The crime, not rarely, is presented as the epicenter of society. Correlated to the decline of the democratic and republican values and principles, we witness a sort of institutional immersion in the criminal matters: everything is criminalized, from politics to insignificant facts. The criminalization processes are also used to control the undesirable on the eyes of those that detain the political and economic power. The fear is manipulated, the feeling of insecurity increases and the criminal law is transformed in magical answers to social problems. In the last decades, the majority of the society has become hostage of the narratives about the crime. The result was the increase of repression, severe criminal legislations and punitive judges. Juarez Tavares, one of the most important Brazilian intellectuals, presents in this book a precise diagnosis of the criminal matter, revealing the damages caused by the official speeches. At the same time, he indicates an emancipatory perspective in the opposite direction of the criminal populism and of the blind faith on punishment. Through a transdisciplinary approach, Tavares reminds that crime is merely a juridical concept, an instrument at service of the power, and that nothing justifies the defense of foolishness under the pretense of combating crimes. Against the common sense and the odes to the punishment, Crime: belief and reality presents a necessary analysis of the requirements that nurture the taste for punishment and the naturalization of the criminalization processes. It is a bold invite to rethink the place of the crime in the contemporary world.

This edited volume contains 22 papers organized into three sections under the following headings: part I is entitled On Promoting Victim Policies; Part II On Reforming Criminal Justice; and Part III On Restorative Justice. All three areas are ones to which Tony Peters, former Professor of Criminology in Leuven, has made a significant contribution and for which he is known as an international authority. During his long and productive academic career Tony Peters led many struggles for criminal justice reform. He was a leading figure in the movement to recognize crime victims' plight and to reaffirm their rights. In Belgium, he spearheaded the early initiatives in restorative justice and became one of its outspoken proponents nationally and internationally. There is no doubt that these three major topics and the various developments and reforms that are addressed in the papers will dominate the thinking about, and the practice of, criminal justice in the years to come. Thus, in addition to paying homage to a congenial friend and an illustrious colleague, it is hoped that this book will appeal and prove useful to all those who have an interest in victims issues, in criminal justice reform, and last but not least, in the promising paradigm of restorative justice.

This volume brings together an international group of legal scholars to discuss different approaches to lawmaking. As well as reflecting the diversity of legisprudence as a re-emerging academic field, it offers a broad overview of current developments and challenges in the theory of legislation, and aspires, moreover, to counterbalance some questionable ideas or misconceptions, widespread among jurists, on what making laws entails. The book is organized into three parts. The first comprises a sample of ‘ways and models of legislation’, ranging from classic legislative ideals to contemporary forms of regulation. The essays in this part, variances of focus notwithstanding, revolve around the notions of legislative rationality, quality, effectiveness, and legitimacy, which may be regarded as the cornerstones of legisprudence. Interwoven with these notions is another core legisprudential concern: the justification of laws. We address it separately in the next part by exploring the connection between lawmaking, argumentation and constitutional democracy: under the heading ‘legislation in a culture of justification’, a number of aspects of this connection are tackled that have not been sufficiently considered so far in legisprudential literature, such as the intricacies of legislative reasoning and balancing, or the justificatory problems posed by special-interest legislation. The under privileged status of legisprudence in legal studies and the need for socially attentive and citizen-oriented legislative research come to the fore in the third part of the book which turns to the relationships between ‘legisprudence, lawyers, and citizens’. All in all, the thirteen articles gathered here provide a stimulating insight into the theory of legislation, and can hopefully contribute to the reconciliation of the study of law and the study of its making.

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This volume critically explores the basis and the goal of punishment from the standpoint of the right to punish. Studies and works dedicated to punishment are scarce compared to those dedicated to Crime Theory or some aspect thereof. The book reviews the main doctrines that have dealt with the theme of punishment from Antiquity to the present, not limiting itself to the legal-philosophical sphere but also analyzing the contributions from other social sciences. It then explores how these are reflected in the sphere of Positive Law. Moving from the most abstract and general to the most concrete and specific, various themes relating to the concept of punishment are distinguished. These themes are not exactly equivalent but are, nevertheless, often confused with one another. They are: Punishment; Punitive Practice; Sentence and Penalty. Of these the third – Sentence, which is almost the least generic concept dealt with, having to do with that area of law which basically constitutes Criminal Law – forms the central part of the work. In this section, via a dual structure, the distinction is made between punishments and deterrents, as the prime types of punitive practice, with a distinct historical tradition, diverse bases and functions, around which different sorts of theories and schools have developed. The book ends with a series of critical conclusions as to what, in the opinion of the authors, should be a correct conception of punishment.