This chapter explores the intersection between criminology and transitional justice. The chapter begins with a critical discussion on the utility of criminological scholarship from settled democracies to the exceptional circumstances of post-conflict or post-authoritarian societies. It then explores a range of debates related to the punishment of offenders in such contexts including the role of prosecutions, amnesties, the reintegration of former combatants, and the role of restorative justice. The chapter next considers the social and political construction of victimhood in transitional contexts including competing notions of the ‘idealized’ victim. The relationship between transitional justice and social control is then examined including the importance of countering denial, the relationship between deviance and memory and the particular contribution of efforts ‘from below’ to counter elites-level narratives on past abuses. The chapter concludes that a criminology of transitional justice provides the basis for revisiting some of the foundational questions on responding to crime and justice in the most challenging of settings—a sobering but intellectually rich research agenda for years to come.
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17. Criminology and transitional justice
Kieran McEvoy, Ron Dudai, and Cheryl Lawther
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34. Punishment, victimhood, and social control: towards a criminology of transitional justice
Kieran McEvoy, Ron Dudai, and Cheryl Lawther
This chapter explores the intersection between criminology and transitional justice. It explores a range of debates related to the punishment of offenders in the circumstances of post-conflict or post-authoritarian societies, including the role of prosecutions, amnesties, the reintegration of former combatants, and the role of restorative justice. The chapter next considers the social and political construction of victimhood in transitional contexts including competing notions of the ‘idealized’ victim. The relationship between transitional justice and social control is then examined including the importance of countering denial, the relationship between deviance and memory and the particular contribution of efforts ‘from below’ to counter elites-level narratives on past abuses. The chapter concludes that a criminology of transitional justice provides the basis for revisiting some of the foundational questions on responding to crime and justice in the most challenging of settings—a sobering but intellectually rich research agenda for years to come.
Chapter
7. Impact on victims and offenders
This chapter begins by examining the increased policy focus on victims of crime and their more recent involvement in the sentencing process via victim impact statements. It reviews changes in sentencing law which have aimed to ensure the offender does not profit from crime—such as confiscation orders—and that the offender pays financial compensation to the victim. Secondly, it discusses conflicting approaches to a focus on the impact of a sentence on the offender or the offender’s family, covering justifications from penology and evidence—from research and appellate cases—of practice in the courts. This includes discussion of the role of personal mitigation in retributivist and utilitarian sentencing and the influence it may have on the outcome for less serious cases.
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29. Domestic violence
David Gadd
This chapter outlines the key definitional and aetiological issues surrounding domestic violence perpetration. It begins with international estimates of the prevalence of domestic violence, many of which confine themselves to assessments of the percentage of women worldwide who have ever been physically or sexually assaulted by a partner. The second section of the chapter reviews the British historical literature to show how Victorian concern with the protection of respectable women from ‘wife-beaters’ yielded to a medical-psychiatric discourse that blamed hysterical women for provoking men with quick tempers. It then outlines how twentieth-century feminist accounts reframed the problem of ‘wife-beating’ variously in terms of ‘domestic violence’, ‘domestic abuse’, ‘intimate partner violence’, ‘coercive control’, and ‘gender-based violence’ in efforts that exposed the roles of sexism, inadequate legal protection, and gender inequality in perpetuating a ‘continuum’ of abuse against women under patriarchy. The third part of the chapter appraises the critique of gender-based perspectives provided by: psychological studies, some of which point to ‘gender symmetry’ in the perpetration of domestic violence and some of which reveal personality differences between perpetrators and non-violent men; and sociological studies that expose how the intersections between gender and ethnicity, sexuality and age manifest themselves, both in incidents of domestic violence and in official reactions to them. The chapter concludes by pointing to the challenge of finding a common voice capable of capturing the collective experiences of those in need of protection from domestic violence as well as the need to find ways of responding to perpetrators whose attitudes, motives, backgrounds are not necessarily identical to each other. These challenges are rendered more acute when the law is revealed as unpredictable in its capacity to determine the culpability of the small minority of men who perpetrate grievous assaults on their partners.
