Preventive Justice

This book arises from a three-year study of Preventive Justice directed by Professor Andrew Ashworth and Professor Lucia Zedner at the University of Oxford. The study seeks to develop an account of the principles and values that should guide and limit the state's use of preventive techniques that involve coercion against the individual. States today are increasingly using criminal law or criminal law-like tools to try to prevent or reduce the risk of anticipated future harm. Such measures include criminalizing conduct at an early stage in order to allow authorities to intervene; incapacitating suspected future wrongdoers; and imposing extended sentences or indefinate on past wrongdoers on the basis of their predicted future conduct - all in the name of public protection and security. The chief justification for the state's use of coercion is protecting the public from harm. Although the rationales and justifications of state punishment have been explored extensively, the scope, limits and principles of preventive justice have attracted little doctrinal or conceptual analysis. This book re-assesses the foundations for the range of coercive measures that states now take in the name of prevention and public protection, focussing particularly on coercive measures involving deprivation of liberty. It examines whether these measures are justified, whether they distort the proper boundaries between criminal and civil law, or whether they signal a larger change in the architecture of security. In so doing, it sets out to establish a framework for what we call 'Preventive Justice'. Review: 'Preventive Justice is an impressive and unprecedented contribution to legal and criminal justice scholarship ... The book represents a vital first step on a, hopefully unavoidable, path towards a serious and critical appreciation of the role of prevention both in law and in liberal society more broadly' Henrique Carvalho, Modern Law Review 'Among the many scholars who have turned their attention to this phenomenon, Andrew Ashworth and Lucia Zedner are probably the most influential ... Their monograph has accordingly been awaited eagerly; and it does not disappoint. Conceptually elegant, beautifully written, it not only maps out the contours of this emerging field of criminalization but also sets the recent developments within a much-needed historical context ... The book is a considerable achievement ... In Preventive Justice, Ashworth and Zedner have provided not only an excellent piece of scholarship in its own right, but a compelling case for an analytic focus on preventive criminalization.' Nicola Lacey, British Journal of Criminology 'Ashworth and Zedner's Preventive Justice is the culmination of a project running over several years ... It is historically and theoretically informed and thoroughly convincing ... The authors' work is simultaneously groundbreaking and of direct practical application, and deserving of considerable praise.' James Chalmers, Edinburgh Law Review