By BARRY VAUGHAN

The problem of policing is often portrayed as providing sufficient personnel to sate demand. Pluralism, however, complicates the issue since the public disagree among themselves over which activities or individuals should be policed. In turn, police priorities may differ from these demands, inciting public discontent. In these circumstances, how can public policing sustain its legitimacy? Lessons can be learnt from how political theories have grappled with pluralism and legitimacy. This article analyses how three major political theorists, John Rawls, Michael Walzer and Friedrich Hayek, dealt with these issues. It mines their insights to nominate the principle of non- domination, defined as freedom from interference on an arbitrary basis, as best suited to justify policing in an era of pluralism.

Vol. 11(3): 347–366; 1362–4806

By Scottish Government, Cabinet Secretary for Justice and Home Affairs

Although many countries have now introduced domestic homicide reviews, there remains little evidence on their effectiveness in creating system change and improving organisational practice. Taking the learning forward from reviews and ensuring recommendations are implemented is of crucial importance and at the very core of the purpose of the process, yet there is little evidence of how and whether this works in practice. A lack of evaluation of the effectiveness of domestic homicide reviews internationally makes it difficult to establish a consensus for best practice and develop a model with this in mind (Scottish Government, 2023). Still, where problems have been identified and mechanisms have been introduced to attempt to overcome these issues, we can consider these when developing a domestic homicide and suicide review (DHSR) model for Scotland. This will help to ensure that the process created does not repeat the same mistakes, and instead is constructed in a way that will enable lessons to be learned effectively from reviews. In doing so, Scotland’s model will facilitate the system changes and improvements that are the core purpose of conducting reviews, and will ensure that practitioners and victims’ families can have faith in the process and see value in their participation. This report builds on a working paper by Professor John Devaney, which introduces key points to consider for the implementation of learning from reviews to generate service improvement. This report outlines 15 aspects of good practice to be considered in the development of a domestic homicide and suicide review model for Scotland. The report then discusses the rationale behind these points in more detail, identifying existing challenges with implementing recommendations from reviews, exploring examples of good practice, and considering how to define and measure success and impact. This report was prepared by Justice Analytical Services for the DHSR Model Development Sub-Group. As the key points presented in this report have been generated at an early stage of development of the model, they are designed to be considered as general principles of good practice, and may require further refinement and deliberation as the details of the model are established. The information presented in this report is drawn from academic literature on domestic homicide reviews and other similar review processes, consideration of responses to the Scottish Government’s targeted engagement consultation, and consultation with British and international DHR experts (see Annex 1 for a description of the methodology).

Edinburgh: Scottish Government, Justice Directorate, 2024. 27p.

By Micere Keels

There is increasing pressure for the juvenile criminal legal system to address trauma; this is in response to advances in the science of trauma and adversity, evidence from interventions showing promising outcomes for juveniles coping with trauma, and development of systemic frameworks for providing trauma-informed care. This review details how exposure to potentially traumatic events can create primary, secondary, and tertiary effects that are relevant to how the criminal legal system engages with juveniles coping with trauma. Associations that could be dismissed on methodological challenges can no longer be ignored as an increasingly sophisticated body of prospective studies replicate previous cross-sectional and retrospective studies, which found a higher prevalence of trauma among system-involved juveniles and show that exposure to potentially traumatic events and trauma symptoms play causal roles in engaging in behaviors that can be classified as criminal offending. Additionally, several examples are used to illustrate how racialized exposure to systemic trauma across generations underlies racialized disparities in persistent criminal offending—over exposure to potentially traumatic events and underexposure to coping resources. A broad range of developmental and criminological research is drawn upon to provide frameworks for implementing trauma-informed care as a systemic intervention aimed at minimizing retraumatization and using every interaction that juveniles have with the criminal legal system to contribute to recovery and prevent recidivism.

Annual Review of Criminology, Volume 7, Page 329 - 355

By The Virginia Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

On February 18, 2021, the Virginia Advisory Committee (Committee) to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights (Commission) adopted a proposal to undertake a study of police oversight and accountability in the Commonwealth. The focus of the Committee’s inquiry was to examine law enforcement accountability and oversight structures in Virginia to better understand their effectiveness and impact. From a civil rights perspective, the Committee sought to consider the role such accountability structures have in ensuring equal protection of the laws and in the administration of justice, and the impact they may have on any disparities in police contact and use of force based on race, color, sex, disability, and national origin. As part of this inquiry the Committee heard testimony via video conference held in a series of eight public meetings that took place between July 2021 and May 2022.1 The following report results from a review of testimony provided at these meetings, combined with written testimony submitted during this timeframe. It begins with a brief background of the issues to be considered by the Committee. It then identifies primary findings as they emerged from this testimony. Finally, it makes recommendations that address related civil rights concerns. This report focuses on civil rights and police accountability structures in Virginia. While other important topics may have surfaced throughout the Committee’s inquiry, matters that are outside the scope of this specific civil rights mandate are left for another discussion. This report and the recommendations included within it were adopted by a unanimous vote of the Committee members present at the Committee meeting on May 31, 2023. 2

Washington, DC: USCCR, 2023. 57p.

By Delores Jones-Brown, Joshua Ruffin, Kwan-Lamar Blount-Hill, Akiv Dawson and Cicely J. Cottrell

In a five-to-four decision announced in February of 2020, the United States Supreme Court ruled that the parents of an unarmed fifteen-year-old Mexican national killed by a U.S. Border Patrol agent in a cross-border shooting, cannot sue for damages in U.S. civil court. Here, we critique the majority and dissenting opinions and attempt to reconcile the strikingly different approach each used to resolve the case. Using a publicly available data set, we examine the homicide in Hernández v. Mesa, against the circumstances and context in which underage youth were killed by police within the United States over a five year period before, during and after the death of Michael Brown. The circumstances of the 121 cases suggest a greater need for police accountability if the justice system is to remain true to the protective “child saving” ideology that launched the founding of the juvenile court.

Criminal Law Bulletin. 56(5): 833-871, 2020.

By JohannaSprenhrt and DominikBrodowski

In ever more areas, it becomes evident that the transformative power of information technology – and so-called ‘artificial intelligence’ in particular – affects the administration of criminal justice in Germany. The legal framing of issues relating to the use of ‘AI technology’ in criminal justice lags behind, however, and is of high complexity: In particular, it needs to take the European framework into account, and has to cope with the German peculiarity that the prevention of crimes by the police is a separate branch of law, which is regulated mostly at the ‘Länder’ (federal states) level, while criminal justice is regulated mostly on the federal level. In this report, we shed light on the practice, on legal discussions, and on current initiatives relating to ‘predictive policing’ (1.), ‘predictive justice’ (2.) as well as evidence law and the use of ‘artificial intelligence’ in the administration of criminal justice (3.) in Germany

e-Revue Internationale de Droit Pénal .2023. 57p.