In this long-awaited book, Antony Duff offers a new perspective on the structures of criminal law and criminal liability. His starting point is a distinction between responsibility (understood as answerability) and liability, and a conception of responsibility as relational and practice-based. This focus on responsibility, as a matter of being answerable to those who have the standing to call one to account, throws new light on a range of questions in criminal law theory: on the question of criminalization, which can now be cast as the question of what we should have to answer for, and to whom, under the threat of criminal conviction and punishment; on questions about the criminal trial, as a process through which defendants are called to answer, and about the conditions (bars to trial) given which a trial would be illegitimate; on questions about the structure of offences, the distinction between offences and defences, and the phenomena of strict liability and strict responsibility; and on questions about the structures of criminal defences. The net result is not a theory of criminal law; but it is an account of the structure of criminal law as an institution through which a liberal polity defines a realm of public wrongdoing, and calls those who perpetrate (or are accused of perpetrating) such wrongs to account.

The criminal trial is under attack. Traditional principles have been challenged or eroded; in England and Wales the right to trial by jury has been restricted and rules concerning bad character evidence, double jeopardy and the right to silence have been substantially altered to "rebalance" the system in favour of victims. In the pursuit of security, particularly from terrorism, the right to a fair trial has been denied to some altogether. In fact trials have for a long time been an infrequent occurrence, most criminal convictions being the consequence of a guilty plea. Moreover, while this very public struggle over the future of the criminal trial is conducted, there is also a less publicly observed controversy about the significance of trials in modern society. Trials are under normative attack, their value being doubted by those who seek different kinds of process - conciliatory or restorative - to address the needs of victims and move away from the imposition of state power through trials and punishments. This book seeks to develop a normative theory of the criminal trial as a way of defending the importance of trials in our criminal justice system. The trial, it is suggested, calls defendants to answer a charge and, if they are criminally responsible, to account for their conduct. The trial is seen as a communicative process through which the defendant can challenge claims of wrongdoing made against him, including the norms in the light of which those claims are made. The book develops this communicative theory by first making a careful study of the history of trials, before moving on to outline the theory, which is then developed through chapters looking at the practices and principles of trials, alternative regulatory models, the roles of participants, the relationship between investigation and trial and trials as public fora.

The first special juvenile court was created in 1899. Since then,juvenile justice has had a chequered history, and is now more controversial than ever. Should our treatment of young offenders differ in its aims or principles from that of adult offenders? What role should ideas of punishment or retribution play? Should our aims be rehabilitative and educative rather than punitive? Should we divert young offenders from the criminal justice system altogether, opting for 'restorative' rather than 'retributive' justice? These questions are addressed in this inter-disciplinary volume, which brings together criminologists, educationalists, psychologists and philosophers. Part I traces the history of juvenile justice, identifying patterns, and signs of what the future might hold. Part II tackles fundamental normative issues of punishment, moral education and restoration, with particular emphasis on the role of communication. Part III attends to the role that such emotions as shame and guilt should play in juvenile justice, paying particular, and critical, attention to Braithwaite's conception of reintegrative shaming.

What are the aims of a criminal trial? What social functions should it perform? And how is the trial as a political institution linked to other institutions in a democratic polity? What follows if we understand a criminal trial as calling a defendant to answer to a charge of criminal wrongdoing and, if he is judged to be responsible for such wrongdoing, to account for his conduct? A normative theory of the trial, an account of what trials ought to be and of what ends they should serve, must take these central aspects of the trial seriously; but they raise a number of difficult questions. They suggest that the trial should be seen as a communicative process: but what kinds of communication should it involve? What kind of political theory does a communicative conception of the trial require? Can trials ever actually amount to more than the imposition of state power on the defendant? What political role might trials play in conflicts that must deal not simply with issues of individual responsibility but with broader collective wrongs, including wrongs perpetrated by, or in the name of, the state? These are the issues addressed by the essays in this volume. The third volume in this series, in which the four editors of this volume develop their own normative account, will be published in 2007.

We are said to face a crisis of over-criminalization: our criminal law has become chaotic, unprincipled, and over-expansive. This book proposes a normative theory of criminal law, and of criminalization, that shows how criminal law could be ordered, principled, and restrained. The theory is based on an account of criminal law as a distinctive legal practice that functions to declare and define a set of public wrongs, and to call to formal public account those who commit such wrongs; an account of the role that such practice can play in a democratic republic of free and equal citizens; and an account of the central features of such a political community, and of the way in which it constitutes its public realm-its civil order. Criminal law plays an important, but limited, role in such a political community in protecting, but also partly constituting, its civil order. On the basis of this account, we can see how such a political community will decide what kinds of conduct should be criminalized - not by applying one or more of the substantive master principles that theorists have offered, but by considering which kinds of conduct fall within its public realm (as distinct from the private realms that are not the polity's business), and which kinds of wrong within that realm require this distinctive kind of response (rather than one of the other kinds of available response). The outcome of such a deliberative process will probably be a more limited, and a more rational and principled, criminal law.

