New publication ‘Efficiency and Bureaucratisation of Criminal Justice: Global Trends’ with contributions from two SteR researchers

Assistant professor of Criminal Law Anna Pivaty together with Ed Johnston (Northampton University, UK) co-edited the volume ‘Efficiency and Bureaucratisation of Criminal Justice: Global Trends.  It was produced under the auspices of the Institutions for Conflict Resolution – Nijmegen research group. Alongside Anna Pivaty, SteR-researcher Marieke Dubelaar contributed to this volume.

The New Public Management policies have had a profound effect on Western criminal justice systems. Human rights and humanistic values – which in criminal justice are curiously intertwined with repression and control – have been challenged by managerialist practices, performance targets, and demands for value-for-money. Western criminal justice institutions have grown more bureaucratic, and speed and efficiency have become the epitome of quality and – at times - ‘justice.’

However, little is written in English about how these processes unveiled in non- Anglo Saxon criminal justice systems. To tackle this knowledge gap, Anna Pivaty together with Ed Johnston co-edited a volume ‘Efficiency and Bureaucratisation of Criminal Justice: Global Trends’, published by Routledge.

The volume explores the phenomenon of managerialism in jurisdictions which represent diverse socio-economic, political, cultural and legal traditions, namely China, Greece, England and Wales, France, the Netherlands and Scotland. According to Professor Jacqueline Hodgson, author of ‘The Metamorphosis of Criminal Justice’ (OUP, 2020) who wrote a foreword for the edited volume: ‘taken together, the common themes are striking: how efficiency and managerialism affect professional as well as legal cultures; how politically motivated reforms pose challenges to the integrity of system values; and the state of flux in which many processes of criminal justice find themselves.’