1st Edition
The Evolving Role of the Public Prosecutor Challenges and Innovations
Part I: The Office of the Modern Public Prosecutor
Chapter 1: Decoding Hegemony: Exploring the Discourse of a Prosecuting Elite - Robyn Holder
Chapter 2: New Public Management, Citizens’ Fears and Calls for Justice: The Prosecutor’s New Role in Italy - Cecilia Blengino
Chapter 3: Deferred Prosecution Agreements: Negotiating Punishment Before Conviction? - Simon Bronitt
Chapter 4: The Public Prosecution Service and the Structuring of Sentencing: The Nordic Case of Denmark - Rasmus Wandall
Part II: The Role of Prosecutors in Investigations
Chapter 5: The Role of the Finnish Prosecutor in Preliminary Investigations – Efficiency or the End of Impartiality? - Julia Jansson
Chapter 6: Framing Prosecutor–Police Relations in Europe – A Concept Paper - Philip Stenning and Julia Jansson
Chapter 7: Police Prosecution and Access to Justice for People with Disabilities - Penelope Weller
Chapter 8: Roles of Lawyers and Investigators in Investigations of International Crimes - Melanie O’Brien
Part III: The Nature and Extent of Prosecutorial Discretion
Chapter 9: The Riddle of Prosecutorial Discretion - Victoria Colvin
Chapter 10: Prosecuting Domestic Violence Cases: Listening to Victims - Heather Douglas
Chapter 11: Prosecutorial Discretion about Special Measure Use in Australian Cases of Child Sexual Abuse - Jane Goodman-Delahunty, Natalie Martschuk, Martine Powell, and Nina Westera
Chapter 12: Community Prosecution Code Enforcement in Dallas, Texas: Effects on Serious Crime - John Worrall, Andrew Wheeler, and Justine Medrano
Part IV: Prosecutors, Politics and Accountability
Chapter 13: Prosecution and Politics in Germany: The Struggle for Independence - Michael Jasch
Chapter 14: Prosecutorial Independence and Effectiveness of the Nigerian Criminal Justice System - Adedeji Adekunle
Chapter 15: The Decision to Prosecute – The Accountability of Australian Prosecutors - Kellie Toole
Chpater 16: Regulating the Prosecutorial Role in Wrongful Convictions - Kent Roach
Conclusion - Victoria Colvin and Philip Stenning
Biography
Victoria Colvin is a lecturer at the School of Law, University of Wollongong. She completed her doctorate at the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland, in 2017. From 2001–2009, she was a prosecutor with the Criminal Justice Branch of the Attorney General of British Columbia, Canada.
Philip Stenning is an Adjunct Professor in the Griffith Criminology Institute at Griffith University in Brisbane, Australia, a Visiting Professor in the Law School at Leeds University in the UK and an Honorary Professor in the School of Applied Human Sciences at the University of KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa. His published books include Appearing for the Crown: A Legal and Historical Review of Criminal Prosecutorial Authority in Canada (1986), The Modern Prosecution Process in New Zealand (2008) and, with David Bayley, Governing the Police: Experience in Six Democracies (2016).
This innovative collection of essays sets out to broaden study of the criminal process by bringing public prosecutors into the spotlight. Prosecutors wield considerable power over the course of criminal cases – whether the prosecution is dropped or results in diversion, what charges are brought, whether a plea bargain is struck, etc – and yet they do this away from the public gaze. This comparative study looks at civil law and common law systems, raising a wide range of questions about the extent of power, discretion and accountability of public prosecutors.
Andrew Ashworth,
Vinerian Professor of English Law Emeritus, University of Oxford.
