High profile miscarriages of justice have become focus of much recent writing on criminal justice. Such literature ignores an important paradox: when justice is contested and uncertain, how can we speak meaningfully of miscarriage of justice? This book addresses this question and finds an answer to it in the relationship between the legal construction of criminal justice and the reporting of it in the media.

Niklas Luhmann's sociological theory treats law-along with politics, economics, media, and ethics-as systems of communication. His theory not only offers profound and novel insights into the character of the legal system in modern society, but also provides an explanation for the role of jurisprudence as part of that legal system. In this work, the authors explore and develop Luhmann's claim that jurisprudence is part of law's self-description, a part of the legal system which, as a particular kind of legal communication, orientates legal operations by explaining law to itself. This approach...

This collection of socio-legal studies, written by leading theorists and researchers from around the world, offers original, perceptive and critical contributions to ideas and theories that have been expounded by Roger Cotterrell over a long and distinguished career. Engaging with many classic issues and theories of the sociology of law, the contributions are likely to become classics themselves as they tackle some of the most significant challenges that modern law faces. They do not shy away from what one of the contributors describes as the complexity and multiplicity of our contemporary...