The Insecurity State

1. Auflage 2010
ISBN: 978-0-19-958106-1
Verlag: Oxford University Press (UK)

Buch, Englisch, 280 Seiten, Format (B × H): 161 mm x 240 mm, Gewicht: 581 g

Reihe: Oxford Monographs on Criminal Law and Justice

Offers an original explanatory theory of current trends in Anglo-American criminal law and criminal justice policy
Includes a detailed analysis of the substantive law surrounding the ASBO, an icon of the expansion of modern criminal law
Establishes an original account of influential contemporary political theories

For more than a decade, broad and vaguely defined new offences have been enacted in many areas of the criminal law, such as terrorism, money-laundering, fraud, sex offences and anti-social behaviour. These have expanded police powers and prosecutorial discretion with little regard for the rule of law. Most theorists have explained the gap between legislative policy and the liberal principles of criminal law theory as the result of 'penal populism': politicians have sacrificed sound normative principles in an opportunistic appeal to an angry and fearful electorate.

The Insecurity State, by contrast, argues that this so-called 'populism' in the criminal law can claim some normative principles of ist own. It identifies these principles through an analysis of the iconic anti-social behaviour order (ASBO), the flagship of recent British criminal justice policy. Demonstrating that the controversial orders impose a liability on those who fail to reassure others about their future security, he traces the justification of this liability through the conditional character of citizenship in New Labour policy to an underlying concept of 'vulnerable autonomy' that the ASBO serves to protect.

The book argues that the vulnerability of individual autonomy is an idea deeply embedded in the political theories that have most influenced British and American political life in recent decades. He shows that the ASBO is the archetype of a wide range of other recently enacted criminal offences in the UK and USA that are justified by the same normative structure. Finally it investigates the paradoxical implications of institutionalising the vulnerability of citizens in the terms of the substantive criminal law. In so doing, the book identifies a weakening of political authority at the heart of contemporary security laws.

Zielgruppe

Academics, postgraduate students and undergraduate students in criminal law, criminology and criminal justice; academics and postgraduate students in legal and political theory, government, sociology or social policy; criminal law and criminal justice practitioners working on the ASBO.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Ramsay, Peter

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Regierungspolitik Innen-, Bildungs- und Bevölkerungspolitik
• Rechtswissenschaften Ausländisches Recht Common Law (UK, USA, Australien u.a.)
• Rechtswissenschaften Recht, Rechtswissenschaft Allgemein Rechtspolitik
• Rechtswissenschaften Strafrecht Kriminologie, Strafverfolgung

Inhaltsverzeichnis

1: Introduction
Part I
2: Why is it wrong to breach an ASBO?
3: What is anti-social behaviour?
4: What is an ASBO?
Part II
5: The vulnerable citizen's right to reassurance
6: Theories of active citizenship and vulnerable autonomy
7: Vulnerability, human rights and sovereignty
Part III
8: The ASBO in criminal law theory
9: Is the ASBO's legitimacy sustainable?
Appendix A: The police power: is legitimacy the right question?
Appendix B: Crime and Disorder Act 1998 Section 1

Über Autor(innen)

Peter Ramsay, Lecturer in Law, London School of Economics