Chapter 1 Understanding sustainable justice

Abstract

Writing in his seminal work Crime Control as Industry, Nils Christie (1993) outlines his vision of how western societies were facing increased unrest due to unequal wealth distribution and lack of access to properly paid work. After a sustained period of neo-liberalism and rationalisation throughout the western world, Christie's prediction of rising crime rates in relatively wealthy states has come to pass. However, the responses to this increase in crime have been varied from nation to nation. In Christie's case, the rise of the ‘crime control industry’ is a response that combines social control with a growth industry based on processing members of certain sections of society through a course of action that includes arrest, remand, trial and imprisonment at a time when the emphasis on rehabilitation appears to have diminished.

Citation

Leonard, L. and Kenny, P. (2010), "Chapter 1 Understanding sustainable justice", Leonard, L. and Kenny, P. (Ed.) Sustainable Justice and the Community (Advances in Ecopolitics, Vol. 6), Emerald Group Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 5-34. https://doi.org/10.1108/S2041-806X(2010)0000006004