The legal concept of joint enterprise caused outrage in South Africa in 2012, when 270 miners were charged with the murder of 34 colleagues in a police shooting at Marikana. Their crime? Being in the crowd…
Gerry Conlon outside the Old Bailey the day he was released.
PA
Gerry Conlon, wrongly jailed for a 1975 IRA bombing in which he had no part, died on June 21 at the age of 60. The case of the Guildford Four remains one the most famous miscarriage of justice in Britain…
The principle that someone accused of an offence is “innocent until proven guilty” is a cornerstone of the criminal justice system in England and Wales. But a new idea of what constitutes “victimhood…
Philosophers argue that people are not over and above the systems involved in information processing –we are our brains, plus some other, equally physical stuff.
Tom Blackwell/Flickr (reszied)
Neil Levy, Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health
In the second instalment of Biology and Blame, Neil Levy considers how neuroscience can affect legal judgements. Can human beings still be held responsible in the age of neuroscience? Some people say no…
A recent Ombudsman’s report is damning of the Victorian criminal justice sector, particularly around issues of accountability and transparency.
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Victorian Ombudsman George Brouwer’s report on deaths and harm in Victorian prisons may have largely sailed under the public radar, but it shines a rare spotlight on the levels of systemic harm in custody…
A lethal injection chamber in Texas.
EPA/Paul Buck
Once again, a prisoner has died an unseemly death in the execution chambers of the United States of America. Facing a shortage of the drugs needed to carry out a lethal injection, the state of Oklahoma…
The UK’s justice system has failed to protect rape complainants from harm.
Valerie Everett
In the space of just over a year, two women in Greater Manchester have killed themselves because of their experiences as complainants in sexual offences cases. The challenge this poses to the criminal…
In the light of Friday’s guilty verdict in the case of Amanda Knox and Raffaele Sollecito, the Italian criminal justice system is once again under the magnifying glass. Foreign scrutiny of the case has…
HMP Oakwood, the vanguard of British carceral design.
John M/Creative Commons.
In the first few weeks of 2014, private security company G4S has repeatedly had to deny reports of full-scale riots at the UK’s newest prison, HMP Oakwood, near Wolverhampton. The prison has experienced…
Mental health problems beset prisoners at very high rates.
v1ctor Casale
Nick Clegg has launched the Department of Health’s latest action plan for mental health services, Closing the Gap: priorities for essential change in mental health. While the report was overshadowed by…
Lawyers pass judgement on proposed cuts to legal system.
AP Photo/Alastair Grant
It’s not often you see bewigged barristers take to the streets waving placards in protest, but such were the scenes outside the Old Bailey and other courts around the country as defence lawyers demonstrated…
The shooting of Mark Duggan and his involvement – or not – in a north London gang has become increasingly mired in controversy, with myths and half-truths circulating freely alongside uncomfortable realities…
Get used to it: 100-year sentences enjoy popular support.
Amanda Slater
David Cameron plunged into the criminal punishment debate recently by throwing his support around proposals to impose incredibly long sentences (100 years or so) for some murders as a way to circumvent…
Weighing up cost and benefit: proposed legal aid cuts are a perversion of justice.
Lonpicman
In an adversarial criminal justice system like the one we have in England and Wales, access to justice depends on access to lawyers. The court system is complicated and confusing, a heady mix of archaic…
The ‘lock 'em up’ approach largely ignores the victim.
Image from shutterstock.com
All too often, governments take the lazy option when faced with public outcry about sexual offences. Their automatic, knee-jerk, politically charged response is to “get tough on crime” by imposing mandatory…
Christina Edkins’ murder was a rare and awful thing.
Joe Giddens/PA
1,200 killed by mental patients – shock ten-year toll exposes care crisis The Sun used this apparently shocking statistic this week to blame the criminal justice system for the death of Christina Edkins…
Evening all: Elected commissioners are under pressure.
Kenjonbro via Creative Commons
The tension between senior police officers and their elected masters has spilled over into the political arena after reports of chief constables being bullied out of their jobs and complaints of misuse…
A British scientist convicted of scientific fraud last month for falsifying research data has been sentenced to three months jail. Steven Eaton is the first person to serve time under the UK’s Good Laboratory…
There is a clear link between communication disorders and young offenders – but what can we do about it?
Youth justice image from www.shutterstock.com
Half of Australia’s young male offenders have a clinically significant, previously unidentified language deficit. It’s a shocking figure that comes after ten years worth of research into the oral language…