This original treatment of the law of criminal attempts sets some of the problems about attempts in the context of deeper issues about the foundations of criminal liability. Duff begins with some persisting questions about the law of attempts. What should count as a criminal attempt? How severely should attempts be punished? Are there types of 'impossible attempt' which should not be criminal? These questions lead on to larger issues about the foundations of criminal liability. Why should we have a law of inchoate or nonconsummated crimes; and why should that law be a law of attempts? Should criminal liability be determined by purely 'subjective' criteria (for instance by the intentions and beliefs with which the agent acted); or should it also depend on the 'objective' or actual impact of his action on the world? Such questions lead to yet larger questions in the philosophy of action and in moral philosophy; about the nature of action, about culpability, about the significance of 'moral luck'. Duff articulates and defends an 'objectivist' account of criminal liability against the 'subjectivist' tendencies of much contemporary legal theory; and this account offers persuasive answers to the problems with which the book began.

Five preeminent legal theorists tackle a range of fundamental questions on the nature of the philosophy of criminal law. Their essays explore the extent to which and the ways in which our systems of criminal law can be seen as rational and principled. The essays discuss some of the principles by which, it is often thought, a system of law should be structured, and they ask whether our own systems are genuinely principled or riven by basic contradictions, reflecting deeper political and social conflicts.

The trial is central to the institutional framework of criminal justice. It provides the procedural link between crime and punishment, and is the forum in which both guilt and innocence and sentence are determined. Its continuing significance is evidenced by the heated responses drawn by recent government proposals to reform rules of criminal procedure and evidence so as to alter the status of the trial within the criminal justice process and to limit the role of the jury. Yet for all of the attachment to trial by jury and to principles safeguarding the right to a fair trial there has been remarkably little theoretical reflection on the meaning of fairness in the trial and criminal procedure, the relationship between rules of evidence, procedure and substantive law, or the functions and normative foundations of the trial process. There is a need, in other words, to develop a normative understanding of the criminal trial. The book is based on the proceedings of two workshops which took place in 2003, addressing the theme of Truth and Due Process in the Criminal Trial. The essays in the book are concerned with the question of whether, and in what sense, we can take the discovery of truth to be the central aim of the procedural and evidential rules and practices of criminal investigation and trial. They are divided into four parts addressing distinct but inter-related issues: models of the trial (Duff, Matravers, McEwan); the meaning of due process (Gunther, Dubber); the meaning of truth and the nature of evidence (Jung, Pritchard); and legitimacy and rhetoric in the trial (Burns, Christodoulidis).

How can a system of criminal punishment be justified? In particular can it be justified if the moral demand that we respect each other as autonomous moral agents is taken seriously? Traditional attempts to justify punishment as a deterrent or as retribution fail, but Duff suggests that punishment can be understood as a communicative attempt to bring a wrong-doer to repent her crime. This account is supported by discussions of moral blame, of penance, of the nature of the law's demands, and of the proper meaning and purpose of the criminal process of trial and verdict: it deals both with the ideals that should inform a system of criminal law and the extent to which those ideals are actualised in existing institutions and practices. The conclusion is pessimistic: punishment cannot be justified within our legal system; and this gap between the ideal and the actual presents us with serious moral dilemmas.

The Criminalization series arose from an interdisciplinary investigation into criminalization, focussing on the principles that might guide decisions about what kinds of conduct should be criminalized, and the forms that criminalization should take. Developing a normative theory of criminalization, the series tackles the key questions at the heart of the issue: what principles and goals should guide legislators in deciding what to criminalize? How should criminal wrongs be classified and differentiated? How should law enforcement officials apply the law's specifications of offences? The fourth book in the series examines the political morality of the criminal law, exploring general principles and theories of criminalization. Chapters provide accounts of the criminal law in the light of ambitious theories about moral and political philosophy - republicanism and contractarianism, or reflect upon on the success of important theories of criminalization by viewing them in a novel light. Ideas that are fundamental to any complete theory of the criminal law - liberty, harm, and the effect on victims - are investigated in depth. Sociological investigation of the criminal law grounds a critical investigation into the principles of criminalization, both as a legislative matter, and with respect to criminalization practices, in contemporary and historical contexts. The volume broadens our conceptions of the theory of criminalization, and clarifies the role of the series in the development of this theory. It is essential reading for all interested in legal, political, and social theories of criminalization.

