Comparative Criminal Justice

This book aims to meet the need for an accessible introductory text on comparative criminal justice, examining the ways different countries and jurisdictions deal with the main stages and elements in the criminal justice process, from policing through to sentencing. Examples are taken from all over the world, with a particular focus on Europe, the UK, the United States and Australasia. The main aims of the book are to provide the reader with:

• a comparative perspective on criminal justice and its main components
• an understanding of the increasing globalization of justice and standards of the administration of justice
• a knowledge of methodology for comparative research and analysis
• an understanding of the most important concepts in criminal justice (such as inquisitorial and adversarial trial systems, policing styles, crime control versus due process, retribution versus rehabilitation etc)
• discussion of global trends such as the rise of imprisonment, penal populism, diversion, international policing and international tribunals
• an insight into what the essential ingredients of doing justice might be.

This fully updated and expanded new edition of Comparative Criminal Justice takes into account the considerable advances in comparative criminal justice research since the first edition in 2004. Each chapter has been thoroughly updated and in addition, there is a new chapter on establishing the rate of crime in a comparative context. The rate of development in international policing and international development has been such that there is now an individual chapter devoted to each; and throughout the book, the role of globalization, changing both the local and the global in criminal justice arrangements, orientations and discourses, has now been given the prominence it deserves.

Francis Pakes is Reader in Comparative Criminology at the University of Portsmouth.