By the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights
This report examines current approaches to reforming the pre-trial and bail systems in the U.S. criminal justice system. The report reveals that between 1970 and 2015, there was a 433% increase in the number of individuals who have been detained pre-trial, and pre-trial detainees represent a larger proportion of the total incarcerated population.
Washington, DC: The Commission, 2022. 281p.
By Joanna Carraway Vitiello
This book examines the administration of justice in the small northern Italian town of Reggio Emilia at the end of the fourteenth century. Through an examination of material from the judicial archives from the period 1371-1409, this study investigates the development of public justice, inquisition procedure, and dispute resolution in late medieval Reggio Emilia, also incorporating comparative material, especially archival material from Bologna at the end of the fourteenth century. This study seeks to add to the discussion on dispute resolution and court processes in late medieval Europe, moving the discussion outside the major urban centers of late medieval Italy to the periphery of urban life.
Leiden, Boston: Brill, 2016. 232p.
Edited by Denise Meyerson, Catriona Mackenzie, and Therese MacDermott
This book bridges a scholarly divide between empirical and normative theorizing about procedural justice in the context of relations of power between citizens and the state. Empirical research establishes that people’s understanding of procedural justice is shaped by relational factors. A central premise of this volume is that this research is significant but needs to be complemented by normative theorizing that draws on relational theories of ethics and justice to explain the moral significance of procedures and make normative sense of people’s concerns about relational factors. The chapters in Part 1 provide comprehensive reviews of empirical studies of procedural justice in policing, courts and prisons. Part 2 explores empirical and normative perspectives on procedural justice and legitimacy. Part 3 examines philosophical approaches to procedural justice. Part 4 considers the implications of a relational perspective for the design of procedures in a range of legal contexts.
London; New York: Routledge, 2021. 285p.
By Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research (APPR)
The pretrial system has, in recent years, become a focus of attention for governments, civil rights advocates, the media, and nonprofit organizations. Understandably so: it is the front door of the criminal legal system, and decisions made in the early stages of a criminal case have major impacts on everything that follows. As Berkeley law professor Caleb Foote wrote in 1956, “Pretrial decisions determine mostly everything.” This adage is true for individual cases: whether or not someone is detained while awaiting trial has major impacts on whether they are found guilty, whether they are sentenced to incarceration, and how long those sentences are.Unnecessary detention can also disrupt lives, leading to lost jobs and housing, family instability, and even increased likelihood of rearrest. It is also true for the system as a whole: virtually all of the growth in the U.S. jail population in the 21st century is attributable to pretrial incarceration. Housing people before trial costs county and state governments at least $14 billion annually. So, it is critical that we get pretrial decisions right. But in most of the country, the pretrial system is deeply flawed. There is an overreliance on custodial arrest instead of citations or summonses; release and detention are determined more by money than by judicial officers making intentional decisions about public safety or flight; defense counsel is not present, despite someone’s liberty being at stake; and pretrial services focus on monitoring rather than supporting people in the community. In addition, like the rest of the criminal legal system, the pretrial system suffers from systemic racism, with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) disproportionately arrested and booked, subjected to higher financial conditions of release, and more frequently detained. These practices result in many people who could safely be released remaining in jail, often for long periods. And they do not enhance—and frequently undermine—community safety and well-being. Improving the pretrial system requires a comprehensive approach; we cannot focus on a single decision point or a single agency. And the problems will not be fixed with a single solution such as an actuarial assessment tool or even the abolishment of financial conditions. Rather, we need to look at the system as a whole, involve policymakers from all agencies, and engage the community meaningfully in the improvement process.
Silver Spring, MD: Advancing Pretrial Policy and Research (APPR) , 2022. 29p.
