The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Process surveys the topics and issues in the field of criminal process, including the laws, institutions, and practices of the criminal justice administration. The process begins with arrests or with crime investigation such as searches for evidence. It continues through trial or some alternative form of adjudication such as plea bargaining that may lead to conviction and punishment, and it includes post-conviction events such as appeals and various procedures for addressing miscarriages of justice. Across more than 40 chapters, this Handbook provides a descriptive overview of the subject sufficient to serve as a durable reference source, and more importantly to offer contemporary critical or analytical perspectives on those subjects by leading scholars in the field. Topics covered include history, procedure, investigation, prosecution, evidence, adjudication, and appeal.

The Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law reflects the continued transformation of criminal law into a global discipline, providing scholars with a comprehensive international resource, a common point of entry into cutting edge contemporary research and a snapshot of the state and scope of the field. To this end, the Handbook takes a broad approach to its subject matter, disciplinarily, geographically, and systematically. Its contributors include current and future research leaders representing a variety of legal systems, methodologies, areas of expertise, and research agendas. The Handbook is divided into four parts: Approaches & Methods (I), Systems & Methods (II), Aspects & Issues (III), and Contexts & Comparisons (IV). Part I includes essays exploring various methodological approaches to criminal law (such as criminology, feminist studies, and history). Part II provides an overview of systems or models of criminal law, laying the foundation for further inquiry into specific conceptions of criminal law as well as for comparative analysis (such as Islamic, Marxist, and military law). Part III covers the three aspects of the penal process: the definition of norms and principles of liability (substantive criminal law), along with a less detailed treatment of the imposition of norms (criminal procedure) and the infliction of sanctions (prison law). Contributors consider the basic topics traditionally addressed in scholarship on the general and special parts of the substantive criminal law (such as jurisdiction, mens rea, justifications, and excuses). Part IV places criminal law in context, both domestically and transnationally, by exploring the contrasts between criminal law and other species of law and state power and by investigating criminal law's place in the projects of comparative law, transnational, and international law.

"This volume brings together the work of leading international scholars across criminology, sociology, political science, and law - along with contributions from reform-minded practitioners - to examine a variety of issues in prosecutorial performance and the institutional structures that frame their behavior. The power of the modern prosecutor arises from several features of the criminal justice landscape: widespread use of law and order political rhetoric; legislatures' embrace of extreme sentencing ranges to respond to voter concerns; and the uncertain or limited accountability of prosecutors to other units of government, the electorate, the bar, or other political and professional constituencies. The convergence of these trends has transformed prosecution into an indispensable field of study. The Handbook connects the dots among existing theoretical and empirical research related to prosecutors. Major sections of the volume cover (1) prosecutor performance during distinct phases of a criminal case, (2) the features of the prosecutor's environment, both inside the office and external to the office, that influence the choices of individual prosecutors and office leaders, and (3) prosecutorial priorities when dealing with specialized types of crimes, victims, and defendants. Taken together, the chapters in this volume identify the founding texts, discuss leading theoretical and methodological approaches, explain the scope of unresolved issues, and preview where this field is headed. The volume provides a bottom-up view of an important new scholarly field. It offers an indispensable starting point for newcomers and a compelling synthesis for specialists and practitioners"--

In the past twenty years, international criminal law has become one of the main areas of international legal scholarship and practice. Most textbooks in the field describe the evolution of international criminal tribunals, the elements of the core international crimes, the applicable modes of liability and defences, and the role of states in prosecuting international crimes. The Oxford Handbook of International Criminal Law, however, takes a theoretically informed and refreshingly critical look at the most controversial issues in international criminal law, challenging prevailing practices, orthodoxies, and received wisdoms. Some of the contributions to the Handbook come from scholars within the field, but many come from outside of international criminal law, or indeed from outside law itself. The chapters are grounded in history, geography, philosophy, and international relations. The result is a Handbook that expands the discipline and should fundamentally alter how international criminal law is understood.

The approach of the year 2000 has made the study of apocalyptic movements trendy. But groups anticipating the end of the world will continue to predict Armageddon even after the calendar clicks to triple Os.

In recent years the English criminal justice system has been shaken by certain notorious cases such as the Guildford Four, the Birmingham Six, and the Cardiff Three. The quashing of convictions in these and other cases has brought to public notice the structural deficiencies which exist in the criminal justice system. In this book Professor Ashworth addresses one of the most controversial areas of the entire criminal process: the pre-trial stage. Taking as his starting point the detention of suspects in police custody, the author examines six key issues in the pre-trial process: the questioning of suspects, cautioning of offenders, prosecutorial review, remand decisions, mode of trial decisions, and plea bargaining. Drawing upon empirical research, substantive law, and official guidance, the author considers how the rights of victims and defendants are promoted within the system, and in particular considers the potential impact of the European Convention of Human Rights on the administration of criminal justice in England and Wales. The recommendations of the 1993 Royal Commission on Criminal Justice are critically appraised.

Although the issue of offender decision-making pervades almost every discussion of crime and law enforcement, only a few comprehensive texts cover and integrate information about the role of decision-making in crime. The Oxford Handbook of Offender Decision Making provide high-quality reviews of the main paradigms in offender decision-making, such as rational choice theory and dual-process theory. It contains up-to-date reviews of empirical research on decision-making in a wide range of decision types including not only criminal initiation and desistance, but also choice of locations, times, targets, victims, methods as well as large variety crimes including homicide, robbery, domestic violence, burglary, street crime, sexual crimes, and cybercrime. Lastly, it provides in-depth treatments of the major methods used to study offender decision-making, including experiments, observation studies, surveys, offender interviews, and simulations. Comprehensive and authoritative, the Handbook will quickly become the primary source of theoretical, methodological, and empirical knowledge about decision-making as it relates to criminal behavior.