Accusing someone of committing a crime arrests everyday social relations and unfurls processes that decide on who to admit to criminal justice networks. Accusation demarcates specific subjects as the criminally accused, who then face courtroom trials, and possible punishment. It inaugurates a crime's historical journey into being with sanctioned accusers successfully making criminal allegations against accused persons in the presence of authorized juridical agents. Given this decisive role in the production of criminal identities, it is surprising that criminal accusation has received relatively short shrift in sociological, socio-legal and criminological discourses. In this book, George Pavlich redresses this oversight by framing a socio-legal field directed to political rationales and practices of criminal accusation. The focus of its interrogation is the truth-telling powers of an accusatory lore that creates subjects within the confines of socially authorized spaces. And, in this respect, the book has two overarching aims in mind. First, it names and analyses powers of criminal accusation - its history, rationales, rites and effects - as an enduring gateway to criminal justice. Second, the book evaluates the prospects for limiting and/or changing apparatuses of criminal accusation. By understanding their powers, might it be possible to decrease the number who enter criminal justice's gates? This question opens debate on the subject of the book's final section: the prospects for more inclusive accusative grammars that do not, as a reflex, turn to exclusionary visions of crime and vengeful, segregated, corrective or risk-orientated punishment. Highlighting how expansive criminal justice systems are populated by accusatorial powers, and how it might be possible to recalibrate the lore that feeds them, this ground-breaking analysis will be of considerable interest to scholars working in socio-legal research studies, critical criminology, social theory, postcolonial studies and critical legal theory.

This critical socio-legal history probes pretrial accusations through which colonial criminal law forged social orders for settler-colonialism across western Canada, focusing on Alberta, 1874–1884. Following military intelligence, a Northwest Mounted Police force was established to compel Dominion law. That force began by deploying accusatory theatres to receive information about crimes, arrest suspects, and decide via preliminary examination who to send to trial. George Pavlich draws on exemplary performances of colonial accusation to show how police officers and justices of the peace translated local social lore into criminal law. These performances reflected intersecting powers of sovereignty, disciplinarily, and biopolitics; they held accused individuals legally culpable for crimes and obscured social upheavals that settlers brought. Reflecting on colonial legacies within today's vast and unequal criminalizing institutions, this book proposes that we seek new forms of accusation and legality, learning from Indigenous laws that tackle individual and collective responsibilities for societal disquiet.

Accusing someone of committing a crime arrests everyday social relations and unfurls processes that decide on who to admit to criminal justice networks. Accusation demarcates specific subjects as the criminally accused, who then face courtroom trials, and possible punishment. It inaugurates a crime's historical journey into being with sanctioned accusers successfully making criminal allegations against accused persons in the presence of authorized juridical agents. Given this decisive role in the production of criminal identities, it is surprising that criminal accusation has received relatively short shrift in sociological, socio-legal and criminological discourses. In this book, George Pavlich redresses this oversight by framing a socio-legal field directed to political rationales and practices of criminal accusation. The focus of its interrogation is the truth-telling powers of an accusatory lore that creates subjects within the confines of socially authorized spaces. And, in this respect, the book has two overarching aims in mind. First, it names and analyses powers of criminal accusation - its history, rationales, rites and effects - as an enduring gateway to criminal justice. Second, the book evaluates the prospects for limiting and/or changing apparatuses of criminal accusation. By understanding their powers, might it be possible to decrease the number who enter criminal justice's gates? This question opens debate on the subject of the book's final section: the prospects for more inclusive accusative grammars that do not, as a reflex, turn to exclusionary visions of crime and vengeful, segregated, corrective or risk-orientated punishment. Highlighting how expansive criminal justice systems are populated by accusatorial powers, and how it might be possible to recalibrate the lore that feeds them, this ground-breaking analysis will be of considerable interest to scholars working in socio-legal research studies, critical criminology, social theory, postcolonial studies and critical legal theory.

This title was first published in 2000: Critique and Radical Discourses on Crime develops a unique line of thought in contemporary criminology, re-examining an under-researched dimension of radical discourse. In particular, it focuses attention on the distinguishing feature of radical discourses, their allegiance to various visions of critique. The book reassesses the genres of critique evident in previous forms of radical criminology, formulates a different genre of critique appropriate to the uncertainties of postmodern conditions and, shows how these genres can be articulated to differently conceived radical discourses on crime.

This title was first published in 2000: Critique and Radical Discourses on Crime develops a unique line of thought in contemporary criminology, re-examining an under-researched dimension of radical discourse. In particular, it focuses attention on the distinguishing feature of radical discourses, their allegiance to various visions of critique. The book reassesses the genres of critique evident in previous forms of radical criminology, formulates a different genre of critique appropriate to the uncertainties of postmodern conditions and, shows how these genres can be articulated to differently conceived radical discourses on crime.

After Sovereignty addresses the vexed question of sovereignty in contemporary social, political, and legal theory. The emergence, and now apparent implosion, of international capital exceeding the borders of known political entities, the continued expansion of a potentially endless 'War on Terror', the often predicted, but still uncertain, establishment of either a new international American Empire or a new era of International Law, the proliferation of social and political struggles among stateless refugees, migrant workers, and partial citizens, the resurgence of religion as a dominant source of political identification among people all over the globe -- these developments and others have thrown into crisis the modern concept of sovereignty, and the notions of statehood and citizenship that rest upon it. Drawing on classical sources and more contemporary speculations, and developing a range of arguments concerning the possibility of political beginnings in the current moment, the papers collected in After Sovereignty contribute to a renewed interest in the problem of sovereignty in theoretical and political debate.They also provide a multitude of resources for the urgent, if necessarily fractured and diffuse, effort to reconfigure sovereignty today. Whilst it has regularly been suggested that the sovereignty of the nation-state is in crisis, the exact reasons for, and exact implications of, this crisis have rarely been so intensively examined.

