United Nations Surveys of Crime Trends and Operations of Criminal Justice Systems Series, Waves 1-10, 1970-2006

This article reviews the background and content of the Principles and Guidelines on Access to Legal Aid in Criminal Justice Systems, adopted by the U.N. General Assembly in December 2012, to consider its objectives and potential. As with similar international agreements, the Principles and Guidelines is not legally binding and requires further legislative action to be implemented. This article demonstrates how urgent the need for legal aid reform is and raises realistic expectations about what the international instrument can achieve in this regard. In stressing the urgent need for reforms of legal aid systems, the discussion uses the European Union as an example because of the extensive comparative analysis available and because of the recent European Union Roadmap for Criminal Procedural Rights that aims, inter alia, to improve access to legal aid. To strengthen further the argument, attention also will be paid to the problems surrounding legal aid in the United States, which will indicate some of the Principles and Guidelines’ limitations. Furthermore, the path of implementation of an earlier United Nations General Assembly Resolution will be outlined to articulate what reasonable expectations can be placed on the Principles and Guidelines’ approach to ensuring access to legal aid.

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The Unique and Comparative Features of the Criminal Justice Systems, International Law, and the United Nations Criminal Courts: A Synthesis

Comparative and International Criminal Justice Systems ◽

10.1201/b14863-35 ◽

2013 ◽

pp. 297-308

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

United Nations ◽

International Law ◽

Criminal Courts ◽

Criminal Justice Systems ◽

The United Nations ◽

Justice Systems

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Restorative Justice and Criminal Justice Systems in Europe

MINORIGIUSTIZIA ◽

10.3280/mg2016-001003 ◽

2016 ◽

pp. 24-32 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Katrien Lauwaert ◽

Ivo Aertsen

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Restorative Justice ◽

Criminal Justice Systems ◽

Justice Systems

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“We’ll Take the Tough Ones”

New Criminal Law Review An International and Interdisciplinary Journal ◽

10.1525/nclr.2019.22.4.542 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 22 (4) ◽

pp. 542-584

Author(s):

Chrysanthi S. Leon ◽

Corey S. Shdaimah

Keyword(s):

Criminal Justice ◽

Diversion Programs ◽

Social Emotional ◽

Theoretical Frameworks ◽

Material Resources ◽

Professional Goals ◽

Criminal Justice Systems ◽

Working Groups ◽

Justice Systems

Expertise in multi-door criminal justice enables new forms of intervention within existing criminal justice systems. Expertise provides criminal justice personnel with the rationale and means to use their authority in order to carry out their existing roles for the purpose of doing (what they see as) good. In the first section, we outline theoretical frameworks derived from Gil Eyal’s sociology of expertise and Thomas Haskell’s evolution of moral sensibility. We use professional stakeholder interview data (N = 45) from our studies of three emerging and existing prostitution diversion programs as a case study to illustrate how criminal justice actors use what we define as primary, secondary, and tertiary expertise in multi-agency working groups. Actors make use of the tools at their disposal—in this case, the concept of trauma—to further personal and professional goals. As our case study demonstrates, professionals in specialized diversion programs recognize the inadequacy of criminal justice systems and believe that women who sell sex do so as a response to past harms and a lack of social, emotional, and material resources to cope with their trauma. Trauma shapes the kinds of interventions and expertise that are marshalled in response. Specialized programs create seepage that may reduce solely punitive responses and pave the way for better services. However empathetic, they do nothing to address the societal forces that are the root causes of harm and resultant trauma. This may have more to do with imagined capacities than with the objectively best approaches.

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