Suchergebnisse

The aim of this paper is to illustrate how recent criminal justice legislation, policy and practice have conspired to hinder the development of a common approach to the sentencing of sex offenders between the courts and the prison and probation services. In consequence, the treatment needs of sentenced sex offenders have been subsumed to the wider goals of system objectives and political agendas. A number of suggestions are made for improving coherence and continuity in both policy and practice.

AbstractThe punitive turn in criminal justice policy, epitomized by policies like three‐strikes, truth in sentencing, and mandatory minimums, is often attributed in part to demand for harsher criminal justice responses from an increasingly punitive public. It has been argued that public opinion, known to be both largely uninformed and often misunderstood, might both indirectly and directly affect policy. This survey article on punitiveness in public opinion opens with a discussion of competing depictions of the nature of the relationship between a punitive public and increasingly punitive criminal justice policies. The article then focuses on some of the most influential explanations for variations in punitiveness within individuals and across groups. A review of what we know about public attitudes toward punishment and a brief explanation of how we know what we know (e.g. the methodologies by which we gauge public opinion) follow. The article concludes with the observation that as methodologies continue to improve and the literature in this area continues to grow, so too does our understanding of punitive public opinion in all of its complexity.

This article provides an in-depth case study analysis of a pilot project organized by the section "Strategic Analysis" of the Belgian Federal Police. Using the Delphi method, which is a judgmental forecasting technique, a panel of experts was questioned about future developments of crime, based on their expertise in criminal or social trends. The results demonstrate how police authorities could implement judgmental forecasting methods like Delphi methodology for the anticipation of future criminal trends, and how this technique, applied under specific conditions, can complement current crime analysis techniques. This article will not focus on criminal trends that were forecasted in the pilot project, but on the preconditions for using the Delphi method in criminal justice policy. Hence, this article could contribute to future applications of judgmental forecasting techniques by practitioners in both criminal justice systems and other policy domains.

In this Article I rely on the public policy concept of "policy transfer" to examine the impact of U.S. legislation, litigation, and politics on the Israeli criminal justice landscape. The Article identifies four eras: 1. The Great Light from the West - the ascent of U.S. criminal justice as British influence fades; 2. The Decade of Rights - a misperception of America as a paragon of criminal justice rights and protections that results in influences on Israeli jurisprudence; 3. The Law-and-Order Enchantment Period - a time at which Israeli scholars and policymakers import punitive trends from the U.S., particularly in the area of innovation in policing and victims' rights; and 4. The Era of Contention - a time at which Israeli scholars and policymakers bring with them critical perspectives on the U.S. and Israeli policy begins to question, and deviate from, its American counterpart. I conclude that changing patterns of elite networking can explain why Israel, initially in thrall to what it perceived as a paragon of civil rights, eventually parted ways with the U.S. as a source of influence: the emergence of a class of academics, public defenders, and policymakers educated in the U.S. and conversant in American criminological literature critical of the punitive turn and mass incarceration brought about informed critiques of the American model and led to a "sobering up" of the Israeli policymaking world. The Article proceeds to explain the relationship between the two countries through the framework of American Political Development. Following Malcolm Feeley's analysis, the Article finds that both countries – self-defining as "developed" – actually exhibit features of developing countries in the context of criminal justice: high levels of interpersonal violence and intolerance, a constant problem of police overreach, a legacy of racism and exclusion, high availability of weapons, and political corruption. This might explain Israel's fascination with American criminal justice not as an inspiration, but as cultural recognition of the similarities between the countries.