After Sovereignty addresses the vexed question of sovereignty in contemporary social, political, and legal theory. The emergence, and now apparent implosion, of international capital exceeding the borders of known political entities, the continued expansion of a potentially endless 'War on Terror', the often predicted, but still uncertain, establishment of either a new international American Empire or a new era of International Law, the proliferation of social and political struggles among stateless refugees, migrant workers, and partial citizens, the resurgence of religion as a dominant source of political identification among people all over the globe - these developments and others have thrown into crisis the modern concept of sovereignty, and the notions of statehood and citizenship that rest upon it.

Drawing on classical sources and more contemporary speculations, and developing a range of arguments concerning the possibility of political beginnings in the current moment, the papers collected in After Sovereignty contribute to a renewed interest in the problem of sovereignty in theoretical and political debate. They also provide a multitude of resources for the urgent, if necessarily fractured and diffuse, effort to reconfigure sovereignty today. Whilst it has regularly been suggested that the sovereignty of the nation-state is in crisis, the exact reasons for, and exact implications of, this crisis have rarely been so intensively examined.

Restorative justice is the policy of eschewing traditional punishments in favour of group counselling involving both victims and perpetrators. Until now there has been no critical analysis of governmental rationales that legitimize restorative practices over traditional approaches but Governing Practices of Restorative Justice fills this gap and addresses the mentalities of governance most prominent in restorative justice. The author provides comprehensible commentary on the central images of this discursive arena in a style accessible to participants and observers alike of restorative justice.

Restorative justice is the policy of eschewing traditional punishments in favour of group counselling involving both victims and perpetrators. Until now there has been no critical analysis of governmental rationales that legitimize restorative practices over traditional approaches but Governing Practices of Restorative Justice fills this gap and addresses the mentalities of governance most prominent in restorative justice. The author provides comprehensible commentary on the central images of this discursive arena in a style accessible to participants and observers alike of restorative justice.

How do societies decide whom to criminalize? What does it mean to accuse someone of being an offender? Entryways to Criminal Justice analyzes the thresholds that distinguish law-abiding individuals from those who may be criminalized. Contributors to the volume adopt social, historical, cultural, and political perspectives to explore the accusatory process that place persons in contact with the law. Emphasizing the gateways to criminal justice, truth-telling, and overcriminalization, the authors provide important insights into often overlooked practices that admit persons to criminal justice. It is essential reading for scholars, students, and policy makers in the fields of socio-legal studies, sociology, criminology, law and society, and post/colonial studies. Contributors: Dale A. Ballucci, Martin A. French, Aaron Henry, Bryan R. Hogeveen, Dawn Moore, George Pavlich, Marcus A. Sibley, Rashmee Singh, Amy Swiffen, Matthew P. Unger, Elise Wohlbold, Andrew Woolford

This set of essays engages with some aspects of Foucault's notion of governmentality,particularly at the junction where law/regulation meets 'the social'. 'The social', as a special sphere of government, is a special area of concern for those working within broad intellectual spaces of the 'governmentality approach'. Is it the basis of modern liberal systems of government? Is it dead, or even feeling unwell? Has it spawned hybrid forms of government like neo-liberalism, neo-conservatism, or even neo-socialism? In making their presence felt in the debates that have flourished around such questions, especially by highlighting the subtleties of the roles played by law and regulation in the governance of the social, the authors of the essays - David Brown; Jo Goodie; Russell Hogg and Kerry Carrington; Jeff Malpas; Pat O'Malley; George Pavlich; Annette Pedersen; Kevin Stenson; William Walters - range widely. There are pieces on liberal government and resistance to it, some on particular targets of this government, like unemployment, crime, 'law and order', even Australian geography, environment and cultural products, and some that delve into philosophical/methodological issues.

This set of essays engages with some aspects of Foucault's notion of governmentality,particularly at the junction where law/regulation meets 'the social'. 'The social', as a special sphere of government, is a special area of concern for those working within broad intellectual spaces of the 'governmentality approach'. Is it the basis of modern liberal systems of government? Is it dead, or even feeling unwell? Has it spawned hybrid forms of government like neo-liberalism, neo-conservatism, or even neo-socialism? In making their presence felt in the debates that have flourished around such questions, especially by highlighting the subtleties of the roles played by law and regulation in the governance of the social, the authors of the essays - David Brown; Jo Goodie; Russell Hogg and Kerry Carrington; Jeff Malpas; Pat O'Malley; George Pavlich; Annette Pedersen; Kevin Stenson; William Walters - range widely. There are pieces on liberal government and resistance to it, some on particular targets of this government, like unemployment, crime, 'law and order', even Australian geography, environment and cultural products, and some that delve into philosophical/methodological issues.

Comprising fourteen articles by leading international contributors, including some of the most prominent socio-legal and criminological scholars working in the field, this volume is currently the only work available that critically examines W.G. Carson and his crucial influence in the turn towards sociological approaches to criminology and a criminological interest in governance and social control.

The 1970s witnessed an epiphany in the sociological understanding of crime in Britain. The correctional perspective, which assumed crimes had inherent or essential qualities that distinguished them from other acts, was superseded by the analysis of how social events came to be defined as so harmful and repugnant as to require criminalization. This shift in perspectives was exemplified in W.G. Carson's work, which combines a Marxist acknowledgement of the imperative for profit with a symbolic interactionist attention to the restraining effect of prestige and status among producers and regulators.

This key work is an essential read for postgraduates and researchers studying and researching in the areas of criminology and law.