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Law in Context
Crime Reason and History: A Critical Introduction to Criminal Law
Crime, Reason and History provides an exciting and challenging new approach to the study of the criminal law. It offers a critical introduction to the law's general principles emphasising, in contrast to orthodox criminal law texts, the tensions and contradictions that lie at their heart. Norrie argues that the apparently abstract and ahistorical components of the criminal law were developed from the rationalist and individualist ideologies of the Enlightenment. The concepts of individual justice and citizenship which inform the criminal law coexist in tension with the nature of crime and its control as a social and political concern.
Norrie begins by outlining the themes of rationality and justice which govern the organisation of the orthodox criminal law text. He then places these in the context of the reform of the criminal law begun in the early nineteenth century. Noting the primary conflicts within the ideologies of reform, he takes the reader through the established debates and rules of criminal doctrine that constitute the bulk of the law's 'general' partmotive and intention; recklessness; strict and corporate liability; act and omission; causation; necessity and duress; insanity and diminished responsibility; and sentencing. He shows how these conflicts are replicated within doctrine, and that a historical and political logic underlies the law's prevalent illogicalities and gives the criminal law its particular 'shape'.
Norrie presents a sceptical critique of the dominant liberal and positivist tradition in criminal law scholarship, and a historical and social analysis of both its practical necessity and intellectual impossibility. He shows how the ideology of individual legal justice was imposed as a means of silencing and excluding alternative political voices, while he recognises its importance for the survival of the liberal polity.
Norrie begins by outlining the themes of rationality and justice which govern the organisation of the orthodox criminal law text. He then places these in the context of the reform of the criminal law begun in the early nineteenth century. Noting the primary conflicts within the ideologies of reform, he takes the reader through the established debates and rules of criminal doctrine that constitute the bulk of the law's 'general' partmotive and intention; recklessness; strict and corporate liability; act and omission; causation; necessity and duress; insanity and diminished responsibility; and sentencing. He shows how these conflicts are replicated within doctrine, and that a historical and political logic underlies the law's prevalent illogicalities and gives the criminal law its particular 'shape'.
Norrie presents a sceptical critique of the dominant liberal and positivist tradition in criminal law scholarship, and a historical and social analysis of both its practical necessity and intellectual impossibility. He shows how the ideology of individual legal justice was imposed as a means of silencing and excluding alternative political voices, while he recognises its importance for the survival of the liberal polity.
- GenresNonfiction
500 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
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January 12, 2016
Notes:
Ch. 1 - The aim of the book is to understand the contradiction of criminal law based in pure rationality and, at the same time, deeply rooted in historical context.
p. 17 - The outcome of criminal cases is a matter of chance, not only because individual judges have their own prerogatives, but also because historical and cultural circumstance are key to criminal law. To understand criminal law, we must understand the structures that have created it.
p. 20 - penal systems uphold political systems, first and foremost
p. 21 - idea of punishment proportionality from Cesare Beccaria
p. 22 - the idea of punishment as a loss of rights (some abstract) as opposed to a mere infliction of pain.
p. 24 - the law must exist and be clear to all before implementation through courts, etc.
p. 29 - reformers thought of law as abstracted from social class, but criminality has always been intimately tied with social class.
****p. 33 - the legal process also involves rationalizing in the pejorative sense "papering over the logical cracks in order to reach a result not justified on the rules."
Quoting Williams "A judgment will marshal the authorities in a manner suggesting, to the uninitiated, that the court is ineluctibly bound to reach the conclusion it does reach, when to the discerning eye it is often nor more than what is popularly called 'special pleading'
p. 35 - "Thus the historical roots of the conflict between a logic of individual fairness, a universal dispensation of rights and liberties, and a functional concern for social order carry through to our day."
Ch. 1 - The aim of the book is to understand the contradiction of criminal law based in pure rationality and, at the same time, deeply rooted in historical context.
p. 17 - The outcome of criminal cases is a matter of chance, not only because individual judges have their own prerogatives, but also because historical and cultural circumstance are key to criminal law. To understand criminal law, we must understand the structures that have created it.
p. 20 - penal systems uphold political systems, first and foremost
p. 21 - idea of punishment proportionality from Cesare Beccaria
p. 22 - the idea of punishment as a loss of rights (some abstract) as opposed to a mere infliction of pain.
p. 24 - the law must exist and be clear to all before implementation through courts, etc.
p. 29 - reformers thought of law as abstracted from social class, but criminality has always been intimately tied with social class.
****p. 33 - the legal process also involves rationalizing in the pejorative sense "papering over the logical cracks in order to reach a result not justified on the rules."
Quoting Williams "A judgment will marshal the authorities in a manner suggesting, to the uninitiated, that the court is ineluctibly bound to reach the conclusion it does reach, when to the discerning eye it is often nor more than what is popularly called 'special pleading'
p. 35 - "Thus the historical roots of the conflict between a logic of individual fairness, a universal dispensation of rights and liberties, and a functional concern for social order carry through to our day."
Displaying 1 of 1 review