Four of the contemporary practitioners of the death penalty in Southeast Asia: Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, performed judicial executions on a regular basis between the years 1975 and 2009. Notwithstanding this similarity, the number of death sentences passed by courts that were subsequently reduced to a term of imprisonment through grants of clemency by the executive (or where the prisoner sentenced to death is exonerated by way of a pardon) varied remarkably between these jurisdictions over this 35-year period: some of these countries commuted the sentences of death row prisoners often, others rarely. In this DPhil thesis, I employ the methodology of comparative criminal justice to explore the discrepancies and similarities in capital clemency practice between these four Southeast Asian jurisdictions, seeking to document the known examples of clemency grants over the course of their modern history, and to investigate the reasons why retentionist countries exercise clemency at vastly different ‘rates’ in finalised capital cases. As clemency and pardon deliberations by the executive are usually performed in secret, academic study of the subject has remained scarce, and the suspected reasons behind death sentence commutations, and their relative frequency, are rarely analysed. My inductive, qualitative study in comparative criminal justice will attempt to address these deficiencies in analysis as they apply to four Southeast Asian countries that continue to practice capital punishment as a form of criminal sanction. Moving beyond Amnesty International’s simplistic observation that ‘nowhere in Asia has the ready availability of such clemency been marked’, I examine the intricacies of the clemency practice in each jurisdiction, and arrive at regional trends and patterns.

Dans ce mémoire, nous examinons le fichage de la délinquance sexuelle dont les divers régimes juridiques reposent sur l’idée que ces contrevenants présentent un risque réel de récidive criminelle. Les données scientifiques sur la délinquance sexuelle relativisent ce risque et attestent qu’il est quasi absent dans un très grand nombre de cas. Il existe donc une dichotomie entre les prémisses du droit et les connaissances issues des sciences sociales et humaines sur cette question. Le fichage de cette délinquance au Canada donne lieu à des mécanismes administratifs provinciaux en plus d’un régime fédéral contenu au Code criminel. Nous émettons l’hypothèse que le fichage provincial emporte de véritables conséquences pénales sur les délinquants sexuels, affectent leurs droits en vertu de l’article 7 de la Charte et contrecarre des principes de justice fondamentale. Ensuite, nous examinons le régime fédéral intégré au Code criminel et nous argumentons que ce mécanisme juridique crée une mesure punitive de la nature d’une peine. Par conséquent, le fichage fédéral devrait être aménagé de façon à satisfaire aux garanties constitutionnelles propres à la peine et aux principes généraux de la détermination de la peine en vertu de la Partie XXIII du Code criminel. Nous concluons que les législateurs successifs ont créé des régimes juridiques régissant le fichage de la délinquance sexuelle en écartant les principes fondamentaux administratifs, criminels et constitutionnels qui devraient présider à l’élaboration des règles concernant ce stigmate de la criminalité. Les tribunaux, par leur interprétation, ont également déqualifié cette stigmatisation de la criminalité sexuelle à titre de peine. Le droit relatif au fichage de la délinquance sexuelle donne donc lieu à une érosion des principes fondamentaux de la justice criminelle et punitive. / In this thesis, we examine tracking mechanisms for sex offenders that are based on the idea that the offenders present a real risk of criminal recidivism. Scientific data on sexual delinquency minimises this risk and shows on the contrary that most sex offenders do not reoffend. There is therefore a discrepancy between the premises of the law and the social and human sciences’ findings on the issue. In Canada, there are provincial administrative tracking schemes as well as a federal mechanism integrated in the Criminal Code. We submit that provincial tracking systems bring true penal consequences on sexual offenders, infringe on their constitutional rights protected by s. 7 of the Charter and violate the principles of fundamental justice. We then examine the federal provisions integrated in the Criminal Code and we argue that this mechanism creates a punitive measure amounting to a punishment and a sentence. Consequently, the federal provisions should be developed in order to satisfy constitutional guarantees relating to a punishment, and should satisfy the general principles of sentencing under Part XXIII of the Criminal Code. We conclude that by creating legal sex offenders tracking mechanisms, legislators have removed the most fundamental principles of administrative, criminal and constitutional law. These principles should guide rule makers with regards to this stigma of criminality. Courts have also disqualified this stigma of criminality from being a punishment. The law relating to the tracking of sex offenders gives rise therefore to an erosion of the principles of fundamental justice in regards to criminal and sentencing law.

