The Criminal Process continues to provides a reflective, contextualized consideration of doctrinal, practical, and normative issues in criminal processes and procedures. The text draws on arguments from the law, research, policy, and principle, to present an overview of this area of study. It focuses on England and Wales, with occasional comparative references. The book includes new coverage of contemporary issues, such as the disclosure of evidence in criminal trials and the treatment of victims, and on diversity and discrimination within the criminal justice process. Further reading suggestions and discussion questions are included at the end of each chapter.
Chapter
14. Criminal process values
This chapter reflects upon the values that appear to dominate the English criminal process, the values that ought to dominate it, and how change might be brought about, in the context of austerity and diminishing resource allocation for both economic and ideological reasons. Specifically, it considers the avoidance of criminal trials, as well as the principled approach to criminal justice. The purpose of the criminal process is to bring about accurate determinations through fair procedures. The approach therefore emphasizes various rights and principles that ought to be safeguarded. The chapter then covers discrimination and non-discrimination, as well as promoting the principled approach.
Chapter
10. Punishment and rehabilitation in the community
This chapter reviews the main options available to the sentencing court which do not entail immediate custody. It therefore deals with community orders as well as suspended prison sentences (see Chapter 7, section 7.5 for financial penalties). It discusses the tensions between imposing proportionate punishment and delivering rehabilitation programmes. It examines the policy aim of reducing reoffending through specifying in court orders requirements to control and rehabilitate the offender in the community, and discusses the theory and practice of rehabilitation that underpins these initiatives. However, because punishment and rehabilitation also take place in the community for those released from prison, this chapter examines supervision for prisoners released on licence. The chapter, therefore, covers the policy changes in relation to the work and remit of the Probation Service.
Chapter
15. Ethnicities, racism, crime, and criminal justice
Coretta Phillips, Ben Bowling, and Alpa Parmar
Offending, victimization, policing, the work of the courts, and imprisonment are patterned by differences between different ethnic groups. This chapter explores these long-standing patterns and critically examines the reasons for the often uneasy and conflictual relationship between minority ethnic groups and agents of the criminal justice system. It also interrogates new manifestations of ethnic patterns in crime and the administration of justice, particularly those linked to the global issues of controlling migration and terrorism. Finally, the chapter considers how criminological scholarship has developed in this subfield of race, ethnicity, and crime.
Chapter
9. Mental health, mental disabilities, and crime
Ailbhe O’Loughlin and Jill Peay
What is the nature of the relationship between mental disability and crime? This chapter examines its nature, scope, direction, and implications for the study of criminology. Its early sections critically assess issues of definition, causation, and of the success of treatment interventions. Its latter part reviews developments in policy and the emerging blurring of risk-oriented and therapeutic objectives. It concludes by urging a more sophisticated and less discriminatory approach to the field, which does not focus on diagnoses but rather on a holistic understanding of the relationship between people and crime.
Chapter
6. A fair cop? Policing and social justice
Benjamin Bowling, Robert Reiner, and James Sheptycki
This chapter examines fairness in policing with reference to issues of race and gender. It first defines the terms of debate—justice, fairness, discrimination—then considers individual, cultural, institutional, and structural theories and applies these to various aspects of policing. It considers the histories of police discrimination in relation to the policing of poverty, chattel slavery, racial segregation, colonialism, religious conflict, and ethnic minority communities, to understand their contemporary legacy. The chapter then examines spheres of police activity where allegations of unfairness and discrimination are particularly salient, including the response to women crime victims of rape and domestic violence, the use of ‘racial profiling’ in stop and search powers, and the use of deadly force. It examines the experiences of people from ethnic minorities, women, gay men, and lesbians within police forces. Through an exploration of the historical and contemporary literature, the chapter draws conclusions on whether or not the police act fairly in democratic societies.
