Whose Criminal Justice?: State or Community?

The overarching theme of this book is the balance between the role of a central government in creating and shaping the regulatory framework of criminal justice and the potential for communities at a local level to become more involved in responding to crime and anti-social behavior in their midst. These twin dynamics are explored in the two main sections of the book. Through a series of UK case studies in Part I - The Regulatory State - the book examines how the central state has sought to address the risks and problems associated with crime and anti-social behavior in modern times. The case studies consider the new context for law and order which arose during the period and ask how and why new sanctions were put in place to regulate particular kinds of behavior. They also highlight some of the unintended consequences, notably the criminalization of more people. In Part II - Empowered Communities as Stakeholders in Criminal Justice - the book explores the potential for local communities to play a greater role in addressing the problems of crime and anti-social behavior in their own neighborhoods. It also considers the prospects for crime reduction through a more 'localist' approach in which citizens and communities play a more active part in a 'big society.'