By John D. Ciorciari and Anne Heindel
More than thirty years after the fall of the Pol Pot regime, a UN-backed tribunal, fusing Cambodian and international law, procedure, and personnel, was established to try key Khmer Rouge officials for atrocities committed in the late 1970s. In this definitive scholarly treatment of the “Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia” (ECCC) from legal and political perspectives, John D. Ciorciari and Anne Heindel examine the ECCC’s institutional features, compare it to other hybrid and international criminal courts, evaluate its operations, and draw lessons for the future. Ciorciari and Heindel begin by discussing the political factors and historical contingencies that led the United Nations and Cambodian Government to create a hybrid tribunal with a number of unique features. Next, they examine the tribunal’s operations to date, focusing on how its institutional form has affected its various intended functions. They argue that many aspects of the ECCC’s judicial proceedings have been broadly consistent with international standards and that the Court’s in-country location has provided important benefits in terms of public outreach and victim participation. Nevertheless, the authors demonstrate that the ECCC’s complex, divided institutional structure and wrangling between national and international actors have slowed the proceedings, contributed to administrative irregularities, led to due process concerns, and jeopardized the Court’s public legitimacy and ability to leave a legacy of credible justice. Ciorciari and Heindel argue that the ECCC’s experiences reveal many of the challenges of managing a mass crimes process, especially in the context of a hybrid court. They conclude with recommendations on measures that can be taken to meet some of those challenges going forward.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2014. 462p.
By Octavio Rodríguez Ferreira and David A. Shirk
This is one of a series of special reports that have been published on a semi-annual basis by Justice in Mexico since 2010 on issues related to crime and violence, judicial sector reform, and human rights in Mexico. This report examines Mexico’s progress toward implementation of the country’s "new” criminal justice system, which introduces the use of oral, adversarial proceedings and other measures to improve the handling of criminal cases in terms of efficiency, transparency, and fairness to the parties involved. This report is based on several months of research and data analysis, field observation, and active participation by the authors in the process of training law professors, law students, and attorneys in preparation for implementation of the reforms. The report provides a general background on the 2008 judicial reform initiative, and examines Mexican government efforts to implement the reforms at the federal, state, and judicial district level, relying on a unique dataset and maps generated by the Justice in Mexico program based at the University of San Diego. As an additional resource, this report also contains a translation of the 2008 constitutional changes underlying the reforms. Ultimately, the authors find that there has been significant progress toward the implementation of the new criminal justice system, and offer recommendations to assist the Mexican government and international aid organizations to help Mexico sustain this progress in the years to come. This report does not represent the views or opinions of the University of San Diego or the sponsoring and supporting organizations, and the authors are solely responsible for any errors, omissions, and opinions in the report.
San Diego: Justice in Mexico, University of San Diego, 2015. 53p.
By Nancy Cortes, Octavio Rodríguez Ferreira, and David A. Shirk
Survey of Judges, Prosecutors, and Public Defenders. The Justiciabarómetro (Justice Barometer) research initiative consists of a series of studies that evaluate the perceptions and professional development of Mexican-justice-sector personnel through large-scale surveys, focus groups and interviews, and the analysis of public policy to better understand the strength, challenges, and needs of the Mexican criminal justice system. Thus far, the Justiciabarómetro has surveyed over 8,000 municipal police in six municipalities in the Guadalajara Metropolitan Zone in 2009, in Ciudad Juárez in 2011, and Tijuana in 2014. Justice in Mexico has also surveyed nearly a thousand judges, prosecutors, and public defenders in 11 Mexican states through a 2010 study and in the 2016 follow up study summarized in this report.
