Blamestorming, Blamemongers and Scapegoats : Allocating Blame in the Criminal Justice Process

Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence We live in a society that is increasingly preoccupied with allocating blame: when something goes wrong someone must be to blame. Bringing together philosophical, psychological, and sociological accounts of blame, this is the first detailed criminological account of the role of blame in which the authors present a novel study of the legal process of blame attribution, set in the context of criminalisation as a social and political process. This timely and topical book will be essential reading for anyone working or researching in the criminal justice field. It will also be of wider interest to anyone wishing to discover the role of blame in modern society.Available Open Access under CC-BY-NC-ND licence We live in a society that is increasingly preoccupied with allocating blame: when something goes wrong someone must be to blame. Bringing together philosophical, psychological, and sociological accounts of blame, this is the first detailed criminological account of the role of blame in which the authors present a novel study of the legal process of blame attribution, set in the context of criminalisation as a social and political process. This timely and topical book will be essential reading for anyone working or researching in the criminal justice field. It will also be of wider interest to anyone wishing to discover the role of blame in modern society BLAMESTORMING, BLAMEMONGERS AND SCAPEGOATS Contents About the authors Preface 1. Introduction and the centrality of blame The Case of Mrs Inglis The Case of Baby P Blamestorming Blamemongers Scapegoats Blame Preliminary reflections 2. Blame in the criminal justice process Pre-trial diversion: removing those of limited culpability Pre-trial diversion: fixed penalties for particular categories of offence Pre-trial diversion: the routine diversion of some types of criminal conduct to specialist state agencies Mode of trial: deciding which court will hear a case Justifying sentence: the normative background Justifying sentence: the legal background Conclusions: blame and procedural decision-making 3. Blame and the blameless The minimum age of criminal responsibility Mental capacity Justifications, excuses and circumstances precluding wrongfulness Blame and luck 4. Blameless crime Motive: criminalising the well-intentioned Recklessness: criminalising the risk-taker Negligence and gross negligence: criminalising the incompetent Strict liability: criminalising the blameless Conclusion 5. Blame amplification Offence seriousness Shocking and extraordinary crimes 6. Putting oneself in harm’s way Blame, gang membership and paramilitary involvement Purchasing drugs, ‘associating with criminals’ and expanding the ‘blameworthy’ Drug misuse and crime Blame, intoxication and alcohol-related offending Conclusion: voluntarily heightening the risk of offending 7. Blame, punitiveness and criminalisation The growth of blame culture and the need for scapegoats From civil liability to criminal liability From human rights to the International Criminal Court 8. Blamestorming and blamemongers Defining blame Legal determinations about blame Blame and procedural decision-making Blame, luck and diminished responsibility Precursory conduct and the attribution of blame Quantifying blame Swiss cheese The blamemongers: from process to value Glossary References Case list Index We live in a society that is increasingly preoccupied with allocating blame: when something goes wrong someone must be to blame. Bringing together philosophical, psychological, and sociological accounts of blame, this is the first detailed socio-legal account of the role of blame in which the authors present a novel study of the legal process of blame attribution, set in the context of criminalisation as a social and political process. The book identifies the problematic and elusive nature of blame and contrasts this with the uncritical way in which it is often used in the criminal justice process