Abstract
In Chapter 1, criminologist Adam Crawford, the editor of International and Comparative Criminal Justice and Urban Governance, provides a comprehensive and detailed overview of a collection of essays presented at the 2008 International and Comparative Criminal Justice and Urban Governance colloquium at the University of Leeds. Organized in three loosely connected parts that consider first the global, then the national, and then local contexts, the book includes works from 26 scholars from all around the world. The essays explore a range of interrelated topics connected by the theme, the internationalization of criminal justice; they address the reasons for and emerging questions about internationalization, as well as the intended and unintended consequences of this trend.
The first section of six chapters focuses on questions of global governance. Its central theme is the analysis of the purpose and legitimacy of the emergent and highly controversial international criminal justice system. The first essay (Cockayne, Chapter 2) introduces the topic by discussing the development, impact, and consequences of the international criminal justice system. Through examples such as the Kuwait invasion and the Bosnian war, it illustrates the shift in the UN Security Council’s responses to incidents of political violence from diplomatic fact-finding missions to interventions resembling law enforcement actions. It also depicts how these actions became professionalized and judicialized, and thus facilitated the creation of a foundation for a system of international criminal justice. This idea of a “universal system of justice” is highly contentious due to its perceived encroachment on the judicial self-governance of sovereign nations. Its legitimacy is challenged both by sovereign nations that perceive it as an instrument employed by Western powers to impose regulations that reinforce perceived injustices of existing world order (Cockayne, Chapter 2), and by the self-proclaimed “enforcer of global order,” the USA (Ralph, Chapter 3). Also questioned are the capacity of the international criminal justice institutions to address universal crimes such as genocide and crimes against humanity (Brants, Chapter 4), and the usefulness of the retributive model of justice that disregards victims’ interests (Finlay, Chapter 5). The two case studies in Chapters 5 (Finlay) and 6 (Parmentier and Weitkamp) illustrate the complex nature of international criminal justice in different historical and cultural contexts (postwar Bosnia; England and Wales).
Taking the nation as the unit of comparison, Part 2 contrasts sentencing practices and penal policies across nations. The overall message of this section is that penal systems and policies are not just anchored in the societies in which they operate, but are also interdependent with their environments. Extrasystemic economic (Cavadino and Dignan, Chapter 8), political (Lacey, Chapter 9), and cultural (Pratt, Chapter 10) values and processes are intertwined with penal policies, and without a certain degree of coupling between them, penal policies cannot be sustained.
The strength of the essays in Part 2 derives from their collective reading. Supported by rigorous methodology, each essay makes a strong contribution to advancing understanding of penal policies. The essays cover a variety of topics: the connection between political economies and the range and nature of punishment (e.g., Cavadino and Dignan); the connection between the predominant model of the welfare state and penal policies (Pratt); and the influence of cultural and structural forces mediated by political and state institutions (Lacey). However, they all serve the same purpose, which is to emphasize the complexities and multifaceted nature of the factors that shape penal policies and practices.
The third and last part of this anthology shifts attention to the micro level, more precisely, the urban dimension. This makes sense, since although global forces have multiple undeniable impacts, much policy innovation emanates from the local or regional levels. The first two chapters of this section (Aas; Walker) consider the dynamics between the national and transnational sphere, and how the internationalization of crime and punishment encroach on the power and prestige of the sovereign nations’ criminal justice systems. The concurrent and often cumulative effect of the opposing forces of globalization and “glocalization” influence the relationship between states, their publics and other stakeholders in the context of crime control (Aas, Chapter 15); specifically governments face increasing pressure from citizens (Sapland, Chapter 17). Simultaneously, governments face challenges posed by the “networked” and “nodal” governance that arises from the shifts in the state–market–civil society relations (Boutellier and van Steden, Chapter 18).
This notion of shifting and blurring boundaries between institutions and nations is further explored in Chapters 19 through 21. Crawford contributes by examining how private space policing has informed and influenced public space policing. Blandy investigates how crime prevention through environmental design increases segregation in the name of security in the contemporary urban landscape. Body-Gendrot discusses contemporary crime management in large metropolitan cities.
The concluding essay, by Valverde, fittingly addresses the issue of scale, which is a major issue in comparative criminal justice. The scale choices made by researchers (and policy makers) have significant influences on the conceptualization of crimes, as well as on their descriptions. A reflexive examination of differences in scale in the process of producing knowledge about crime and urban governance may clarify some ambiguities and confusions not only within the academy, but at policy level as well.
Scholars occasionally develop “blinders” in their efforts to thoroughly comprehend a phenomenon and to provide adequate, methodologically sound research that supports policy. This often causes us to get lodged in a paradigm and overlook the fact that traditional perceptions and boundaries are challenged every day as the intertwined global and local forces shape and reshape them constantly. Comparative criminal justice can facilitate developing new lenses and shifting paradigms. By drawing attention to the theoretical and empirical implications of new ways of defining crime, new institutional forms to address it, and the shifting and blurring of boundaries, this book achieves just that.