San Diego: Justice in Mexico, University of San Diego, 2017. 54p.Survey of Judges, Prosecutors, and Public Defenders
By Anne Le Huérou
In April 2009, a police officer, D. Yevsyukov opened fire at people in a Moscow supermarket, killing two and wounding several others. In March 2012, a young man died in custody after being raped with a champagne bottle in a police station of the city of Kazan. Soon after, the police reform, passed in March 2011, was considered as a “failure” by the newly appointed Minister of Internal Affairs Vladimir Kolokoltsev. Those two cases of police violence, far from being exceptional, are almost a part of the routine – though not always with such deadly endings - in many police precincts in Russia and comprise a growing amount of the convictions against Russia at the ECHR. These two particular episodes can serve as landmarks for what I would like to develop in this contribution, for the first played a starting point for building-up police violence and deviance issues as a public matter that further helped and pushed the State to undertake a reform, under the presidency of D Medvedev, and the second led to a kind of acknowledgement that the task was too huge, at the very moment when the coming back of V Putin as the President was sending down the issue from the political agenda. In between, very diverse, vivid and sometimes at first glance paradoxical mobilizations against police violence, corruption and misbehavior have spread all over the country. Would they be NGOs helping victims of police violence to seek justice through court, provocative performances from art-groups or people taking arms against the police, these mobilizations
Paris: University of Paris, 2016. 20p.
By Cornelia Woll
Large companies are increasingly on trial. Over the last decade, many of the world’s biggest firms have been embroiled in legal disputes over corruption charges, financial fraud, environmental damage, taxation issues or sanction violations, ending in convictions or settlements of record-breaking fines, well above the billion-dollar mark. For critics of globalization, this turn towards corporate accountability is a welcome sea-change showing that multinational companies are no longer above the law. For legal experts, the trend is noteworthy because of the extraterritorial dimensions of law enforcement, as companies are increasingly held accountable for activities independent of their nationality or the place of the activities. Indeed, the global trend required understanding the evolution of corporate criminal law enforcement in the United States in particular, where authorities have skillfully expanded its effective jurisdiction beyond its territory. This paper traces the evolution of corporate prosecutions in the United States. Analyzing federal prosecution data, it then shows that foreign firms are more likely to pay a fine, which is on average 6,6 times larger.
Frankfurt a. M: Goethe University, Center for Advanced Studies on the Foundations of Law and Finance (LawFin), 2022. 38p.
By Paul Rexton Kan . Bruce E. Bechtol, Jr. and Robert M. Collins
North Koreas criminal conduct-smuggling, trafficking, and counterfeiting - is well known, but the organization directing it is understudied or overlooked. Policymakers, military leaders, and scholars may feel that they have a reasonable grasp on how and why North Korea is actively involved in criminal enterprises. However, unlike the other remaining communist states orphaned after the Cold War, or ordinary corrupt autocratic regimes, or criminally linked warlords and insurgent groups, North Korea practices a form of criminal sovereignty that is unique in the contemporary international security arena. North Korea uses state sovereignty to protect itself from external interference in its domestic affairs while dedicating a portion of its government to carrying out illicit international activities in defiance of international law and the domestic laws of numerous other nations. The proceeds of these activities are then used in a number of ways to sustain North Koreas existence and to enable other policies. For example, criminal proceeds are distributed to members of the North Korean elite including senior officers of the armed forces are used to support Kim Jong-ils personal life style and are invested in its military apparatus
Carlisle, PA: U.S. Army War College Press, 2010. 44p.
By Alexander Brown.
A Philosophical Examination. Hate speech law can be found throughout the world. But it is also the subject of numerous principled arguments, both for and against. These principles invoke a host of morally relevant features (e.g., liberty, health, autonomy, security, non-subordination, the absence of oppression, human dignity, the discovery of truth, the acquisition of knowledge, self-realization, human excellence, civic dignity, cultural diversity and choice, recognition of cultural identity, intercultural dialogue, participation in democratic self-government, being subject only to legitimate rule) and practical considerations (e.g., efficacy, the least restrictive alternative, chilling effects). The book develops and then critically examines these various principled arguments. It also attempts to de-homogenize hate speech law into different clusters of laws/regulations/codes that constrain uses of hate speech, so as to facilitate a more nuanced examination of the principled arguments.
New York; London: Routledge, 2015. 379p.
