Public Participation in Criminal Justice

Abstract

The last twenty years in the UK have witnessed a radical transformation in relations between the public and the state with regard to criminal justice policy and practice. There has been an increasing acknowledgement and recognition of the state's own limitations in its capacity to guarantee and maintain public order. In part, this stems from a series of recent crises in the apparatus of criminal justice established over the preceding 200 years or so, in which the role and involvement of the public have been pivotal sources of concern. This article explores the scope for public involvement and participation in an age of increasing 'punitive populism' and, crucially, the form that this might take.