Chapter
18. Domestic violence
David Gadd
This chapter outlines the key definitional and aetiological issues surrounding domestic violence perpetration. It begins with a discussion of how the COVID-19 pandemic impacted on domestic abuse globally, before assessing international estimates of the percentage of women worldwide who have ever been physically or sexually assaulted by a partner. The second section of the chapter reviews the British historical literature to show how Victorian concern with the protection of respectable women from ‘wife-beaters’ yielded to a medical-psychiatric discourse that blamed hysterical women for provoking men with quick tempers. It then outlines how twentieth-century feminist accounts reframed the problem of ‘wife-beating’ variously in terms of ‘domestic violence’, ‘domestic abuse’, ‘intimate partner violence’, ‘coercive control’, and ‘gender-based violence’ in efforts that exposed the roles of sexism, inadequate legal protection, and gender inequality in perpetuating a ‘continuum’ of abuse against women under patriarchy. The third part of the chapter appraises the critique of gender-based perspectives provided by psychological studies, some of which point to ‘gender symmetry’ in the perpetration of domestic violence and some of which reveal personality differences between perpetrators and non-violent men; as well as sociological studies that expose how the intersections between gender and ethnicity, sexuality and age manifest themselves, both in incidents of domestic violence and in official reactions to them. The chapter concludes by pointing to the challenge of finding a common voice capable of capturing the collective experiences of those in need of protection from domestic violence as well as the need to find ways of responding to perpetrators whose attitudes, motives, backgrounds are not necessarily identical to each other. These challenges are rendered more acute when the law is revealed as unpredictable in its capacity to determine the culpability of the small minority of men who perpetrate grievous assaults on their partners.
Chapter
7. Impact on victims and offenders
This chapter reviews the increased policy focus on victims, dealing with remedies for victims of crime and more recent involvement in the sentencing process via victim impact statements as well as discussing the impact of punishment on offenders. Ways of reducing the impact of crime on the victim are considered, including compensation, and confiscation, restitution and forfeiture as well as focusing on the Victims Code and the victim’s surcharge. Conflicting approaches to the impact of punishment on the offender or the offender’s family, including financial penalties, are considered. This discussion covers justifications from penology and evidence—from research and appellate cases—of practice in the courts. Arguments for and against impact mitigation are examined with reference to a range of issues, including social deprivation, illness, disability, and age.
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42. Restorative justice in the twenty-first century: making emotions mainstream
Meredith Rossner
This chapter explores recent developments in restorative justice theory, research, and practice. It examines reasons why it has been challenging to define restorative justice and offers a comprehensive definition that articulates the relationship between values, processes, and outcomes. It then explores the main theoretical traditions that account for the claims of restorative justice: shame theories, procedural justice theories, and ritual theories. Following this, it reviews the empirical evidence on how offenders and victims experience restorative justice compared to court, and whether it can reduce reoffending. This chapter also discusses contemporary debates around restorative justice and punishment. It concludes by offering an assessment of the future of restorative justice.
Book
Susan Easton and Christine Piper
Sentencing and Punishment provides an accessible account of recent developments in sentencing and punishment from the standpoint of penal theories, policy aims, punishment practice, and human rights. It reviews changing ideas on what counts as ‘just’ punishment, and covers the key themes and topics studied on sentencing and punishment courses, New features of this, its fourth edition, include a focus on changes and continuities in penal and sentencing policy since 2010 as well as greater attention to sentencing guidelines and to the impact of the relevant sentencing provisions in force since the last edition, notably the Legal Aid, Sentencing and Punishment of Offenders Act 2012 and the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015. Material on dangerous offenders is also updated. In two new chapters—‘Instead of punishment?’ and ‘Impact on victims and offenders’—this edition brings together different, yet linked, areas of sentencing law and practice to provide new perspectives, and in restructured chapters on community punishment and young offenders, it focuses on such recent developments as the privatisation of the delivery of community penalties, the ‘rehabilitation revolution’, and the decreased use of custody for young offenders. This edition also gives more attention to the continuing influence of human rights law and jurisprudence and incorporates more material on the impact of the Equality Act 2010 on the treatment of different groups within the prison population. It also now includes case studies and discussion questions at the end of each chapter.
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6. Parties to crime
A person who aids, abets, counsels, or procures another to commit an offence is criminally liable and known as an ‘accessory’ (or ‘accomplice’/‘secondary party’). This chapter focuses on the distinction between accessories and principals, how accessorial liability differs from inchoate liability, the principal offender, innocent agency, the accessory’s actus reus, whether an omission is sufficient, and whether mere presence at the crime is enough. The chapter discusses the Supreme Court decision in Jogee, examining problems of ‘joint enterprise liability’, issues of terminology, the significance of the doctrine of joint enterprise in murder, and why the Supreme Court characterized it as involving a ‘wrong turn’. It examines the limited role that the plea of overwhelming supervening event might play, particularly in homicide cases. It also deals with withdrawal by an accessory before the principal offender commits the crime, victims as parties to crime, and instigation by law enforcement officers for the purpose of entrapment.
