This volume brings together a collection of essays, many of them scholarly classics, which form part of the debates on three questions central to criminal law theory. The first of these questions is: what conduct should be necessary for criminal liability, and what sufficient? The answer to this question has wider implications for the debate about morality enforcement given the concern that the "harm principle" may have collapsed under its own weight. Secondly, essays address the question of what culpability should be necessary for criminal liability, and what sufficient? Here, the battles continue over whether the formulation of doctrines - such as the insanity defense, criminal negligence, strict liability, and others - should ignore or minimize the extent of an offender's blameworthiness in the name of effective crime-control. Or, are methods of accommodating the tension now in sight? Finally, essays consider the question of how criminal law rules should be best organized into a coherent and clarifying doctrinal structure. The structure grown by the common law process competes not only with that of modern comprehensive codifications, such as the America Law Institute's Model Penal Code, but also with alternative structures imagined but not yet tried.

This volume is concerned with three structures of criminal law: the internal structure of the law itself; the place of criminal law within the larger structure of law; and the relationships between legal, social and political structures.

This book compares the civil and common law approach to analyze the question - 'What sorts of conduct may the state legitimately make criminal?'. Through a comparative focus on an Australian and German context, this book utilizes interviews with Australian criminal law experts and contrasts them with the German model based on 'Rechtsgutstheorie'. By comparing the largely descriptive, criminology-based Australian approach with the more sophisticated German legal theory model the author finds the Australian approach to be suffering from a 'normative flaw', illustrated by the distinction of different approaches to the offences of incest, bestiality and possession of illicit drugs. Carl Constantin Lauterwein discovers that while there is strength in the common law approach of describing the possible reasons for criminalizing certain conduct, the approach could be significantly improved by scrutinizing the legitimacy of those reasons.

The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law reflects the continued transformation of criminal law into a global discipline, providing scholars with a comprehensive international resource, a common point of entry into cutting edge contemporary research and a snapshot of the state and scope of the field. To this end, the Handbook takes a broad approach to its subject matter, disciplinarily, geographically, and systematically. Its contributors include current and future research leaders representing a variety of legal systems, methodologies, areas of expertise, and research agendas. The Handbook is divided into four parts: Approaches & Methods (I), Systems & Methods (II), Aspects & Issues (III), and Contexts & Comparisons (IV). Part I includes essays exploring various methodological approaches to criminal law (such as criminology, feminist studies, and history). Part II provides an overview of systems or models of criminal law, laying the foundation for further inquiry into specific conceptions of criminal law as well as for comparative analysis (such as Islamic, Marxist, and military law). Part III covers the three aspects of the penal process: the definition of norms and principles of liability (substantive criminal law), along with a less detailed treatment of the imposition of norms (criminal procedure) and the infliction of sanctions (prison law). Contributors consider the basic topics traditionally addressed in scholarship on the general and special parts of the substantive criminal law (such as jurisdiction, mens rea, justifications, and excuses). Part IV places criminal law in context, both domestically and transnationally, by exploring the contrasts between criminal law and other species of law and state power and by investigating criminal law's place in the projects of comparative law, transnational, and international law.

Concentrating upon those doctrines that make up the general part of the criminal law this collection of essays by leading American and British legal experts sheds theoretical light on key issues of contemporary relevance.

This is the first book of a series on criminalization - examining the principles and goals that should guide what kinds of conduct are to be criminalized, and the forms that criminalization should take. The first volume studies the scope and boundaries of the criminal law - asking what principled limits might be placed on criminalizing behaviour.

An Interdisciplinary Approach Criminal Law provides students with an integrated framework for understanding the U.S. criminal justice system with a diverse and inclusive interdisciplinary approach and thematic focus. Authors Katheryn Russell-Brown and Angela J. Davis go beyond the law and decisions in court cases to consider and integrate issues of race, gender, and socio-economic status with their discussion of criminal law. Material from the social sciences is incorporated to highlight the intersection between criminal law and key social issues. Case excerpts and detailed case summaries, used to highlight important principles of criminal law, are featured throughout the text. The coverage is conceptual and practical, showing students how the criminal law applies in the “real world”—not just within the pages of a textbook.

How does the state, as a public authority, relate to those under its jurisdiction through the criminal law? Connecting the ways in which criminal lawyers, legal theorists, public lawyers and criminologists address questions of the criminal law's legitimacy, contributors to this collection explore issues such as criminal law-making and jurisdiction; the political-ethical underpinnings of legitimate criminal law enforcement; the offence of treason; the importance of doctrinal guidance in the application of criminal law; the interface between tort and crime; and the purposes and mechanisms of state punishment. Overall, the collection aims to enhance and deepen our understanding of criminal law by conceiving of the practices of criminal justice as explicitly and distinctly embedded in the project of liberal self-governance.

Forensic science evidence and expert witness testimony play an increasingly prominent role in modern criminal proceedings. Science produces powerful evidence of criminal offending, but has also courted controversy and sometimes contributed towards miscarriages of justice. The twenty-six articles and essays reproduced in this volume explore the theoretical foundations of modern scientific proof and critically consider the practical issues to which expert evidence gives rise in contemporary criminal trials. The essays are prefaced by a substantial new introduction which provides an overview and incisive commentary contextualising the key debates. The volume begins by placingforensic science in interdisciplinary focus, with contributions from historical, sociological, Science and Technology Studies (STS), philosophical and jurisprudential perspectives. This is followed by closer examination of the role of forensic science and other expert evidence in criminal proceedings, exposing enduring tensions and addressing recent controversies in the relationship between science and criminal law. A third set of contributions considers the practical challenges of interpreting and communicating forensic science evidence. This perennial battle continues to be fought at the intersection between the logic of scientific inference and the psychology of the fact-finder‘scommon sense reasoning. Finally, the volume‘s fourth group of essays evaluates the (limited) success of existing procedural reforms aimed at improving the reception of expert testimony in criminal adjudication, and considers future prospects for institutional renewal - with a keen eye to comparative law models and experiences, success stories and cautionary tales.

If you could change one part of the criminal law, what would it be? The editors put this question to nine leading academics and practitioners. The first nine chapters of the collection present their responses in the form of legal reform proposals, with topics ranging across criminal law, criminal justice and evidence – including confiscation, control orders, criminal attempts, homicide, assisted dying, the special status of children, time restrictions on prosecution, the right to silence, and special measures in court. Each chapter is followed by a comment from a different author, providing an additional expert view on each reform proposal. Finally, the last two chapters broaden the debate to discuss criminal law reform in general, examining various reform bodies and mechanisms across England, Wales and Scotland. Criminal Law Reform Now highlights and explores the current reform debates that matter most to legal experts, with each chapter making a case for positive change.