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The criminal courts have a power to stop a prosecution from proceeding altogether where it would be inappropriate for it to continue. This power to stay proceedings which constitute an abuse of the process of the court has assumed great practical significance and is potentially applicable in many situations. There is at least one consideration of the abuse of process doctrine in virtually every major criminal trial today. This fully updated second edition of Abuse of Process and Judicial Stays of Criminal Proceedings blends doctrinal discussion with a thorough consideration of the underlying theory to provide a searching analysis of the theory and practice of abuse of process in England and Wales, with comparative examinations of many other jurisdictions including the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. This edition focuses in particular upon the profound impact of the European Convention on Human Rights on the judicial discretion to stay criminal proceedings. It explores substantial amounts of important recent case law, taking into account ECHR jurisprudence and discussions in English courts of the interplay between Article 6 ECHR and abuse of process.

Criminal law has been described as a species of political and moral philosophy; whether that can be said to be true is not at all certain, but criminal law can be the subject of philosophical study. The aim of this book is to explore some of the philosophical foundations of criminal law. English and North American contributors have produced chapters for this volume.

Until quite recently it was commonplace to describe the witness as the ‘forgotten man’ in the criminal justice system. The last few years have seen a dramatic shift in thinking with an increasing recognition of the legitimate expectations and rights of witnesses within the criminal process. At the same time research has drawn attention to a host of factors that conspire to deny the courts access to the best evidence potentially available when so-called vulnerable and intimidated witnesses are called upon to testify in accordance with conventional adversarial trial procedures and methods. The official response so far embodies an approach best described as one of accommodation. Efforts have centred on improving the treatment of witnesses within the established trial framework while preserving an overall commitment to key tenets of adversarial theory. The latter include the principle of orality with its general insistence upon direct evidence and the use of cross-examination as a device for testing the credibility of witnesses. The central contribution of this book lies in its demonstration of the significant limitations of the prevailing approach, most recently manifest in the Youth Justice and Criminal Evidence Act 1999. By providing a broader theoretical framework for understanding the treatment of vulnerable witnesses it signals the need to extend the search for solutions beyond the boundaries of the paradigmatic adversarial model. Drawing upon modern psychological, socio-linguistic, and victimological study across common law jurisdictions, the book provides a critique of the special measures of the 1999 Act and of adversarial trial procedure more generally.

This book describes the collective responses of bereaved people to the aftermath of violent death, a subject not dealt with in any detail in the literature that is currently available. It concentrates particularly on the birth, development, and organization of the self-help and campaigning groups that have emerged in the last decade. The book examines these as attempts to give institutional expression to interpretations of grief, and shows us that these attempts, in their turn, are implicated in a potent phenomenology of mourning. In addition, the book had special access to a number of groups and uses the information that has been gathered through this access to discuss the practical and political importance of the work of these groups, and their affects on policing, the media and the law.

Strict liability is a controversial phenomenon in the criminal law because of its potential to convict blameless persons. Offences are said to impose strict liability when, in relation to one or more elements of the actus reus, there is no need for the prosecution to prove a corresponding mens rea or fault element. For example, in the 1986 case of Storkwain, the defendant chemists were convicted of selling controlled medicines without prescription simply upon proof that they had in fact done so. It was irrelevant that they neither knew nor had reason to suspect that the ‘prescriptions’ they fulfilled were forgeries. Thus strict liability offences have the potential to generate criminal convictions of persons who are morally innocent. This book is a collection of contributions offering a consideration of the problem of strict liability in the criminal law. The chapters, including European and Anglo-American perspectives, provide an examination of the fundamental issues. They explore the definition of strict liability; the relationship between strict liability and blame, and its implications for the requirement for culpability in criminal law; the relevance of European and human rights jurisprudence; and the interaction between substantive rules of strict liability and evidential presumptions.

What happens when public prosecutors, the most powerful officials in the criminal justice system, seek convictions instead of justice? Why are cases involving well-to-do victims often prosecuted more vigorously than those involving poor victims? Why do wealthy defendants frequently enjoy more lenient plea bargains than the disadvantaged? This book looks at the power of American prosecutors, revealing how the day-to-day practice of prosecutors can result in the unequal treatment of defendants and victims. Ranging from mandatory minimum sentencing laws that enhance prosecutorial control over the outcome of cases, to the increasing politicization of the office, the chapter uses stories of individuals caught in the system to demonstrate how the legal exercise of prosecutorial discretion can result in inequities in criminal justice. The chapter also covers recent incidents of prosecutorial abuse such as the Jena Six case, the Duke lacrosse case, and the Department of Justice firings.