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16. Where is ‘victimology’ in an era of #MeToo?
Maria M. Ttofi, Adrian Grounds, and Lidia Puigvert
This chapter covers the field of victimology reflecting the increasing recognition of how victims experience crime and other forms of ill-treatment. Sexual abuse gained much attention recently, especially with individuals self-disclosing their personal experiences on social media platforms through the #MeToo movement. Additionally, social media platforms facilitated the new collective potential. The chapter clarifies that victimology is centrally concerned with the understanding of the experience of suffering that recognizes antecedents and risk factors for offending identified in longitudinal studies. The possibility of suffering provides an integrative concept for criminology that correlates to the notions of victimization, offending, and the operation of criminal justice.
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33. Restorative justice in the twenty-first century: Making emotions mainstream
Meredith Rossner
This chapter explores recent developments in restorative justice theory, research, and practice. It examines reasons why it has been challenging to define restorative justice and offers a definition that articulates the relationship between values, processes, and outcomes. It then explores the main theoretical traditions that seek to explain how and why restorative justice ‘works’ as a response to crime: shame theories, procedural justice theories, and ritual theories. Following this, it reviews the empirical evidence on how offenders and victims experience restorative justice compared to court, and whether it can reduce reoffending. It concludes by surveying select debates and tensions that arise as the practice continues to evolve.
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1. The aims and values of ‘criminal justice’
This chapter discusses the nature, structure, values and objectives of ‘criminal justice’, together with recent trends, primarily in England and Wales. This includes examining the concepts of guilt and innocence, and the difficulty of ‘proving’ either in many cases; the adversarial nature of the Anglo-American system, contrasted with the inquisitorial approaches that traditionally underpin ‘European’ systems; and the analytical tools of ‘crime control’ and ‘due process’. The importance, and limitation, of the human rights approach in criminal justice is discussed, along with the increasing influences of managerialism and neoliberalism. The chapter then looks at how victims are catered for in these various approaches. It concludes that human rights provide only a bare minimum of protection for suspects and victims alike, and that the system is more exclusionary than inclusionary. Thus a new theoretical framework is proposed that is centred on ‘freedom’, which would prioritise three ‘core values’: justice, democracy and efficiency.
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6. Parties to crime
David Ormerod and Karl Laird
A person who aids, abets, counsels or procures another to commit an offence is criminally liable and known as an ‘accessory’ or a ‘secondary party’. This chapter focuses on the basis of their liability, the distinction between accessories and principals, how secondary liability differs from inchoate liability, the principal offender, innocent agency, the accessory’s actus reus, whether an omission is sufficient and whether mere presence at the crime is enough. The chapter discusses the Supreme Court decision in Jogee, examining problems of ‘joint enterprise liability’, issues of terminology, the significance of the doctrine of joint enterprise in murder and why the Supreme Court characterized it as involving a ‘wrong turn’. It also deals with withdrawal by a secondary party before the principal offender commits the crime, victims as parties to crime and instigation by law enforcement officers for the purpose of entrapment.
Book
Susan Easton and Christine Piper
This book reviews the philosophical principles which underpin penal policy, sentencing and punishment, as well as examining the practical consequences of the legal principles enshrined in English law with an analysis of imprisonment and community punishment. The first part of the book covers the way sentencing law and guidelines are structured and discusses in detail retributivist and utilitarian justifications for punishment, as well as the current importance of public protection from risk and danger. It also covers those offenders and victims who can be dealt with differently, notably the mentally ill and children, together with ways of dealing with the offenders and their victims using restorative justice. Finally, Part A focuses on ways in which the impact of offending on victims and offenders can be reduced. Part B of the book covers in detail conditions in prison including the impact of the pandemic and the experience of imprisonment, especially in relation to women, BAME prisoners and other groups, where equal treatment is problematic. It also focuses on punishment and rehabilitation in the community, covering the available orders and the current approaches to rehabilitation. The civil and criminal orders available for use with those under 18 years of age, are also considered, as well as the way in which rights have been used to protect children in prison.
