Labour Government ◽  
Serious Crime ◽  
The Status

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.

scholarly journals Trial and (Potential) Error: Conflicting Visions on Reparations Within the ICC System

2018 ◽  
Vol 29 (3) ◽  
pp. 221-248 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alina Balta ◽  
Manon Bax ◽  
Rianne Letschert
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
International Criminal Court ◽  
Rome Statute ◽  
International Criminal ◽  
Criminal Court ◽  
International Criminal Justice ◽  
Court Decisions ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Conflict Situations ◽  
International Criminal Trials

Twenty years ago, the International Criminal Court (hereinafter ICC or the Court) was established holding the aim of placing victims at the heart of international criminal justice proceedings and delivering justice to them through, among others, reparations. Article 75 of the Rome Statute lays out the reparations regime, and, in practice, court-ordered reparations are a means of delivering such justice. Focusing on Court decisions on reparations, our analysis takes stock of all developments before the ICC and attempts to highlight the mismatch between characteristics inherent to the objectives of international criminal trials such as providing accountability and punishment of the accused and delivering justice for victims of mass crimes—the so-called procedural challenges. We also submit that the Court is facing conceptual challenges, related to an apparent misunderstanding of the various concepts at stake: reparations as such and the various modalities and channels of enforcing them. We conclude that although the ICC’s reparation regime may not be the best reparative response to provide justice to victims in conflict situations affected by mass victimization, we suggest that improving the ICC’s approach includes, at a minimum, tackling these challenges.

scholarly journals TRANCE-GRESSION: TECHNOSHAMANISM, CONSERVATISM AND PAGAN POLITICS

2010 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 201-220
Author(s):  
David Green
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
The Political ◽  
Public Order ◽  
Moral Panics ◽  
Especial Reference ◽  
Conservative Government ◽  
Rave Culture ◽  
Spiritual Freedom

This article looks at the politics of successive Conservative governments in Britain in the 1980s and ‘90s through the lens of the increasing politicisation of Paganisms in that period. A wave of moral panics in the late ‘80’s and early ‘90s concerning marginal communities – such as Ravers, New Age travellers and anti-road protesters – and their ‘riotous assemblies’, culminated in the Conservative Government of John Major enacting The Criminal Justice and Public Order Act of 1994. This was seen by these communities as legislation against alternative lifestyles and, in some respects, an infringement of spiritual freedom. Using the case study of technoshamanism – a Pagan meeting of ‘rave’ culture and neo-shamanism – I wish to examine how the political and Pagan religious landscapes of ‘80s and ‘90s Britain intersected and led to politically engaged forms of Pagan practice often centred around grassroots lifestyle and environmental politics. This will be explored with especial reference to the politicisation of The Spiral Tribe, a technoshamanic collective of the early ‘90s, and their increasing involvement in resisting the 1994 Act and promotion of campaigns such as Reclaim the Streets.

Mass-Market Paperbacks and Integration Politics

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (2) ◽  
pp. 22-46
Author(s):  
Johanna Schuster-Craig
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The Political ◽  
Youth Of Color ◽  
Mass Market ◽  
Non Fiction ◽  
Political Spectrum ◽  
Migration Politics

“Integration” refers to multiple arenas in German migration politics, including journalistic discourse, public policy, and cultural logics about incorporating immigrants and refugees into the nation. This article examines two non-fiction narratives, Das Ende der Geduld by Kirsten Heisig and Muslim Girls by Sineb El Masrar, to explore how each author characterizes integration from opposite sides of the political spectrum. In integration politics, adolescence is often construed as a problem, which—when improperly managed—leads to the criminalization or radicalization of youth of color. Comparative analysis of these two texts shows that institutions such as the school and the criminal justice system produce adolescence as a problem for integration and as a way to avoid acknowledging institutionalized inequity. These two examples exist as part of a longer genealogy of authors using mass-market paperbacks to comment on integration politics.

West Belfast

The Hoods ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Heather Hamill
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Working Class ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Political Conflict ◽  
The State ◽  
The Political ◽  
Irish Republican Army

This chapter argues that, from the early days of the political conflict in the 1970s the conditions were such that the Irish Republican Army (IRA) adopted some of the functions of the state, namely the provision of policing and punishment of ordinary crime. The hostility of the statutory criminal justice system, particularly the police, toward the working-class Catholic community dramatically increased the costs of using state services. The high levels of disaffection and aggression among working-class Catholics toward the police meant that the state could no longer fulfill its function and police the community in any “normal” way. A demand for policing therefore existed. Simultaneously, this demand was met and fostered by the IRA, which had the motivation, the manpower, and the monopoly on the use of violence necessary to carry out this role.

3. The Course of Evidence

2021 ◽  
pp. 51-83
Author(s):  
Andrew L-T Choo
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Proceedings ◽  
Criminal Trials ◽  
Trial Process

Chapter 3 examines the principles relating to the presentation of evidence in court. It first discusses the adversarial tradition upon which the English trial process is based. It then distinguishes between the principles governing the questioning of one’s own witness (which occurs in examination-in-chief and re-examination) and those governing the questioning of another party’s witness (which occurs in cross-examination). It shows that, in criminal proceedings, provisions in the Criminal Justice Act 2003 now deal with two particular matters that may arise in the course of questioning one’s own witness—the extent to which refreshing memory is permitted, and the extent to which a previous consistent statement is admissible in evidence. The chapter also considers other issues, including the judicial approach to ‘no case to answer’ submissions in criminal trials, and the extent to which the claimant or prosecution may adduce further evidence after closing its case.

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