The five countries examined are the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

This title examines the role of political culture and penal populism in the response to the emotive subject of child-on-child homicide. Green explores the reasons underlying the vastly differing responses of the English and Norwegian criminal justice systems to the cases of James Bulger and Silje Redergard respectively. Whereas James Bulger's killers were subject to extreme press and public hostility, and held in secure detention for nine months before being tried in an adversarial court, and served eight years in custody, a Redergard's killers were shielded from public antagonism and carefully reintegrated into the local community. This book argues that English adversarial political culture creates far more incentives to politicize high-profile crimes than Norwegian consensus political culture. Drawing on a wealth of empirical research, Green suggests that the tendency for politicians to justify punitive responses to crime by invoking harsh political attitudes is based upon a flawed understanding of public opinion. In a compelling study, Green proposes a more deliberative response to crime is possible by making English culture less adversarial and by making informed public judgment more assessable.

Following the USA, in many Western countries over the last decade, prison rates have increased while crime rates have declined. This key book examines the role played by penal populism on this and other trends in contemporary penal policy.

Public outcries and political platforms based on misinformation and misconceptions about the criminal justice system and current sentencing practice occur all too often in democratic societies. Penal Populism, Sentencing Councils and Sentencing Policy attempts to address this problem by bringing together important contributions from a number of distinguished experts in the field. Penal Populism presents theoretical perspectives on the role of the public in the development of sentencing policy. It places particular emphasis on the emerging role of sentencing commissions, advisory councils or panels in a number of English speaking countries: Australia, New Zealand, the United States, the United Kingdom, Scotland and South Africa. The book explains, expands and develops the existing literature that looks at public attitudes to justice and the role that the 'public' can play in influencing policy. Written in a scholarly yet accessible style, Penal Populism asks the critical questions: should 'public opinion', or preferably, 'public judgment' be relevant to court decision-making, to institutional decision-making and to the political process? And if so, how?

Should public opinion determine--or even influence--sentencing policy and practice? Should the punishment of criminal offenders reflect what the public regards as appropriate? These deceptively simple questions conceal complex theoretical and methodological challenges to the administration of punishment. In the West, politicians have often answered these questions in the affirmative; penal reforms have been justified with direct reference to the attitudes of the public. This is why the contention that politicians should bridge the gap between the public and criminal justice practice has widespread resonance. Criminal law scholars, for their part, have often been more reluctant to accept public input in penal practice, and some have even held that the idea of consulting public opinion constitutes a populist approach to punishment. The purpose of this book is to examine the moral significance of public opinion for penal theory and practice. For the first time in a single volume the editors, Jesper Ryberg and Julian V. Roberts, have assembled a number of respected criminologists, philosophers, and legal theorists to address the various aspects of why and how public opinion should be reflected in the way the criminal justice system deals with criminals. The chapters address the myriad complexities surrounding this issue by first weighing the justifications for incorporating public views into punishment practices and then considering the various ways this might be achieved through juries, prosecutors, restorative justice programs, and other means.

To honour the extraordinary contribution of Professor Anthony Edward Bottoms to criminology and criminal justice, leading criminologists and penal scholars have been asked to contribute original essays on the wide range of areas in which he has written. The book starts by reflecting on the depth and breadth of Anthony's contribution and his melding of perspectives from moral philosophy, social theory, empirical social science research, and criminal justice. This is no ordinary collection, because it also contains a major essay by Anthony Bottoms, on Criminology and 'positive morality', reflecting on social order and social norms. In similar vein, Jonathan Jacobs approaches criminology from a moral philosophical viewpoint, whilst Ian Loader and Richard Sparks ponder social theory and contemporary criminology. Topically, Peter Neyroud reflects on evidence-based practice and the process of trying to do experiments in relation to policing. In the second section of the book on Crime, Justice, and Communities, Loraine Gelsthorpe reminds us that justice is about people, in considering the treatment of women in community justice. Joanna Shapland draws parallels between the process of desistance from crime and the potential role of restorative justice in affecting offenders' journeys. P.-O. Wikstrom reflects on the social ecology of crime, whilst Antje Du Bois Pedain considers the theoretical and practical challenges of sentencing constructively. Finally, the book turns to Anthony Bottoms' major interest in punishment and penal order. David Garland puts penal populism under the microscope, whilst Alison Liebling explores the empirical evidence for theories of penal legitimacy. Mike Nellis looks back at the use of the creative arts in prisons in Scotland's Barlinnie Unit, whilst Justice Tankebe explores police legitimacy.

Public opinion is vital to the functioning of the criminal justice system but it is not at all clear how best to establish what this is, and what views people have on different aspects of criminal justice and the criminal justice system. Politicians and the media often assume that the public wants harsher, tougher and longer sentences, and policies may be shaped accordingly. Detailed research and more specific polling often tells a different story. This book is concerned to shed further light on the nature of public views on criminal justice, paying particular attention to public opinion towards specific types of offenders, such as sex offenders and mentally disordered offenders. In doing so it challenges many enduring assumptions regarding people's views on justice, and confronts the myths that infect our understanding of what people think about the criminal justice system.