La thèse délaisse l’étude des biais, des erreurs et des influences externes qui modulent les décisions de justice et formule l’hypothèse que les individus, confrontés à un dilemme normatif (quelle serait la juste peine?), manifestent un souci de justice qu’il est pertinent d’analyser en lui-même. Les résultats de cette thèse indiquent qu’une proportion appréciable des choix et des jugements des citoyens et des acteurs judiciaires interrogés témoignent, en raison de leur cohérence interne et de leur modération, d’un souci manifeste de justice. Les données de la thèse s’appuient sur un sondage sentenciel dans lequel on demandait à des répondants du public (n=297), mais aussi à un échantillon d’acteurs judiciaires (n=235), de prendre des décisions de détermination pénale dans trois histoires de cas bien détaillées. La thèse s’intéresse à la détermination de la juste peine, laquelle incorpore trois prises de décision distinctes. Le premier chapitre de la thèse s’attarde à la qualité des échelles individuelles de sévérité des peines qui peuvent être infligées pour sanctionner un délinquant reconnu coupable d’actes criminels. Les résultats indiquent que les citoyens, tous comme les acteurs judiciaires, n’utilisent pas la même métrique pour statuer sur la sévérité des peines, mais que certains d’entre eux, font usage d’une métrique pénale plus cohérente et plus raisonnable que d’autres. Un test décisif pour jauger de la valeur d’une métrique est son aptitude à établir des équivalences pénales entre les peines de prison, de probation, de travaux communautaires et d’amendes. Le deuxième chapitre s’attarde à la qualité des choix sentenciels des citoyens et des acteurs judiciaires. Deux critères sont utilisés pour distinguer les sentences les plus justes : 1) le critère de proportionnalité ou de cohérence interne (les sentences données sont-elles toujours proportionnelles à la gravité de l’infraction commise ?); 2) le critère de modération ou de cohérence externe (la sentence donnée peut-elle rallier le plus grand nombre de points de vue?). Les deux critères sont importants parce qu’ils contribuent tous deux à réduire la marge d’incertitude du dilemme sentenciel. Le troisième chapitre prend acte que toute sentence fera possiblement l’objet d’un aménagement subséquent. Les formes les plus manifestes d’aménagement pénal sont régies par l’octroi d’une libération conditionnelle qui écourte la durée de peine qui sera purgée en prison. Certains acteurs judiciaires choisiront de tenir compte de cette libération anticipée en gonflant leur sentence, alors que d’autres se refuseront à le faire. Le dernier chapitre s’attarde aux raisons qui motivent leurs choix. / This thesis neglects the analysis of external influences, such as biases and errors, which may interfere in court judgments and propose that when facing a normative dilemma (What is the just decision?), individuals are driven by a concern for justice. This concern has not been properly scrutinized. When studying legal decisions, we note that a large proportion of all judgments and evaluations made by interviewed citizens and judicial actors are coherent and moderated, which demonstrates a concern for justice and equity. The results of the thesis are based on a sentencing survey conducted among citizens (n=297) and criminal justice professionals (n=235) who had to adjudicate upon three detailed case studies and specific sentencing questions. The thesis examines the process of determining the just sanction and is concerned with three types of judgments. The first chapter explores the quality of different penal severity scales that can be used to punish a criminal convicted of a crime. Results indicate that citizens, as well as criminal justice professionals, have different ways of conceptualizing penal severity, and that some of these views are more coherent and more reasonable than others. This chapter shows that one way of assessing penal metrics quality is to look at the exchange rates among qualitatively different sanctions (months of prison, years of probation, hours of community work and dollar amount of fines). The second chapter examines the sentencing choices. Two important judicial criteria are used to distinguish just sentences from unjust ones: 1) proportionality or internal consistency (are sentences always given in accordance to crime seriousness?); and 2) moderation or external consistency (is the sentence able to merge opposite points of views?). Both criteria are important in reducing a portion of uncertainty that is intrinsic to the sentencing dilemma. Indeed the search for the just punishment and strategies for uncertainty reduction are intimately connected. The third chapter takes into account the fact that sentences are not fully determined at the judicial level. This is especially the case for prison sentences since conditional release mechanisms drastically shorten the time actually spent behind bars. We attempt to understand the differential propensity among judges, crown and defense attorneys and probation officers to anticipate the likely impact of conditional release in determining the presumptive duration of the court sentence. Some court players will incorporate parole outcomes in determining their prison sentence while others refuse to do so. The chapter examines the reasons why they do so and also identifies under what conditions anticipation of parole outcomes are more likely

La Loi sur le système de justice pénale pour les adolescents est récente en matière de justice des mineurs. Sa mise en vigueur en avril 2003 a précisé et changé les critères de la détermination de la peine. Le présent mémoire vise à mieux cerner ce sur quoi les juges se fondent pour prendre leurs décisions. À cette fin, une analyse de la jurisprudence disponible ainsi que des entrevues avec des juges oeuvrant à la chambre de la jeunesse de Montréal ont été effectuées. L’application des dispositions relatives aux objectifs et aux principes propres à la détermination de la peine a suscité des commentaires de la part des juges et des difficultés ont été soulevées. Des balises ont également été établies par les juges dans le cadre de leur pratique. Ils les suivent pour déterminer les peines. Il en ressort que le système de justice pour mineurs se rapproche du système de justice pour adultes, dont les interventions sont davantage centrées sur l’infraction que sur l’infracteur. Les juges semblent néanmoins accorder une attention particulière pour que ces deux systèmes de justice demeurent différents, et ce malgré le rapprochement constaté. De plus, il ressort qu’un équilibre est recherché entre deux principes directeurs : la proportionnalité de la peine à la gravité de l’infraction et au degré de responsabilité de l’adolescent, ainsi que la réadaptation et la réinsertion sociale de ce dernier. / The Youth Criminal Justice Act is recent in the field of youth justice. This law came into effect in April 2003 and changed the criteria in the youth justice system sentencing. This thesis aims at identifying the elements on which judges base their decisions. In order to do so, an analysis of the available case law and interviews with judges sitting in the Montreal Youth Chamber of the Quebec Court have been done The enforcement of dispositions related to sentencing goals and principles generated comments from the judges, who reported some difficulties. Guidelines have been established by the judges in the course of their practice. These are also followed by these same judges. The youth justice system tends to get closer to the adult justice system, which ascribes a greater weight to the offence and lesser one to the offender. Yet, judges try to make those two justice systems different. Judges are also looking for a balance between two major sentencing principles: the sentence must be proportionate to the seriousness of the offence and the degree of responsibility of the youth for that offence, and the sentence must promote the rehabilitation and reintegration of the young offender into society.

