This book provides a systematic, philosophically informed account of criminal responsibility. Part 1 of the book provides an innovative account of some of the underlying principles of criminal responsibility in the context of political theory, showing how the conditions of responsibility are articulated in, and restrained by, the institutional setting of the criminal law. Part 2 uses the insights developed in Part 1 to reconsider some of the central doctrines of criminal responsibility, examining issues including the nature of causation, intentions, and beliefs, and mental disorder defences,...

Every modern democratic state imprisons thousands of offenders every year, depriving them of their liberty, causing them a great deal of psychological and sometimes physical harm. Relationships are destroyed, jobs are lost, the risk of the offender being harmed by other offenders is increased and all at great expense to the state.
How can this brutal and costly enterprise be justified? Traditionally, philosophers answering this question have argued either that the punishment of wrongdoers is a good in itself (retributivism), or that it is a regrettable means to a valuable end, such as the...

The Criminalization series arose from an interdisciplinary investigation into criminalization, focussing on the principles that might guide decisions about what kinds of conduct should be criminalized, and the forms that criminalization should take. Developing a normative theory of criminalization, the series tackles the key questions at the heart of the issue: what principles and goals should guide legislators in deciding what to criminalize? How should criminal wrongs be classified and differentiated? How should law enforcement officials apply the law's specifications of offences?...