scholarly journals The victim in the Irish criminal process: a journey from dispossession towards partial repossession

2017 ◽  
Vol 68 (4) ◽  
pp. 505-517
Author(s):  
Shane Kilcommins
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Procedural Rationality ◽  
Criminal Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
Objective Truth ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
Truth Claims ◽  
Victims Of Crime ◽  
A Site

This article has sought to examine the criminal justice system’s interactions with victims of crime. It is a relationship which has changed irrevocably over time. A significant discontinuity occurred in the nineteenth century when a new architecture of criminal and penal semiotics slowly emerged. An institutional way of knowing interpersonal conflict crystallised, one which reified system relations over personal experiences. It also emphasised new ideals and values such as proportionality, legalism, procedural rationality, equality and uniformity. New commitments, discourses and practices came to the fore in the criminal justice network. In modernity, the problem of criminal wrongdoing became a rationalised domain of action, a site which actively distrusted and excluded ‘non-objective’ truth claims. The state, the law, the accused and the public interest became the principal claims-makers within this institutional and normative arrangement, an arrangement which would dominate criminal and penal relations for the next 150 years. In the last 40 years, the victim has slowly re-emerged as a stakeholder in the criminal process.

scholarly journals After the age of criminal responsibility: a defence for children who offend

2016 ◽  
Vol 67 (3) ◽  
pp. 327-341
Author(s):  
Claire McDiarmid
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Mental Disorder ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Developmental Psychology ◽  
Criminal Responsibility ◽  
Mens Rea ◽  
Criminal Process ◽  
England And Wales ◽  
The Public

In Scotland, the age of criminal responsibility is 8, although children cannot be prosecuted until they are 12. In England and Wales, for all purposes, the age is 10. This article argues that a further mechanism is needed to protect the young who do wrong within the criminal process and it argues for a new, bespoke defence, to be available to young people from the age of criminal responsibility until they attain the age of 18. It looks firstly at criminal capacity – what it is that needs to be understood fairly to hold anyone criminally responsible – and draws on material from developmental psychology and neuro-science, as well as looking at the child’s lived experience, to provide some evidence that the young may, without fault, lack this capacity. It then examines the use of age generally in law, and the age of criminal responsibility within this. Next, it considers existing lack of capacity defences – nonage, diminished responsibility, insanity (or mental disorder) and absence of mens rea – to consider their suitability for use by young and immature defendants. Finally, it presents a proposal for the form of the new defence, taking into account the need for balance with the public interest in conviction of the guilty. Throughout, it notes and analyses the Law Commission’s proposals in this respect.

The Digital Turn

2020 ◽  
pp. 19-36
Author(s):  
Sarah Esther Lageson
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Free Speech ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Due Process ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Competing Values ◽  
Privacy Rights ◽  
Criminal Records ◽  
The Public ◽  
Criminal Justice Processing

Recent decades have witnessed a digital turn in criminal justice processing that has contributed to the creation and dissemination of millions of criminal records per year, impacting both criminal justice workers and those processed by the system. Current US law has allowed for the public dissemination of these records, emphasizing free speech and transparency over other competing values, such as due process, privacy, or liberty. The turn toward digital disclosure of criminal justice information has outpaced thoughtful discussions about balancing privacy rights and the notion of public interest that the courts have developed during the past century. It is certainly in the public interest to have access to the workings of the police, courts, and prisons—it is a fundamental way that citizens can keep an eye on these powerful institutions. However, these core transparency values are being used for a different, entrepreneurial purpose since criminal records have become a commodified good.

scholarly journals Converging Criminal Justice Systems: Guilty Pleas and the Public Interest

1997 ◽  
Vol 31 (1-3) ◽  
pp. 169-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Abraham S. Goldstein
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Criminal Procedure ◽  
Legal Systems ◽  
Prosecutorial Discretion ◽  
The Public ◽  
Formal Systems ◽  
Criminal Justice Systems ◽  
Justice Systems

It is becoming increasingly apparent to criminal justice scholars that single theory models of criminal procedure — whether termed inquisitorial or adversarial — are being stretched beyond their capacity by the phenomena they are designed to control. Virtually everywhere, formal systems of charge and adjudication cannot possibly be enforced in accordance with the premises underlying them. There are simply too many offenses, too many offenders and too few resources to deal with them all. One result has been a steady movement towards a convergence of legal systems — towards borrowing from others those institutions and practices that offer some hope of relief.In this transnational effort to cope with system overload, two issues have emerged as more than ordinarily significant: The first is the desirability of abandoning the principle of obligatory prosecution, so common in Continental Europe, and turning instead to the exercise of prosecutorial discretion. The second is the question whether the ban on guilty pleas and plea bargains should be lifted, as in adversarial systems.

