Comparative Criminal Justice in the Age of Globalization

Comparative Criminal Justice in the Age of Globalization

Introduction

It is clear enough that criminal conduct does not determine the kind of penal action a society adopts. It is not 'crime' or even criminological knowledge about crime which most affects policy decisions, but rather the ways in which 'the crime problem' is officially perceived and the political positions to which these perceptions give rise. Intriguingly, in the main, scholars of social and public policy have tended to ignore the area of criminal justice. Compared with, say, health, education, welfare, and culture, criminal justice has been relatively invisible. And, yet, the creation and maintenance of systems for protecting against the breakdown of internal social order is generally thought to be among the key characteristics and functions that define the modern nation state. Interestingly, just as it appears that the ability of modern states to lay claim to sovereignty in the area of globalization and order is in decline, so criminal justice and penal policy in the age of globalizations are drawing greater attention from scholars beyond the immediate confines of criminology. Indeed, it is arguably the case that those self-same social transformations that are reconfiguring our responses to criminality also help to account for the degree of attention such matters now enjoy.

This study will begin by briefly looking at historical trends in crime before moving on to look at the emergence of the modern criminal justice state. As the penal system has developed and changed so the aims of criminal justice policy have altered and the third section of the chapter looks at these changing rationales and philosophies and how they are related to broader structural processes. In recent times, in particular, it appears those broad social, cultural, political and economic processes that are often encapsulated within the term late modernity have been accompanied by a set of often quite radical shifts in the organisation and deployment of punishment and other strategies for the control of crime. In this connection, the final two sections of the chapter explore the emergence of what has been characterised as a new and harshly punitive culture of control in Britain, as well as briefly looking at some of the slightly divergent trends evident in other jurisdictions.

The Emergence of the Modern Criminal Justice System

A' for adulterer for example) were not uncommon. The stocks, the ducking stool and, for more serious offences, bodily mutilation or banishment, were also invoked. Then, finally, there was the death penalty, though, on the whole, English law was more liberal with capital punishment than colonial law. In England, men and women swung from the gallows for theft, robbery, burglary; in the colonies, this was exceptionally rare. Where it was used, the death penalty was much more common in UK, and was used most frequently on slaves.

Eighteenth-century England was characterised by increasing concerns about crime. By the mid- to late eighteenth century, crime and disorder was perceived to pose a threat to social ...