Overview
Reconstructing Criminal Law provides a radical and stimulating alternative to standard criminal law texts. The authors analyse central aspects of criminal law in the context of the assumptions surrounding it, and employ a number of critical approaches, including a feminist perspective, to give insights into the current state of the law. Reconstructing Criminal Law provides a comprehensive resource, offering extracts that cover a wide range of materials from historical, political, sociological and philosophical sources and discusses offences considered to be at the margins of criminal law, as well as those commonly found in criminal law texts. It also offers an important practical element so that students and teachers can attempt to answer the questions that the criminal justice system confronts on a daily basis.This new edition does not just provide an update on the relevant law. Since the first edition was published in 1990, there have been significant changes in the social issues related to criminal law, with different groups perceived as offering greater threats to law, order and safety, and with an increasing awareness of the less tangible harms suffered by victims. 'Answers' have come in the form of increased police powers, and in the extensive use of technology such as electronic surveillance and DNA evidence. There has been an intensified politicisation of the debate about criminal justice in England and Wales over the last five years resulting in a large volume of legislation. This book takes into account all these changes, including the Human Rights Act 1998 and the Sexual Offences Bill introduced in February 2003.
About the Author:
Nicola Lacey, Professorof Criminal Law, London School of Economics
About the Author:
Celia Wells, Professor of Law, Cardiff University
About the Author:
Oliver Quick, Lecturer in Law, University of Bristol