The Japanese legal system is at a crossroads. The contributors to this book explore the most important features of the adversary process as it works in the Japanese criminal justice system. Topics include the right to remain silent, wire tapping, the role of defence counsel, plea bargaining, the power of prosecutors, juvenile justice and judicial independence. Many of the essays seek comparison with practices in Anglo-American countries.

Stuart A. Scheingold's landmark work introduced a new understanding of the contribution of rights to progressive social movements, and thirty years later it still stands as a pioneering and provocative work, bridging political science and sociolegal studies. In the preface to this new edition, the author provides a cogent analysis of the burgeoning scholarship that has been built on the foundations laid in his original volume. A new foreword from Malcolm Feeley of Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law traces the intellectual roots of The Politics of Rights to the classic texts of social...

Between 1965 and 1990, federal judges in almost all of the states handed down sweeping rulings that affected virtually every prison and jail in the United States. Without a doubt judges were the most important prison reformers during this period. This book provides an account of this process, and uses it to explore the more general issue of the role of courts in the modern bureaucratic state. It provides detailed accounts of how the courts formulated and sought to implement their orders, and how this action affected the traditional conception of federalism, separation of powers, and the rule...

Why do politicians run on a law-and-order platform even as crime rates are falling? Why does the public respond disproportionately to law-and-order soundbites and images in the media and on TV shows? At bottom, is crime a fixed reality or a social construction? This book is the foundational and renowned study of how politicians and others use crime rates-and most of all the public perception of street crime, whether or not it is accurate-for their own purposes. Dr. Scheingold also provides a theoretical and historical basis for his views, and compares mainstream theories of crime control, as...

What explains divergences in political liberalism among new nations that shared the same colonial heritage? This book assembles exciting original essays on former colonies of the British Empire in South Asia, Africa, and Southeast Asia that gained independence after World War II. The interdisciplinary country specialists reveal how inherent contradictions within British colonial rule were resolved after independence in contrasting liberal-legal, despotic, and volatile political orders. Through studies of the longue duree and particular events, this book presents a theory of political...