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1 – 10 of 115Collateral consequences (CCs) of criminal convictions such as disenfranchisement, occupational restrictions, exclusions from public housing, and loss of welfare benefits represent…
Abstract
Collateral consequences (CCs) of criminal convictions such as disenfranchisement, occupational restrictions, exclusions from public housing, and loss of welfare benefits represent one of the salient yet hidden features of the contemporary American penal state. This chapter explores, from a comparative and historical perspective, the rise of the many indirect “regulatory” sanctions flowing from a conviction and discusses some of the unique challenges they pose for legal and policy reform. US jurisprudence and policies are contrasted with the more stringent approach adopted by European legal systems and the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) in safeguarding the often blurred line between criminal punishments and formally civil sanctions. The aim of this chapter is twofold: (1) to contribute to a better understanding of the overreliance of the US criminal justice systems on CCs as a device of social exclusion and control, and (2) to put forward constructive and viable reform proposals aimed at reinventing the role and operation of collateral restrictions flowing from criminal convictions.
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In this chapter I discuss judicial contributions to Italian penality. I look at the penal incentives produced by interactions between judicial and political classes, and ask…
Abstract
Purpose
In this chapter I discuss judicial contributions to Italian penality. I look at the penal incentives produced by interactions between judicial and political classes, and ask whether judges and prosecutors have been forces for punitiveness or moderation. I discuss the relevance of the Italian case for broader analyses of Western penality.
Design/methodology/approach
My chapter offers a political-sociological account of judicial contributions to punishment. I analyse the penal incentives created by different national institutional set-ups, specifically addressing judicial contributions to penality using a framework developed by Joachim Savelsberg and Nicola Lacey. The framework examines judicial structure in the institutional context looking at the penal implications of bureaucratisation of the judiciary and the capacity for co-ordination between judges and politicians. I include judicial legitimacy as an additional dimension in this framework.
Findings
I conclude that the Italian judiciary have been forces for punitiveness and moderation. Their contributions can be systematised by looking at the waxing and waning of judicial legitimacy, and the consequent expansion and contraction of judicial powers. I claim that judicial legitimacy is also relevant to other (‘non-Italian’) analyses of judicial contributions to contemporary Western penality.
Originality/value
By adding legitimacy to investigations of judicial contributions to penality I provide an organising principle with which to analyse the penal role of Italian judicial actors. I thus allow Italy to be kept in conversation with existing comparative models, without assuming that it either conforms to the models entirely, or that the models should otherwise be eschewed. I use the Italian case to demonstrate the relevance of legitimacy when analysing judicial contributions to Western penality, arguing that changing legitimacy affects the terms and effect of interaction between judicial and political classes.
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The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, the paper will map Belgian compliance officers' practices and challenges, and second, it makes an attempt to assess the effectiveness…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is twofold: first, the paper will map Belgian compliance officers' practices and challenges, and second, it makes an attempt to assess the effectiveness of their input in the anti‐money laundering (AML) chain in Belgium: what are actual results of the fight against money laundering?
Design/methodology/approach
The research starts from a criminological point of view, studying the preventive AML‐policy by focusing on the compliance function in banks. In order to study this preventive approach more concretely, a survey was sent to Belgian compliance officers, asking about their practices. Second, the available statistics on 13 years of AML in Belgium were studied.
Findings
The function of compliance officer implies a number of challenges or “growing pains”; problematic access to information, lack of feedback from the authorities, limited investigative means. Furthermore, although the investments of private organisations in AML have been substantial, the outcome of the AML chain seems modest.
Research limitations/implications
This paper reflects the first phase of an on‐going research (2006‐2009). The results presented here are therefore preliminary.
Originality/value
Belgium implemented a regulatory framework in 2001, obliging the installment of a compliance function within banks. The value of this research lies in the fact that this booming professional group has never been subject of research before, even though they play a crucial role in AML in particular and crime fighting in general. It is therefore of great importance to study compliance officers' views, practices, and opinions in order to get a grip on this new type of “policing”.
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This essay engages the work of sociologist George Herbert Mead and political theorist William E. Connolly, applying a reading of their understanding of the criminal other to the…
Abstract
This essay engages the work of sociologist George Herbert Mead and political theorist William E. Connolly, applying a reading of their understanding of the criminal other to the development of Illinois’ and South Carolina's penal systems at the turn of the nineteenth century. Despite an influx of European immigrants, Illinois politicians and prison officials fashioned an approach to corrections that relied on rehabilitation through assimilation as the core component of disciplining its convict population. In contrast to this approach, South Carolina fashioned a penology based upon the principle of exclusion, one that enshrined retribution over rehabilitation in the paradigm of punishment. The essay concludes by comparing the importance of racial and ethno-cultural politics in shaping regional and national debates over correctional policy and by examining the primary function race plays in explaining the current backlash against the rehabilitative ideal informing so much of contemporary penology.