The question whether assisted dying (euthanasia and assisted suicide) should be legalized is often treated, by judges and commentators alike, as a question which transcends national boundaries and diverse legal systems. One obvious example is the use made of the ‘Dutch experience’ in other jurisdictions. By treating the issue as a transcendent, global ethical question, the important context in which individual jurisdictions make decisions about assisted dying and the significance of the legal methods chosen to carry out those decisions is often lost. This book concentrates not on the issue of whether assisted dying should be legalized, but rather on the impact of the choice of a particular legal route towards legalization. Legal change on assisted dying may be achieved in a variety of ways: challenges to criminal prohibitions using constitutionally entrenched rights; the use of defences available to defendants who are prosecuted for assisting a death; legislative change; or referenda or ballot measures proposed by individual citizens or interest groups. The examination in this book of the impact of these different alternatives suggests that greater caution is needed before relying on the experience of one jurisdiction when discussing proposals for regulation of assisted dying in others, and the possible consequences of such regulation. The book seeks to demonstrate the need to explore the legal environment in which assisted dying is performed or proposed in order to evaluate the relevance of a particular legal experience to other jurisdictions.

In Britain today, if you are in the business of fighting crime, then you have to be in the business of dealing with alcohol. ‘Binge drinking’ culture is intrinsic to urban leisure and has come to pose a key threat to public order. Unsurprisingly, a struggle is occurring. Pub and club companies, local authorities, central government, the police, the judiciary, local residents, drug and alcohol campaign groups, and revellers all hold competing notions of social order in the night-time city and the appropriate uses and meanings of its public and private spaces. Bar Wars explores how official discourses of ‘partnership’ and ‘self-regulation’ belie the extent of fierce adversarial contestation between and within these groups. Located within a long tradition of urban ethnography, the book offers unique and hard-hitting analyses of social control in bars and clubs, courtroom battles between local communities and the drinks industry, and street-level policing. These issues go to the heart of contemporary debates concerning urban civility, alcohol and drugs policies, and the impacts of and justifications for new police powers introduced as part of the Licensing Act 2003 and Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006. The author's experiences as a disc jockey and as an expert witness to the licensing courts provide a unique perspective, setting his work apart from other academic commentators. Bar Wars takes the study of the ‘night-time economy’ to a new level of sophistication, making it essential reading for all those wishing to understand the policing and regulation of contemporary British cities.

This book analyses the new phenomenon of Black Police Associations (BPAs) established in the majority of constabularies in England and Wales. The author takes a sociological and theoretical approach to the subject, in contrast to current criminology, which is more evaluative and policy oriented. The analysis is underpinned with the notion that race and ethnicity are socially constructed: the book describes and analyses how race and ethnicity are constructed and sustained within constabularies, and how they have changed during the last two decades, providing a sociological perspective on understanding race within criminal-justice institutions. The book covers the history of BPAs; the construction and consequences of the notion of ‘black’ as a political emblem within constabularies; the work and influence of BPAs (nationally and within constabularies); post-McPherson policing; new forms of racism within constabularies; ethnic identities amongst ethnic-minority police officers and BPAs; and the occupational culture. By analysing the work of BPAs within constabularies, the author posits a number of implications for change within the management of constabularies.

In recent years, the expansion of night-time leisure has emerged as a key indicator of post-industrial urban prosperity, attracting investment, creating employment and re-generating the built environment. These leisure economies are youth-dominated, focusing upon the sale and consumption of alcohol. Unprecedented numbers of young people now flock to town centres that are crammed with bars, pubs and clubs, and the resulting violent disorder has over-run police resources that remain geared to the drinking patterns and alcohol cultures of previous generations. Post-industrial re-structuring has spawned an increasingly complex mass of night-time leisure options through which numerous licit and illicit commercial opportunities flow. Yet, regardless of the fashionable and romantic notions of many contemporary urban theorists, it is alcohol, mass intoxication and profit rather than ‘cultural regeneration,’ which lies at the heart of this rapidly expanding dimension of post-industrial urbanism. Private security in the bulky form of bouncers fills the void left by the public police. These men (only 7% are women), whose activities are barely regulated by the State, are dominated by a powerful subculture rooted in routine violence and intimidation. Using ethnography, participant observation and extensive interviews with all the main players, this book charts the emergence of the bouncer as one of the most graphic symbols in the iconography of post-industrial Britain.