By David Lammy
Across England and Wales, people from minority ethnic backgrounds are breaking through barriers. More students from Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic (BAME) backgrounds are achieving in school and going to university.1 There is a growing BAME middle class.2 Powerful, high-profile institutions, like the House of Commons, are slowly becoming more diverse.3 Yet our justice system bucks the trend. Those who are charged, tried and punished are still disproportionately likely to come from minority communities. Despite making up just 14% of the population, BAME men and women make up 25% of prisoners,4 while over 40% of young people in custody are from BAME backgrounds. If our prison population reflected the make-up of England and Wales, we would have over 9,000 fewer people in prison5 – the equivalent of 12 average-sized prisons.6 There is greater disproportionality in the number of Black people in prisons here than in the United States.7 These disproportionate numbers represent wasted lives, a source of anger and mistrust and a significant cost to the taxpayer. The economic cost of BAME overrepresentation in our courts, prisons and Probation Service is estimated to be £309 million a year.8 This report is the product of an independent review, commissioned by two Prime Ministers.9 The review was established to ‘make recommendations for improvement with the ultimate aim of reducing the proportion of BAME offenders in the criminal justice system’.10 It reflects a growing sense of urgency, across party-political lines, to find solutions to this inequity
London: Ministry of Justice, 2017. 108p.
Michael Naughton.
This thesis explores the ways in which miscarriages of England and Wales' criminal justice system (CJS) are currently defined, quantified, constructed and deployed. Presented in two parts, the first identifies and argues against the pervasive but problematical tendency to conceive miscarriages of justice as exceptional occurrences, that are small in number, and that result from post-appeal procedures once existing appeal opportunities have been exhausted. In fact, the evidence is that a successful appeal against criminal conviction forms a routine and mundane procedure of criminal justice in England and Wales. This indicates a need both to re-orientate definitions and understandings of miscarriages of justice and to re-calculate the likely scale of the phenomenon, an attempt at which is then offered. The second part of the thesis involves a broader plane of analysis, examining a range of discourses which articulate challenges to, or reforms of, the CJS, with respect to miscarriages. In so doing, a critique is developed to show that counter-discourses against miscarriages of justice are hindered by their problematic definition and the consequential calculation of miscarriages as a small-scale statistical phenomenon. They also labour under a misconception of the relations of power in the sphere of criminal justice. This severely diminishes the potential force of critical counter-discourse in the existing terrain. As a possible way out of this malaise, a Foucauldian-inspired understanding of the inter-relations of power, knowledge and `governmentality' is brought into dialogue with the emerging zemiological perspective, which seeks a more holistic appraisal of the harmful consequences of social and political decisions in the interests of social justice. The critical and reconstructive moves that I recommend enable miscarriages of justice to be thought about in new ways and to help assess what is to count as effective counter-discourse. The thesis, then, represents a determined effort to re-orientate our understanding of miscarriages of justice by moving away from `exceptional ism'. This encourages new ways of defining and quantifying miscarriages of justice and new ways of developing theoretical resources. The ultimate point of the thesis is to contribute towards the production of more effective counter discourses that might achieve lasting practical change in this area of social regulation.
Brighton, UK: University of Bristol, 2003. 313p.
By Jamie K. Taylor.
Throughout the Middle Ages, witnessing was a crucial way religious and legal “truths” were understood and produced. Religious and secular officials alike harnessed the power of testimony to assert doctrinal, political, or legal responsibilities. Swearing an oath, testifying in court, and signing a deposition were common ways to shape and discipline both devotional and legal communities. In Fictions of Evidence: Witnessing, Literature, and Community in the Late Middle Ages, Jamie K. Taylor traces depictions of witnessing in a wide range of late medieval texts and shows how witnessing practices formed and reformed, policed and challenged medieval communities. Through close study of texts like the Man of Law’s Tale and Piers Plowman alongside sermon exempla, common law statutes, and pastoral treatises, Fictions of Evidence argues that devotional and legal witnessing practices offered medieval writers a distinct vocabulary they could use to expose how the ethical and legal obligations to one’s community were constructed. And since vernacular writers often challenged the ways ecclesiastical or secular authorities asserted community bonds, they found they could use those same witnessing practices and language to imagine extra-legal or extra-ecclesiastical communities that followed different ethical codes.
