Browsing by Subject "criminal justice"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
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    Non-state forms of conflict resolution: opportunities for improving criminal justice a case study of community courts in Mozambique
    (2022) Lorizzo, Concetta; Amien, Waheeda
    The Mozambican criminal justice system faces two main challenges, namely lack of access to justice for all and deplorable prison conditions. Judicial courts are distant and expensive; legal terminology is incomprehensible to the majority of people; and prisons are overcrowded. Mozambicans continue to rely on different normative systems, other than state justice, to resolve their disputes. Recognised mainly as informal, these non-state mechanisms have always been considered as closer, cheaper and faster than judicial courts. However, the literature on legal pluralism and the state has historically ignored the role that they play in criminal justice. Given this background, the thesis examines the limitations of legal pluralism and how the past shaped and continues to shape the particular relationship of the state with community courts in relation to criminal justice. The study makes use of materials derived from exploratory work in the Mozambican capital city of Maputo, including focus group discussions, individual interviews, access to case files, and various other empirical observations. The thesis analyses the functioning of community courts. The discourses and practices on criminal justice of these courts are most usually seen as situated within Eurocentric dominant political discourses about the nature of access to justice and punishment. Through a postcolonial analysis, however, the thesis aims at identifying community courts as forms of local knowledge; it explores the legal and practical obstacles and opportunities that community courts provide to improve access to criminal justice for petty crimes and ultimately their impact on the condition of prisons. The thesis shows that the revision of the community courts' law presents an opportunity to broaden the competence of the courts to include criminal cases punishable with imprisonment up to three years. Because of this, petty crimes would go through the state criminal justice system and more cases would be resolved at the community level. Community courts are trusted by the people and make use of a form of restorative justice. They reach decisions through mediation; assess the socioeconomic causes of a case; involve families and communities when needed; and apply alternatives to imprisonment. A shift of the state's mainstream attitude to community courts in relation to criminal justice is now needed – a move away from Eurocentric discourse and towards the recognition, in practice, of local knowledge.
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    Prison Reforms in Mozambique Fail to Touch the Ground: Accessing the Experience of Pre-trial Detainees in Maputo
    (Academy of Science of South Africa, 2012) Lorizzo, Tina
    This article presents the findings of research on pre-trial detention in the Mozambique capital city Maputo. Conditions of detention and access to legal representation of a group of pre-trial detainees are analysed within the context of development of the prison system in Mozambique. The research shows that while progress has been made at the legal and institutional level of the prison system, reforms have yet to impact on pre-trial detainees’ lives.
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    Rape Unresolved: Policing Sexual Offences in South Africa
    (UCT Press, 2015-01-01) Smythe, Dee; Smythe, Dee
    More than 1 000 women are raped in South Africa every day. Around 150 of those women will report the crime to the police. Fewer than 30 of the cases will be prosecutedand no more than 10 will result in a conviction. This translates into an overall convictionrate of 4 – 8 per cent of reported cases. What happens to all the other cases? Rape Unresolved is concerned with the question of police discretion and how its exercise shapes the criminal justice response to rape in South Africa. Through a detailed, qualitative review of rape dockets and victim statements, as well as interviews with detectives, prosecutors, magistrates and rape counsellors, the author provides key insights into police responses to rape. A complex picture emerges, of myths and stereotypes, of skills deficits, of disengagement by police as well as victims. Responsibility for the investigation of the cases – and their ultimate failure – is shifted onto the complainants, who must constantly prove their commitment to the criminal justice process in order to be taken seriously. The vast majority of rape victims who approach the criminal justice system in South Africa do not receive justice or protection. This book uncovers the fault line between the state’s rhetorical commitment to addressing sexual violence through legal guarantees and the actual application of these laws.
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    Todd Clear speaks on community justice
    (2011) Clear, Todd
    The Centre of Criminology and Professor Todd Clear, Dean of the School of Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, held a one-day workshop on the topic of 'Community Justice', at the Law Faculty, UCT on the 15th April 2011. This video explores community justice and policing in South Africa, and contains references to laws regarding community justice and policing. This video can be used to support law curriculum or for self study.
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    Will the real social worker please stand up? Defining criminal justice social work
    (Academy of Science of South Africa, 2011) Holtzhausen, Leon
    The fundamental objective of this article is to urge a change in the conventional paradigms used to define the practice of social work in the field of criminal justice, and to set in motion a conversion to a unified paradigm of criminal justice social work. A unified paradigm is used here to refer to the multidimensional and multidisciplinary practice of social work in working with both those who offend and those who are victims of crime, in order to restore harm done and prevent further offending. This text is essentially nomenclatorial in nature, meaning, it deals with the naming and defining the specialisation of criminal justice social work as distinctly different from social work in general.