Although most countries around the world use professional judges, they also rely on lay citizens, untrained in the law, to decide criminal cases. The participation of lay citizens helps to incorporate community perspectives into legal outcomes and to provide greater legitimacy for the legal system and its verdicts. This book offers a comprehensive and comparative picture of how nations use lay people in legal decision-making. It provides a much-needed, in-depth analysis of the different approaches to citizen participation and considers why some countries' use of lay participation is long-standing whereas other countries alter or abandon their efforts. This book examines the many ways in which countries around the world embrace, reject, or reform the way in which they use ordinary citizens in legal decision-making.
This book presents a comprehensive account of past and present efforts to introduce the jury system in Japan. Four legal reforms are documented and assessed: the implementation of the bureaucratic and all-judge special jury systems in the 1870s, the introduction of the all-layperson jury in the late 1920s, the transplantation of the Anglo-American-style jury system to Okinawa under the U.S. Occupation, and the implementation of the mixed-court lay judge (saiban’in) system in 2009. While being primarily interested in the related case studies, the book also discusses the instances when the idea of introducing trial by jury was rejected at different times in Japan’s history. Why does legal reform happen? What are the determinants of success and failure of a reform effort? What are the prospects of the saiban’in system to function effectively in Japan? This book offers important insights on the questions that lie at the core of the law and society debate and are highly relevant for understanding contemporary Japan and its recent and distant past.
Trial by jury is not a fundamental part of the Japanese legal system, but there has been a recent important move towards this with the introduction in 2009 of the lay assessor system whereby lay people sit with judges in criminal trials. This book considers the debates in Japan which surround this development. It examines the political and socio-legal contexts, contrasting the view that the participation of ordinary citizens in criminal trials is an important manifestation of democracy, with the view that Japan as a society where authority is highly venerated is not natural territory for a system where lay people are likely to express views at odds with expert judges. It discusses Japan’s earlier experiments with jury trials in the late 19th Century, the period 1923-43, and up to 1970 in US-controlled Okinawa, compares developing views in Japan on this issue with views in other countries, where dissatisfaction with the jury system is often evident, and concludes by assessing how the new system in Japan is working out and how it is likely to develop.
With effective solutions in both criminal and civil disputes at a premium, reformers have advanced varied forms of jury systems as a means of fostering positive political, economic, and social change. Many countries have recently integrated lay partici
Even though youth crime rates have fallen since the mid-1990s, public fear and political rhetoric over the issue have heightened. The Columbine shootings and other sensational incidents add to the furor. Often overlooked are the underlying problems of child poverty, social disadvantage, and the pitfalls inherent to adolescent decisionmaking that contribute to youth crime. From a policy standpoint, adolescent offenders are caught in the crossfire between nurturance of youth and punishment of criminals, between rehabilitation and "get tough" pronouncements. In the midst of this emotional debate, the National Research Council's Panel on Juvenile Crime steps forward with an authoritative review of the best available data and analysis. Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents recommendations for addressing the many aspects of America's youth crime problem. This timely release discusses patterns and trends in crimes by children and adolescentsâ€"trends revealed by arrest data, victim reports, and other sources; youth crime within general crime; and race and sex disparities. The book explores desistanceâ€"the probability that delinquency or criminal activities decrease with ageâ€"and evaluates different approaches to predicting future crime rates. Why do young people turn to delinquency? Juvenile Crime, Juvenile Justice presents what we know and what we urgently need to find out about contributing factors, ranging from prenatal care, differences in temperament, and family influences to the role of peer relationships, the impact of the school policies toward delinquency, and the broader influences of the neighborhood and community. Equally important, this book examines a range of solutions: Prevention and intervention efforts directed to individuals, peer groups, and families, as well as day care-, school- and community-based initiatives. Intervention within the juvenile justice system. Role of the police. Processing and detention of youth offenders. Transferring youths to the adult judicial system. Residential placement of juveniles. The book includes background on the American juvenile court system, useful comparisons with the juvenile justice systems of other nations, and other important information for assessing this problem.
What is a shogun? Who were the samurai and what is the warrior code? What lies behind the Japanese work ethic? From the ancient tea ceremony to the boom and subsequent downturn of its economic prosperity, this uniquely concise introduction to Japan and its history surveys nearly 10,000 years of society, culture, economics and politics. Balancing economic and political information with new insights into the twin spheres of art and religion, Mikiso Hane offers authoritative coverage of all aspects of Japanese life. With a particular focus on the key events of the last 200 years, the author also pays special attention to the changing conditions of those whose history has been so frequently neglected - the women, the peasants, and the lowest order of untouchables. Well-rounded and enlightening, this informative account of Japan and its people will be greatly appreciated by historians, students and all those with an interest in this diverse and enigmatic country.
In this timely volume, the authors provide a penetrating analysis of the institutional mechanisms perpetuating the related problems of minorities' disenfranchisement and their underrepresentation on juries.
