Criminal Justice and the Police

2020 ◽  
pp. 161-183
Author(s):  
Yaacov Lev
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Urban Police

In Fatimid Fustat-Cairo the shurta was a police force responsible for fighting crime and its chiefs dispensed criminal justice. How the shurta and its chiefs operated in Fustat of the 1020s is discussed relying on Musabbih’s reports concerning 1024-1025. The shurta as an urban police force intended to fight crime was too small to maintain law and order in the capital and, in times of crisis, the task was delegated to the army.

scholarly journals Window of opportunity to deliver better justice sector outcomes over the long term

2013 ◽  
Vol 9 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Paul Sherrell
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Window Of Opportunity ◽  
Law And Order

The justice sector contributes to society by protecting civil and property rights, as well as providing a fair and effective way to resolve disputes. In the criminal justice area, the sector aims to:  maintain law and order, focusing on minimising harm and victimisation;  bring perpetrators to justice with appropriate punishment;  provide rehabilitation for offenders to reduce reoffending. The question is how to deliver these aims in a way which maximises the benefits to society and efficiency of the sector. 

Criminal justice in the middlebrow imagination: The punitive dimensions of Making a Murderer

2019 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-96 ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel LaChance ◽  
Paul Kaplan
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Law Enforcement ◽  
20Th Century ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Close Reading ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Law Enforcement Agencies ◽  
Late 20Th Century ◽  
Crime And Punishment

Popular documentary representations of crime and punishment have traditionally tended to fall into two camps: programs that are critical of law enforcement agencies and those that are sympathetic to them. In this article, we show how programs that present themselves as critical of legal authorities can nonetheless reinforce the “law and order punitivism” that underlay the ratcheting up of harsh punishment in the late 20th century. In a case study of the popular documentary miniseries Making a Murderer, we show how this can happen when texts fetishize the question of a criminal defendant’s innocence, adopt a “good versus evil” approach to players in the criminal justice system, and perpetuate a procedural rather than substantive vision of justice. Arguments are supported by a close reading of Making a Murderer and illustrated by a line of discussion it inspired in an internet forum.

Part V Rights and Freedoms, B Rights and Freedoms under the Charter, Ch.38 The Charter and Criminal Justice

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Don
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Fair Trial ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Judicial Interpretation ◽  
Canadian Charter ◽  
Police Powers ◽  
Substantive Law

This chapter analyses the pervasive impact of the Charter on the Canadian criminal justice system. Active judicial interpretation of Charter rights has put in place distinctive constitutional standards of substantive law, including those of fault, and struck down oppressive laws for arbitrariness and overbreadth. Also examined are new standards for police powers to stop, search, detain and interrogate, fair trial rights such as the duty of full Crown disclosure, and for assessing mandatory minimum sentences. This chapter describes and welcomes a robust exclusionary discretion for evidence obtained in violation of the Charter. It is suggested that the Canadian Charter standards are no panacea and are sometimes too weak but that they have often provided a welcome balance to the expedient lure of law-and-order politics.

scholarly journals The formation of the Ulster Home Guard

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (158) ◽  
pp. 230-246
Author(s):  
William Butler
Keyword(s):  
Northern Ireland ◽  
Second World War ◽  
Police Force ◽  
British Government ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
World War ◽  
British Policy ◽  
The Government ◽  
Second World

AbstractThis article explores the problems encountered in the formation of the Ulster Home Guard, supposedly a direct equivalent to its well-known British counterpart, as part of the paramilitary Ulster Special Constabulary in Northern Ireland, during the Second World War. Predictably, the Ulster Home Guard became an almost exclusively Protestant organisation which led to many accusations of sectarianism from a variety of different national and international voices. This became a real concern for the British government, as well as the army, which understandably wished to avoid any such controversy. Though assumptions had previously been made about the numbers of Catholics in the force, this article explores just how few joined the organisation throughout the war. Additionally, the article investigates the rather awkward constitutional position in which the Ulster Home Guard was placed. Under the Government of Ireland Act, the Stormont administration had no authority on matters of home defence. It did, however, have the power to raise a police force as a way to maintain law and order. Still, the Ulster Home Guard, although formed as part of the Ulster Special Constabulary, was entrusted solely with home defence and this had wider implications for British policy towards Northern Ireland throughout the Second World War.

scholarly journals Vote for justice: Should New Zealand Consider Binding Citizen-Initiated Referenda on Law and Order Policy?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lidewij Oosterhoff
Keyword(s):  
New Zealand ◽  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Political Participation ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Direct Democracy ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
The Public ◽  
Political Theories

