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Informal Justice in Divided Societies examines the ways in which paramilitary and vigilante activity are linked with controlling community crime in both Northern Ireland and South Africa. Drawing upon original research, Colin Knox and Rachel Monaghan analyze the agents of informal justice, its victims and why communities endorse this form of retribution. They conclude the book with a wider debate of the abuse of human rights suffered by many victims of community crime and tentatively highlight future policy implications.
Informal forms of justice such as mediation have been greeted enthusiastically as progress from the punishment model of justice -- and criticised as broadening rather than narrowing the reach of the criminal justice system. Here the contributors assess the evidence and re-appraise the theory of informalism.
The 'reparational turn' in the field of law has resulted in the increased use of so-called 'informal' approaches to conflict resolution, including primarily the three mechanisms considered in this book: mediation, restorative justice and reparations. While proponents of these mechanisms have acclaimed their communicative and democratic promise, critics have charged that mediation, restorative justice and reparations all potentially serve as means for encouraging citizens to internalize and mimic the rationalities of governance. Indeed, the critics suggest that informal justice's supposed oppositional relationship to formal justice is, at base, a mutually reinforcing one, in which each system relies on the other for its effective operation, rather than the two being locked in a struggle for dominance. This book contributes to the discussion of the confluence of informal and formal justice by providing a clearer picture of the justice 'field' through the notion of the 'informal/formal justice complex.' This term, adapted from Garland and Sparks (2000), describes a cultural formation in which adversarial/punitive and conciliatory/restorative justice forms coexist in relative harmony despite their apparent contradictions. Situating this complex within the context of neoliberalism, this book identifies the points of rupture in the informal/formal justice complex to pinpoint how and where a truly alternative and 'transformative' justice (i.e. a justice that challenges and counters the hegemony of formal legal practices, opening the field of law to a broader array of actors and ideas) might be established through the tools of mediation, restorative justice and reparations.
Shortlisted for the 2015 Katharine Briggs Award This is a study of law, wrongdoing and justice as conceived in the minds of the ordinary people of England and Wales from the later eighteenth century to the First World War. Official justice was to become increasingly centralised with declining traditional courts, emerging professional policing and a new prison estate. However, popular concepts of what was, or should be, contained within the law were often at variance with its formal written content. Communities continued to hold mock courts, stage shaming processions and burn effigies of wrongdoers. The author investigates those justice rituals, the actors, the victims and the offences that occasioned them. He also considers the role such practices played in resistive communities trying to preserve their identity and assert their independence. Finally, whilst documenting the decline of popular justice traditions this book demonstrates that they were nevertheless important in bequeathing a powerful set of symbols and practices to the nascent labour movement. This book will be of interest to scholars and students of legal history and criminal justice as well as social and cultural history in what could be considered a very long nineteenth century. Stephen Banks is an associate professor in criminal law, criminal justice and legal history at the University of Reading, co-director of the Forum for Legal and Historical Research and author of A Polite Exchange of Bullets: The Duel and the English Gentleman, 1750-1850 (The Boydell Press, 2010).
All societies contain ethnic divisions. Traditionally, education has acted to promote social integration, but with the acknowledgement of diversity do we know which system best promotes positive inter-community relations? Education in Divided Societies examines the experience of a range of systems, including those which provide common schools and those which place minorities in separate schools. The book argues that structures do not guarantee outcomes and that processes of dialogue and interconnected social systems provide the route to the future.
Anti-social behaviour has rapidly emerged as one of the most pressing concerns facing the UK. There are frequent media reports on the issue. Many academics and policy makers have also attempted to define the term and analyze why such disorder happens. The research has been extremely valuable, but few studies have specifically analyzed the issue of anti-social behaviour in Northern Ireland. This book seeks to fill this gap in knowledge. This study considers whether certain aspects of the Troubles in Northern Ireland could be considered as anti-social behaviour in retrospect. It also analyzes the role paramilitary groups played in dealing with incidents of disorder during this period of time. In addition, the book evaluates what impact political settlement has had on the perceptions of anti-social behaviour in the country. The study also explains some of the theoretical problems associated with the term in order to facilitate the specific evaluation of the issue in Northern Ireland. The analysis of what the term represents, the causes and the impact, offers a constructive insight into how best to respond to the problem of anti-social behaviour in the future.
Building upon an interdisciplinary synthesis of recent literature from the fields of transitional justice and conflict transformation, this book introduces a groundbreaking theoretical framework that highlights the critical importance of identity in the relationship between transitional justice and reconciliation in deeply divided societies. Using this framework, Aiken argues that transitional justice interventions will be successful in promoting reconciliation and sustainable peace to the extent that they can help to catalyze those crucial processes of ‘social learning’ needed to transform the antagonistic relationships and identifications that divide post-conflict societies even after the signing of formal peace agreements. Combining original field research and an extensive series of expert interviews, Aiken applies this social learning model in a comprehensive examination of both the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission and the uniquely ‘decentralized’ approach to transitional justice that has emerged in Northern Ireland. By offering new insight into the experiences of these countries, Aiken provides compelling firsthand evidence to suggest that transitional justice interventions can best contribute to post-conflict reconciliation if they not only provide truth and justice for past human rights abuses, but also help to promote contact, dialogue and the amelioration of structural and material inequalities between former antagonists. Identity, Reconciliation and Transitional Justice makes a timely contribution to debates about how to best understand and address past human rights violations in post-conflict societies, and it offers a valuable resource to students, scholars, practitioners and policymakers dealing with these difficult issues.
In many societies, histories of exclusion, racism and nationalist violence often create divisions so deep that finding a way to deal with the atrocities of the past seems nearly impossible. These societies face difficult practical questions about how to devise new state and civil society institutions that will respond to massive or systematic violations of human rights, recognize victims and prevent the recurrence of abuse. Identities in Transition: Challenges for Transitional Justice in Divided Societies brings together a rich group of international researchers and practitioners who, for the first time, examine transitional justice through an 'identity' lens. They tackle ways that transitional justice can act as a means of political learning across communities; foster citizenship, trust and recognition; and break down harmful myths and stereotypes, as steps toward meeting the difficult challenges for transitional justice in divided societies.