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Justice, Community and Civil Society: A Contested Terrain

NCJ Number
225708
Editor(s)
Joanna Shapland
Date Published
2008
Length
255 pages
Annotation
This collection of international academic literary research examines the deeply contested relation between criminal justice and its publics (communities and civil society).
Abstract
Over the last decade there has been considerable discontent about the relationship between criminal justice and its publics (communities and civil society). This has been expressed in a variety of different ways, ranging from a concern that state criminal justice has become too distant and out of touch with the concerns of ordinary people to the belief that the police have been attending to the wrong priorities, that the state has failed to reduce crime, and that people still feel a sense of insecurity. In governments’ response to these concerns throughout Europe and North America, the results have challenged the beliefs in what justice is as well as the state’s role. This book further investigates the challenged relationship between criminal justice and its publics. Written by experts from different countries, the book reveals how different the inherent cultural attitudes in relation to criminal justice are across Europe. Each chapter in the book takes up the task of describing and analyzing these contested domains of justice for a particular country. They are trends which have not previously been brought together, and have often been separate domains of criminological, criminal justice, and penal law research. The task of this book is one of making transparent for each country their understandings of justice, who should administer justice and communities’ relation to justice, and showing how these have developed in this way. Tables, references, and index