Legitimacy and Trust in Criminal Law, Policy and Justice: Norms, Procedures, Outcomes

Whereas previous studies of legitimacy and trust have mostly dealt with procedural justice and the police, this book focuses on other crucial understudied aspects of legitimacy within criminal law, policy and criminal justice. The chapters expand and develop current criminological, legal and socio-legal research by addressing conceptions of legitimacy linked to criminal law norms, criminalisation and sanctioning; by examining EU legal and policy aspects of the phenomenon; and by exploring some specific court-related issues of legitimacy and trust, hitherto neglected. With contributions from across the EU, this interdisciplinary collection presents a valuable discussion on the importance of trust in legal institutions of modern democracies and suggests ideas for future research in this area to challenge ways of thinking about legitimacy.

Contents: Beyond procedural justice: some neglected aspects of legitimacy of criminal law, policy and justice, Nina Persak. Part I Legitimacy and Trust in Criminal Law and Policy: Principles and Implementation: Norms, harms and disorder at the border: the legitimacy of criminal law intervention through the lens of criminalisation theory, Nina Persak; When things get serious: reflections on the legitimacy of local administrative sanctions in Belgium, Tom Vander Beken and Christophe Vandeviver; Legitimacy at stake? Crimmigration processes and the criminal justice system in the Netherlands, Joanne van der Leun and Maartje van der Woude; Legitimacy and EU criminal law regulation, Thomas Elholm. Part II Legitimacy and Trust in the Judiciary: Contradictions and Challenges: Legitimacy and trust-related issues of judiciary: new challenges for Europe, Nina Persak and JoA3/4e Strus; Whose claim is legitimate anyway? Negotiating power in inter-agency collaboration, Freya Vander Laenen; Mutual recognition in EU criminal law and its effects on the role of a national judge, AnA3/4e ErbeA3/4nik; Flaws and contradictions in the mutual trust and recognition discourse: casting a shadow on the legitimacy of EU criminal policy making and judicial cooperation in criminal matters?, Gert Vermeulen. Part III Concluding Thoughts: Diverging perspectives, converging thoughts? Common themes and prospects in legitimacy research, Nina Persak. Index.