The third book in the Criminalization series examines the constitutionalization of criminal law. It considers how the criminal law is constituted through the political processes of the state; how the agents of the criminal law can be answerable to it themselves; and finally, how the criminal law can be constituted as part of the international order. Addressing the ways in which and the grounds on which types of conduct can be justifiably criminalized, the first four chapters of this volume focus on the questions that arise from a consideration of the political constitution of the criminal law. The contributors then turn their attention to the role of the state, its institutions and officials, and their role not only as creators, enactors, interpreters, and enforcers of the criminal law, but also as subjects of it. How can the agents of the criminal law also be answerable to it? Finally discussion turns to how the criminal law can be constituted as part of an international order. Examining the relationships between domestic laws of different nation-states, and between domestic criminal law and international or transnational law, the chapters also look at the authority and jurisdiction of international criminal law itself, and its relationship to other dimensions of the international order. A vital examination of one of the most important topics in modern criminal legal theory, this volume raises new questions central to the study of the criminal law and offers new suggestions for addressing them.

This collection of original essays, by some of the best known contemporary criminal law theorists, tackles a range of issues about the criminal law's 'special part' - the part of the criminal law that defines specific offences. One of its aims is to show the importance, for theory as well as for practice, of focusing on the special part as well as on the general part which usually receives much more theoretical attention. Some of the issues covered concern the proper scope of the criminal law, for example how far should it include offences of possession, or endangerment? If it should punish only wrongful conduct, how can it justly include so-called 'mala prohibita', which are often said to involve conduct that is not wrongful prior to its legal prohibition? Other issues concern the ways in which crimes should be classified. Can we make plausible sense, for instance, of the orthodox distinction between crimes of basic and general intent? Should domestic violence be defined as a distinct offence, distinguished from other kinds of personal violence? Also examined are the ways in which specific offences should be defined, to what extent those definitions should identify distinctive types of wrongs, and the light that such definitional questions throw on the grounds and structures of criminal liability. Such issues are discussed in relation not only to such crimes as murder, rape, theft and other property offences, but also in relation to offences such as bribery, endangerment and possession that have not traditionally been subjects for in depth theoretical analysis.

Part of the Studies in Crime and Public Policy series, this book, written by one of the top philosophers of punishment, examines the main trends in penal theorizing over the past three decades. Duff asks what can justify criminal punishment, and then explores the legitimacy of actual practices by examining what would count as adequate justification for them. Duff argues that a "communicative conception of punishment," which he presents as a third way between consequentialist and retributive theories, offers the most fruitful way of understanding punishment's meaning and justification. Duff addresses such question as how much sentences should be constrained by proportionality requirements; what modalities of punishment best communicate their intended meaning; and what decisionmaking procedures he envisions. This book will appeal to criminologists, philosophers, and others interested in theories of punishment.

Twenty-five leading contemporary theorists of criminal law tackle a range of foundational issues about the proper aims and structure of the criminal law in a liberal democracy. The challenges facing criminal law are many. There are crises of over-criminalization and over-imprisonment; penal policy has become so politicized that it is difficult to find any clear consensus on what aims the criminal law can properly serve; governments seeking to protect their citizens in the face of a range of perceived threats have pushed the outer limits of criminal law and blurred its boundaries. To think clearly about the future of criminal law, and its role in a liberal society, foundational questions about its proper scope, structure, and operations must be re-examined. What kinds of conduct should be criminalized? What are the principles of criminal responsibility? How should offences and defences be defined? The criminal process and the criminal trial need to be studied closely, and the purposes and modes of punishment should be scrutinized. Such a re-examination must draw on the resources of various disciplines-notably law, political and moral philosophy, criminology and history; it must examine both the inner logic of criminal law and its place in a larger legal and political structure; it must attend to the growing field of international criminal law, it must consider how the criminal law can respond to the challenges of a changing world. Topics covered in this volume include the question of criminalization and the proper scope of the criminal law; the grounds of criminal responsibility; the ways in which offences and defences should be defined; the criminal process and its values; criminal punishment; the relationship between international criminal law and domestic criminal law. Together, the essays provide a picture of the exciting state of criminal law theory today, and the basis for further research and debate in the coming years.