Columbus, OH: Ohio State University Press, 2013. 232p
By Julia Gebhard.
Recourse to Human Rights in Substantive International Criminal Law. What are chances and challenges of referring to human rights law in defining crimes under international law? Under what circumstances is a reference to human rights law dogmatically appropriate and practically likely? The answers to these questions are explored through a look at the theoretical framework, practical application in jurisprudence as well as empirically through interviews with judges. By highlighting the common roots and the differences between both areas of law, the existing inconsistencies in the application of the law, as well as approaches which could contribute to their solution, the book presents a crucial contribution to the debate on legal certainty and innovation in international criminal law.
Baden-Baden, Germany Nomos Verlagsgesellschaft mbH & Co. KG, 2018. 296p.
Edited by J. Jrpa Dawuni.
Selected Studies. Women judges are playing increasingly prominent roles in many African judiciaries, yet there remains very little comparative research on the subject. Drawing on extensive cross-national data and theoretical and empirical analysis, this book provides a timely and broad-ranging assessment of gender and judging in African judiciaries. Employing different theoretical approaches, the book investigates how women have fared within domestic African judiciaries as both actors and litigants. It explores how women negotiate multiple hierarchies to access the judiciary, and how gender-related issues are handled in courts. The chapters in the book provide policy, theoretical and practical prescriptions to the challenges identified, and offer recommendations for the future directions of gender and judging in the post-COVID-19 era, including the role of technology, artificial intelligence, social media, and institutional transformations that can help promote women’s rights. Bringing together specific cases from Kenya, Uganda, Ghana, Nigeria, Zambia, Tanzania, and South Africa and regional bodies such as ECOWAS and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, and covering a broad range of thematic reflections, this book will be of interest to scholars, students, and practitioners of African law, judicial politics, judicial training, and gender studies. It will also be useful to bilateral and multilateral donor institutions financing gender-sensitive judicial reform programs, particularly in Africa.
London; New York: Routledge, 2022. 346p.
By Michael Geist.
Years of surveillance-related leaks from US whistleblower Edward Snowden have fuelled an international debate over privacy, spying, and Internet surveillance. Much of the focus has centered on the role of the US National Security Agency, yet there is an important Canadian side to the story. The Communications Security Establishment, the Canadian counterpart to the NSA, has played an active role in surveillance activities both at home and abroad, raising a host of challenging legal and policy questions. With contributions by leading experts in the field, Law, Privacy and Surveillance in Canada in the Post-Snowden Era is the right book at the right time: From the effectiveness of accountability and oversight programs to the legal issues raised by metadata collection to the privacy challenges surrounding new technologies, this book explores current issues torn from the headlines with a uniquely Canadian perspective.
Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 2015. 298p.
Edited by Élodie Sellier and Anne Weyembergh.
This book examines to what extent differences between national and procedural criminal laws hinder the negotiations and the operation of cross-border cooperation instruments. It is based on a comparative analysis of a representative sample of Member States.
Brussels: Editions de l'Université de Bruxelles, 2020. 463p.
By Hugo Munsterberg.
A pioneering treatise of applied psychology that examines the mind of the witness on the witness stand, noting that the field was (at that time) “absurdly neglected.” Topics ranged from the memory of the witness, detection of crime, untrue confessions, hypnotism and prevention of crime.
Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. (1908) 269 pages.
By Joanna Carraway Vitiello.
Reggio Emilia in the Visconti Age. “Medieval public justice was characterized by its inherent tensions: tensions between a system designed for crime control and a society accustomed to self-help, and tensions between an ideal of public justice and a culture of private retribution. Criminal jurisdiction served as a primary marker of political authority, and the late medieval criminal court became a nexus of power at many levels—signorial, communal, and judicial. It was also a place where the lives of people from all walks of life came into direct contact with the results of the high medieval legal revolution, which yielded inquisition procedure. In the late middle ages, the dynamic created by these fundamental tensions would transform the history of criminal justice.”
Brill (2016) 232p.
