Criminal Justice System

Australian Criminal Justice System

"When all is said and done, the current criminal justice system is about as fair and effective as we can reasonably expect"

Overview of the Criminal Justice System: Fair and Effective - Penal Populism

The Democracy at Work thesis proposes that politicians have been properly responsive to public concern about crime by putting into place the more robust responses to offending which people want. An alternative perspective is that politicians have been populist in advocating these tougher policies. "Penal populism"; a term equivalent to Bottoms's (1995) "populist punitiveness"; is defined here as a punishment policy developed primarily for its anticipated popularity. Penal policy is particularly susceptible to populism, because there is a great deal of public concern about crime, and low levels of public knowledge about sentencing practice, sentencing effectiveness, and sentencing equity. This combination of concern and lack of knowledge can present...
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