Criminalization is a new series arising from an interdisciplinary investigation into the issue of criminalization, focussing on the principles and goals that should guide decisions about what kinds of conduct are to be criminalized, and the forms that criminalization should take. Developing a normative theory of criminalization, the six volumes will tackle the key questions at the heart of issue: By reference to what principles and goals should legislations decide what to criminalize? How should criminal wrongs be classified and differentiated? And how should law enforcement officials apply the law's specification of offences? The second volume in the series concerns itself with the structures of criminal law in three different senses. The first examines the internal structure of the criminal law itself and the questions posed by familiar distinctions between which offences are typically analysed. These questions of classification include discussion of the growing range of crimes and the problems posed by this broadening of definition. Should traditional ideas and conceptions of the criminal law be reshaped in light of recent developments or should these developments be criticized and refuted? Structures of criminal law also refer to the place of the criminal law within the larger structure of the law. Here the book examines the relationships with and between the criminal law and other aspects of law, particularly private law and public law. It also looks at how the criminal law is made, and by whom. Finally the third sense of structure is outlined - the relationships between legal structures and social and political structures. What place does the criminal law have within the existing political and social landscapes? What are the influences, both political and social, upon the criminal law, and should they be allowed to influence the law in this fashion? What is its proper role? Focussing not only on the questions about the criminal law's proper scope, but also on crucial questions about how crimes should be structured, defined, and classified, this book provides a deeper understanding of criminalization.

25 leading contemporary theorists of criminal law tackle a range of foundational issues about the proper aims and structure of the criminal law in a liberal democracy.
The challenges facing criminal law are many. There are crises of over-criminalization and over-imprisonment; penal policy has become so politicized that it is difficult to find any clear consensus on what aims the criminal law can properly serve; governments seeking to protect their citizens in the face of a range of perceived threats have pushed the outer limits of criminal law and blurred its boundaries. To think clearly about the future of criminal law, and its role in a liberal society, foundational questions about its proper scope, structure, and operations must be re-examined. What kinds of conduct should be criminalized? What are the principles of criminal responsibility? How should offences and defences be defined? The criminal process and the criminal trial need to be studied closely, and the purposes and modes of punishment should be scrutinized.
Such a re-examination must draw on the resources of various disciplines-notably law, political and moral philosophy, criminology and history; it must examine both the inner logic of criminal law and its place in a larger legal and political structure; it must attend to the growing field of international criminal law, it must consider how the criminal law can respond to the challenges of a changing world.
Topics covered in this volume include the question of criminalization and the proper scope of the criminal law; the grounds of criminal responsibility; the ways in which offences and defences should be defined; the criminal process and its values; criminal punishment; the relationship between international criminal law and domestic criminal law. Together, the essays provide a picture of the exciting state of criminal law theory today, and the basis for further research and debate in the coming years.

Criminalization is a new series arising from an interdisciplinary investigation into criminalization, focusing on the principles and goals that should guide decisions about what kinds of conduct are to be criminalized, and the forms that criminalization should take. Developing a normative theory of criminalization, the six volumes will tackle the key questions at the heart of the issue: By reference to what principles and goals should legislations decide what to criminalize? How should criminal wrongs be classified and differentiated? And how should law enforcement officials apply the law's specification of offenses?
Boundaries of the Criminal Law is the first book in this series examining the scope and boundaries of the criminal law. Investigations into the scope of the criminal law have often focused on the harm principle, the principle that conduct can be justifiably criminalized only if it is harmful, or other master principles that might determine the proper scope of the criminal law. This collection of original essays by some of the leading scholars in criminal law and philosophy from the UK and the US makes significant advances in the development of a broader range of ideas that might inform criminalization decisions.
A range of issues are discussed, including the significance for criminalization of ideas of moral wrongdoing and of using a person as a means, the distinction between criminal law and other forms of legal regulation, the role of new technology in our understanding of the evolving scope of the criminal law, and the role of criminal justice officials in decision-making about criminalization. The authors draw on legal and philosophical sources, but also on history, sociology and social psychology in their investigations for a truly interdisciplinary approach.
This is a groundbreaking set of essays which will help to reorient legal and philosophical discussion about the proper scope of the criminal law.

Why we punish, who we punish and how we punish are central elements of any discussion of the role of law in modern society.

In this impressive and timely collection, two leading experts on the theory of punishment have selected a range of articles which have made important and influential contributions to the ways in which punishment is understood in contemporary society. The collection is introduced by a lengthy and original discussion of the key concepts of punishment, and each article is prefaced by a short introduction setting out the issues to be discussed.

Throughout the book the aim of the editors is to demonstrate how complex the concept of punishment is, and to illustrate how an understanding of punishment is vitally important for students of law and society.

