Law : Criminal Law

This book is a study of the social transformation of criminal justice, its institutions, its method of case disposition and the source of its legitimacy. Focused upon the apprehension, investigation and adjudication of indicted cases in New York City’s main trial tribunal in the nineteenth century - the Court of General Sessions - it traces the historical underpinnings of a lawyering culture which, in the first half of the nineteenth century, celebrated trial by jury as the fairest and most reliable method of case disposition and then at the middle of the century dramatically gave birth to plea bargaining, which thereafter became the dominant method of case disposition in the United States. The book demonstrates that the nature of criminal prosecutions in everyday indicted cases was transformed, from disputes between private parties resolved through a public determination of the facts and law to a private determination of the issues between the state and the individual, marked by greater police involvement in the processing of defendants and public prosecutorial discretion. As this occurred, the structural purpose of criminal courts changed - from individual to aggregate justice - as did the method and manner of their dispositions - from trials to guilty pleas. Contemporaneously, a new criminology emerged, with its origins in European jurisprudence, which was to transform the way in which crime was viewed as a social and political problem. The book, therefore, sheds light on the relationship of the method of case disposition to the means of securing social control of an underclass, in the context of the legitimation of a new social order in which the local state sought to define groups of people as well as actual offending in criminogenic terms. 'At a moment when France is poised to adopt plea bargaining, McConville and Mirsky offer the best historical account of its emergence in mid-nineteenth century America, based upon exhaustive analysis of archival data. Their more...

Price: $84.00

This volume brings together scholars and practitioners specialising in juvenile justice from the US, Europe, alongside scholars from Africa and Asia who are working on human rights issues in developing countries or countries in transition. The book thus presents two types of papers, the first being descriptive and analytical academic papers on whole systems of juvenile justice or certain parts thereof (e.g., aftercare, restorative justice, etc.). These topics are presented as essential for the development of new juvenile justice systems. The second group of papers deal with efforts to promote reform through international activity (PRI, DCI, DIHR), and through efforts to utilise modern theory in national reforms in developing countries (Malawi, Nepal, and Serbia) or in countries experiencing current or recent political and systemic changes or developments (South Africa, Germany, and Poland). The volume is also intended to throw light on recent trends in juvenile crime in various countries, the relationship between actual developments and popular and political perceptions and reactions to such developments, including the efforts to locate effective alternatives to the incarceration of young offenders. At the same time as the search for such alternatives is being intensified through international exchange and experimentation, the amelioration of harsh measures against juvenile law violators is often countered by political and public outcries for security and demonstrative public intervention against misbehavior. A streak of new moralism is clearly discernable as a counteracting force against more humane reform efforts. The volume throws light on developments in the actual parameters of juvenile offending, public and political demands for security and public intervention, and measures to provide interventions which are at the same time compatible with international human rights instruments. more...

Price: $110.00

Explains and examines the range of property offences enacted in the Theft Acts of 1968 and 1978. Starting with the offences of theft itself, the book goes on to consider offences of deception before dealing with the remaining offences. more...

Price: $50.00

This book examines legal responses to domestic violence in a holistic, systematic and integrated way.  It takes a systematic approach to examining legal responses, encompassing the full range of decision makers to analyze developments in substantive law and practice in all areas. more...

Price: $80.00

An examination of the treatment of serious violence by men against women in nineteenth-century England. During Victoria's reign the criminal law came to punish such violence more systematically and heavily, while propagating a new, more pacific ideal of manliness. Yet this apparently progressive legal development called forth strong resistance. more...

Price: $20.00