A critical analysis of the anti-corruption policy of the federal executive council of Nigeria

2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 176-187 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ehi Eric Esoimeme
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Federal Government ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Critical Analysis ◽  
Task Force ◽  
Executive Council ◽  
Plea Bargain ◽  
Content Type ◽  
The Public ◽  
Financial Action Task

Purpose This paper aims to examine the anti-corruption policy of the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria, to determine whether the policy is working and/or has produced unintended effects. The Federal Executive Council is the body comprising all the Ministers of the Federation, including the President and Vice President. Design/methodology/approach The analysis took the form of a desk study, which analysed various documents and reports such as the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, 2008-2016, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended), the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (Establishment) Act, 2004, the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015, the UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, 2016, the Public Interest Disclosure and Witness Protection Bill, 2017 and the Financial Action Task Force Recommendations, 2012. Findings This paper determined that the anti-corruption policy of the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria could achieve its desired objectives if the following recommendations are implemented: research grants which are sent to Nigerian universities by international and corporate bodies should be exempted from the current treasury single account arrangement. This would enable universities to easily access the funds and disburse the same to qualified students. The Federal Government should follow the guidelines laid down in Section 270 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 for plea agreements. In other words, the prosecution should only offer a plea bargain to a person who has been charged with an offence. The prosecution should not receive and consider a plea bargain from a person who has not been charged with an offence. Any attempt to water down the effect of Section 270 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 may weaken the ongoing fight against corruption and money laundering because criminals will be encouraged to continue looting public funds. The Financial Action Task Force Recommendations (Recommendation 3) requires that criminal sanctions for natural persons convicted of money laundering should be effective, proportionate and dissuasive. The Federal Government of Nigeria should introduce a Bill to the National Assembly that would provide a clear framework for the use of investigatory powers by law enforcement, the security and intelligence agencies and other public authorities. This includes the interception of communications, the retention and acquisition of communications data, the use of equipment interference and the retention and use of bulk data by the security and intelligence agencies. The Bill must establish a number of safeguards against the arbitrary or unlawful use of investigatory powers by the executive. The UK’s Investigatory Powers Act, 2016, for example, established a number of safeguards for the retention and acquisition of communications data. Authorisations for obtaining communications data will have to set out why accessing the communications data in question is necessary in a specific investigation for a particular statutory purpose and how it is proportionate to what is sought to be achieved. A police officer who receives information from a whistleblower about money hidden in an apartment should apply to a Court or Justice of the Peace within the local limits of whose jurisdiction he/she is for the issue of a search warrant before conducting a search on the said premises. This procedure is in line with Section 143 of the Administration of Criminal Justice Act, 2015 and the Court of Appeal decision in Hassan v. E.F.C.C. (2014) I NWLR (Pt. 1389) 607 at 625. The Public Interest Disclosure and Witness Protection Bill, 2017 should be given accelerated consideration in the House of Representatives based on its urgency and significance for the Federal Executive Council’s whistleblowers policy. Research limitations/implications This paper focusses on the anti-corruption policy of the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria from 29 May 2015 to 10 June 2017. It does not address the older policies. Originality/value This paper offers a critical analysis of the new anti-corruption policy of the Federal Executive Council of Nigeria. The paper will provide recommendations on how the policy could be strengthened. This is the only paper to adopt this kind of approach.

Prosecution in France

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jacqueline Hodgson ◽  
Laurène Soubise
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Criminal Justice Policy ◽  
The Public

This essay examines the increasingly ambivalent role and status of the French prosecutor, the procureur. As a judicial officer (magistrat), she is required to act in and to uphold the public interest, but her hierarchical accountability to the executive and her role in the formation and implementation of local criminal justice policy threaten her independence, notably in the eyes of her fellow magistrats. The dominance of the executive, both politically and through the imposition of managerialist imperatives, is felt in the ever-expanding role of the procureur, especially in the local sphere. While the limited forms of legal and structural accountability in place leave the prosecutor with broad discretion, this is diminished through the drive to standardization resulting from the delegation of work to fulfill the demands of dealing with greater numbers of cases more quickly, with fewer resources.