If you could change one part of the criminal law, what would it be? The editors put this question to nine leading academics and practitioners. The first nine chapters of the collection present their responses in the form of legal reform proposals, with topics ranging across criminal law, criminal justice and evidence - including confiscation, control orders, criminal attempts, homicide, assisted dying, the special status of children, time restrictions on prosecution, the right to silence, and special measures in court. Each chapter is followed by a comment from a different author, providing an additional expert view on each reform proposal. Finally, the last two chapters broaden the debate to discuss criminal law reform in general, examining various reform bodies and mechanisms across England, Wales and Scotland. Criminal Law Reform Now highlights and explores the current reform debates that matter most to legal experts, with each chapter making a case for positive change.

If you could change one part of the criminal law, what would it be? The editors put this question to nine leading academics and practitioners. The first nine chapters of the collection present their responses in the form of legal reform proposals, with topics ranging across criminal law, criminal justice and evidence - including confiscation, control orders, criminal attempts, homicide, assisted dying, the special status of children, time restrictions on prosecution, the right to silence, and special measures in court. Each chapter is followed by a comment from a different author, providing an additional expert view on each reform proposal. Finally, the last two chapters broaden the debate to discuss criminal law reform in general, examining various reform bodies and mechanisms across England, Wales and Scotland. Criminal Law Reform Now highlights and explores the current reform debates that matter most to legal experts, with each chapter making a case for positive change.

This is the paperback edition of Antony Duff's acclaimed new work on the structures of criminal law and criminal liability. His starting point is a distinction between responsibility (understood as answerability) and liability, and a conception of responsibility as relational and practice-based. This focus on responsibility, as a matter of being answerable to those who have the standing to call one to account, throws new light on a range of questions in criminal law theory: on the question of criminalisation, which can now be cast as the question of what we should have to answer for, and to whom, under the threat of criminal conviction and punishment; on questions about the criminal trial, as a process through which defendants are called to answer, and about the conditions (bars to trial) given which a trial would be illegitimate; on questions about the structure of offences, the distinction between offences and defences, and the phenomena of strict liability and strict responsibility; and on questions about the structures of criminal defences. The net result is not a theory of criminal law; but it is an account of the structure of criminal law as an institution through which a liberal polity defines a realm of public wrongdoing, and calls those who perpetrate (or are accused of perpetrating) such wrongs to account. "For a criminal law theorist, this book is simply a must read. Duff's sweeping coverage of criminal law-ranging from the act requirement to justifications and excuses-offers a structural edifice that is indispensible. Though one may not always agree with Duff, his original analysis and complex rethinking provides significant insights into the most central questions within criminal law theory. One cannot help but learn from Duff. And anyone who wishes to be taken seriously in criminal law theory will have to grapple with his arguments." Kimberley Kessler Ferzan, Criminal Justice Ethics, 2009 "Philosophers who specialize in normative inquiries but find the time to read only one book in criminal theory every few years should immediately place Answering for Crime at the very top of their pile. It is the best book to have appeared in the philosophy of criminal law in the last decade, and the finest book ever to have focused on the structure of criminal responsibility. Answering for Crime cements Antony Duff's reputation as one of the two most important philosophers of criminal law living in the Anglo-American world today...Answering for Crime is an exceedingly original work of legal philosophy written in a refreshingly accessible style...I believe that any future work on the structure of criminal responsibility and liability must begin with Duff's work. No existing book in the philosophy of criminal law can rival the breadth, scope, and sophistication contained in Duff's analysis. I admire Answering for Crime deeply and recommend it strongly not only to criminal theorists, but also to all philosophers interested in how criminal theory sheds light on normative inquiry generally." Douglas Husak, Law and Philosophy, 2009 "...the book is an ambitious one, and has implications for almost every aspect of criminal law theory...As was to be expected from one of the most philosophically sophisticated yet institutionally sensitive writers in the field of criminal law theory, Answering for Crime is a rich book that makes a very substantial contribution to the discipline. ..The argument is complex and, particularly in the early chapters, does not always make for easy reading; but the conception is clear, elegant, and fully worked through..." Nicola Lacey, New Criminal Law Review, 2009 "It covers so many important issues with such clarity and rigour that one review cannot possibly do it justice...What Duff says about crimes, but also his views about a whole range of other issues, are deeply thought out and important...Duff's book does more to articulate a clear and structured view of criminal responsibility than has been achieved to date and his account of criminal responsibility and liability, as well as of the central doctrines and practices of criminal responsibility, will have lasting significance for criminal lawyers and philosophers alike." Victor Tadros, Mind, 2009