<p>This paper examines the origins, benefits and pitfalls of the Citizen Initiated Referenda Act 1993, focusing on the non-binding justice-based referendum question put to the public in 1999. Citizen Initiated Referenda find their roots within the ideas of public participation in government, or direct democracy. This paper examines the philosophical and political theories – both in favour and against direct democracy – in order to canvas opinions relating to political participation. This is used as a basis to assess whether New Zealand should consider holding binding referenda on criminal justice related issues.</p>

scholarly journals Að halda uppi lögum og reglum: Saga og orðmyndun orðsins lögregla

Orð og tunga ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 20 ◽  
pp. 105-120
Author(s):  
Matteo Tarsi
Keyword(s):  
19Th Century ◽  
Interesting Case ◽  
Word Formation ◽  
Lexical Item ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
General Meaning ◽  
The 19Th Century

This article deals with the history and word formation of the Icelandic word for ‘police’, i.e. lögregla. The word constitutes an interesting case of word formation in that said lexeme is a dvandva compound whose creation is related to the expression að halda uppi lögum og reglu ‘to maintain law and order’. Moreover, it is argued that the word has arisen in the wake of the Icelandic purist movement in the first half of the 19th century, and that its creator is Konráð Gíslason, who was at the time a member of the Icelandic Literary Society (Hið íslenzka bókmenntafélag) and editor of the journal Fjölnir. According to the sources, the word, lögregla, cannot have been formed as an independent lexical item. In fact, the word appears first in a compound with maður‘man’, meaning ‘policeman’ or, more precisely, ‘a man who is in charge of maintaining law and order’. It is argued that lögregla has in fact been created in order to gradually substitute the Danish loanword pólití, first in compounds such as pólitímaður and pólitíþjónn ‘policeman’, and then as a single lexeme. The Danish loanword pólití had a twofold meaning: ‘policeman’ and ‘police’. Moreover, it is argued that lögregla, as an unbound lexeme, was initially a shortened form for lögreglumaður, and later assumed the general meaning ‘police force’ by means of synecdoche (pars pro toto).

American Prosecutors as Principals and Agents

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Brett Curry ◽  
Banks Miller
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Decisive Role ◽  
Law And Order ◽  
Public Defenders ◽  
District Attorneys ◽  
The People ◽  
Correctional Systems ◽  
Legislative Changes

The pervasiveness of their influence arguably makes prosecutors the most consequential actors in the American criminal justice system. Armed with discretion over which cases to pursue, what charges to file, and which issue areas to prioritize, prosecutors play a decisive role in determining what progresses from investigation to the courtroom. It is their charge to do justice in each case, but that obligation hardly forecloses the influence of politics on their decisions. Despite their centrality, however, prosecutors and their behavior have failed to garner even a fraction of the attention that scholars have directed toward law enforcement, correctional systems, or judges. The discretion of American prosecutors is theoretically immense; there are few formal constraints upon it. If a federal or state prosecutor declines to pursue a case that has been referred to him or her, that declination decision is essentially immune from judicial review. But these formalisms come with more practical limitations. At the federal level, United States Attorneys are appointed by the president and, therefore, are expected to carry out an administration’s general policy priorities. In the states, most district attorneys answer to the electorate, which imposes its own constraints on a prosecutor’s freedom of action. Chief prosecutors—state and federal—are simultaneously principals to their subordinates and agents of the people or the president. If those considerations were not enough, American prosecutors must be mindful of still other factors. How might their actions today impact their future career paths? What influence might legislative changes, public opinion, or judicial rulings have on how they operate? Scholarship on prosecutors has addressed some of these questions, but we still lack a good understanding of all the ways in which politics infects prosecutorial decision-making. As “progressive prosecutors”—many who are former public defenders—continue to win office, new questions will arise about how far prosecutors can push reform of the criminal justice system. A major looming question is how voters conditioned to law-and-order rhetoric will evaluate the new prosecutors. Some preliminary work shows that non-White prosecutors tend to reduce rates of incarceration, while Republican-affiliated prosecutors increase them.

scholarly journals Putting Coercive Control into Practice: Problems and Possibilities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlotte Barlow ◽  
Kelly Johnson ◽  
Sandra Walklate ◽  
Les Humphreys
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Empirical Investigation ◽  
Police Force ◽  
Criminal Justice Policy ◽  
Coercive Control ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Justice Process ◽  
Criminal Justice Process ◽  
Patterns Of Abuse ◽  
And Training

Abstract There is growing international interest in translating Stark’s concept of coercive control into criminal justice policy and practice. In December 2015 an offence of coercive control was introduced in England and Wales. This paper offers an empirical investigation of the problems and possibilities associated with the translation of this offence into practice in one police force area in England. The findings offer some scope for optimism in response to patterns of abuse, but they also support the view that the current gender-neutral version of the legislation requires revision; there is a need for greater resourcing and training to improve understandings of the nature and impact of coercive control at all points of contact within the criminal justice process and finally, it remains the case that effective responses to domestic abuse need to be genuinely holistic.

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