OPTIMALISASI ASAS OPORTUNITAS PADA KEWENANGAN JAKSA GUNA MEMINIMALISIR DAMPAK PRIMUM REMEDIUM DALAM PEMIDANAAN

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 213-236
Author(s):  
Yodi Nugraha
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Justice System ◽  
Attorney General ◽  
Criminal Code ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
Public Prosecutor ◽  
Criminal Prosecution ◽  
The Public

In the Indonesian criminal justice system, every public prosecutor possesses the authority to cease criminal prosecution in the name of public interest. In contrast, in the Netherland, only the Attorney General (Procureur Generaal) at the Supreme Court has this authority.  This article discusses this authority to cease of terminate criminal prosecution in the name of public interest.  To do this a comparative approach is used in which the ruling of this authority to terminate criminal prosecution as found in the Draft of the Indonesian Criminal Code will be compared against the same regulation and policy used in the Netherlands.  A doctrinal and comparative law approach will be used. One recommendation resulting from this research is the need to re-evaluate the existing procedure and requirement of terminating criminal prosecution in the public interest in the Indonesian context and the introduction of Rechter-Commissaris into the criminal justice system.

Breaking the Carnival Mirror

2017 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 367-379
Author(s):  
Kenneth R. Culton ◽  
José A. Muñoz
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Justice System ◽  
White Collar Crime ◽  
White Collar ◽  
Street Crime ◽  
The Public ◽  
Policies And Procedures ◽  
Personal Experiences ◽  
The Rich

We present a reflexive paper assignment calling for students to report on their own family and/or personal experiences in order to answer the question, “From where does the greatest harm arise?” We find that, through the process of answering this question and sharing findings in class, students’ conception of criminality is broadened. Institutional forms of deviance and white-collar crime come to be understood as the real commonplace sources of harm while street crime is seen to be less common than typically imagined. The book The Rich Get Richer and the Poor Get Prison: Ideology, Class and Criminal Justice by Reiman and Leighton informs this assignment. The authors make the case that the criminal justice system presents to us a carnival mirror-like image of what causes the greatest harm to the society. The criminal justice system, through its policies and procedures, leads the public to conceive of only a narrow and distorted depiction of criminality. The typical crime is thought to be person to person, violent, and carried out by the typical criminal, who is assumed to be black, young, and urban. In opposition to this carnival mirror view, Reiman and Leighton explain that certain institutions cause immensely more harm than that caused by street criminality.

The Changing Prosecution Role

2020 ◽  
pp. 142-172
Author(s):  
Jacqueline S. Hodgson
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Fair Trial ◽  
Center Of Gravity ◽  
Public Prosecutor ◽  
Criminal Process ◽  
The Public ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
Procedural Values ◽  
Professional Standing

This chapter analyzes the drivers that are reshaping the prosecution service in both jurisdictions, which rest neither on adversarial nor inquisitorial procedural values, nor on broader concerns with fair trial, but on the processing of large numbers of cases with the minimum of cost and delay in order to demonstrate the effectiveness of criminal justice responses to crime. The center of gravity has shifted further toward the pretrial phase, drawing power away from the judiciary toward the public prosecutor and, in some instances, the police. This has been achieved in part through the routine delegation of work and a process of deprofessionalization, in which procedures for the treatment of cases are standardized and simplified, becoming almost automatic. This recasting of the prosecution function has implications for the independence of the prosecutor, for her autonomy and professional standing, and for the balance of legal and constitutional power in the criminal process.

Konsep Perlindungan Korban dalam Sistem Peradilan Pidana Nasional dan Sistem Hukum Pidana Islam

2019 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-48
Author(s):  
Vivi Ariyanti
Keyword(s):  
Criminal Justice ◽  
Criminal Justice System ◽  
Criminal Law ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Justice System ◽  
The State ◽  
Significant Progress ◽  
Current Position ◽  
Law System ◽  
The Public

The current position of victims in the criminal justice system has not been placed fairly, because victims in the judiciary are only represented by public prosecutors who base their charges on statutory rules and facts obtained from witnesses. This paper reviews and compares the Indonesian national criminal justice system and Islamic criminal law system in terms of protecting the rights of victims of criminal acts during and after undergoing the trial process. The study of victims in the Western criminal law system adopted by Indonesia has been so extensive and profound, that it raises its own science called victimology, which is parallel to the science of criminology. Meanwhile Islamic criminal law (al-Fiqh al-Jinayah) still refers to fiqh books written by medieval jurists, so that the study of Islamic criminal law is stagnant and without significant progress. However, both national criminal law and Islamic criminal law, in principle, emphasize that the protection of victims must be balanced between the interests of the victims themselves, the perpetrators of crime, society, the state, and the public interest.

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