Are sentences given for sexual interference appropriate ? It is the central question of this essay. To find the answer, we analyzed the medical and the legal discourses on pedophilia and child molestation. This review has enabled us to determined how the medical discourse affects the legal discourse in this matter. This essay presents an analysis of the factors used in sentencing for sexual interference against a person of less than 16 years old and of the sentences given to those who committed those type of offenses, from the perspective of both criminal law and medicine. It shows that, in the current legal framework, the sentences, although imperfect, can be, to a certain extent, appropriate in order to create some sort of follow-up of the individual. However, since those sentences do not alter the sexual deviance, the delinquants will remain at risk for recidivism in the long term. Criminal law would benefict from further incorporating the medical discourse in order to take into consideration the specificities of those delinquents and to give them more appropriate sentences to reduce their recidivism risk and to better protect society. / Est-ce que les peines imposées en matière de contacts sexuels sont appropriées? Il s’agit de la question centrale de ce mémoire. Pour y répondre, nous avons analysé les discours médical et juridique concernant la pédophilie. Ce tour d’horizon a permis de déterminer l’influence du discours médical sur le discours juridique en cette matière. Ce mémoire présente une analyse des facteurs utilisés lors de la détermination de la peine en matière de contacts sexuels sur une personne âgée de moins de 16 ans tant du point de vue du droit criminel que de la médecine. Il démontre que, dans le cadre législatif actuel, les peines, bien qu’imparfaites, peuvent être, dans une certaine mesure, appropriées afin de permettre un certain suivi de l’individu. Cependant, puisque ces peines ne permettent pas de corriger la déviance sexuelle des délinquants, ceux-ci présenteront un risque de récidive non négligeable à long terme. Le droit aurait avantage à accorder une plus grande importance au discours médical afin de prendre en considération les spécificités de ces individus et d’imposer des peines plus appropriées pour atténuer le risque de récidive et pour protéger la société.

La présente étude cherche à décrire et à comprendre les pratiques professionnelles des avocats de la défense lors des négociations des plaidoyers de culpabilité, phénomène très courant bien qu’encore trop peu connu. Nous nous sommes intéressées auxpropos de douze avocats de la défense travaillant au Palais de Justice de Montréal. Nos analyses mettent en évidence différents éléments liés à la cause, à l’accusé ou aux considérations professionnelles des avocats qui peuvent avoir une influence sur le déroulement des négociations, mais surtout, elles montrent comment ces éléments peuvent être interprétés différemment selon les avocats et les cas qu’ils défendent. De plus, le discours des avocats sur le déroulement des négociations laisse entrevoir des pratiques différentes entre eux, selon leurs niveaux d’implication (dans le dossier, dans leurs relations…). / This research paper aims to describe and understand the professional practices of criminal lawyers during plea bargaining, a well established phenomenon which is more pervasive than is commonly understood. Our study focuses on interviews of twelve criminal lawyers working at the Montréal courthouse. Our analysis emphasizes different elements related to the case, the defendant or lawyers’ professional considerations that can influence the negotiation process. We also show how those elements can be seen in a different way depending on the lawyer and the specific case they defend. Moreover, our lawyers’ interviews show that there is no uniformity in the way they handle cases, depending on their level of involvement (in the case, in their relationships…).

Research indicates that states have implemented juvenile justice reforms to enact harsher punishments, to transfer greater numbers and younger juvenile offenders to adult criminal court, and to restrict discretion of the juvenile court judges. Social science studies have found that harsher punishments, transfers to adult criminal court and other measures do not work, but that comprehensive approaches which address the numerous major factors contributing to juvenile offending have been successful. This study examined the legal status of the juvenile justice system by focusing upon ten diverse sample states and analyzed the social science research on factors contributing to juvenile offending and on prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation approaches. The study was accomplished by legal research, qualitative social science research, and analysis of both. Findings indicated: a) state statutes require and allow adult punishment of juvenile offenders, transfer of juvenile offenders to adult criminal court, and direct filing of charges against juveniles in adult criminal court; most states begin these proceedings at age 14, some have no age minimum; b) social science research indicates numerous factors contribute to juvenile offending with most of the factors categorized into the major factors of early antisocial behavior, deviant peers, parents and family, sociomoral reasoning, biological factors, and violence which interact with each other creating a complicated web; and c) prevention, treatment, and rehabilitation efforts should be comprehensive, multidimensional and multimodal addressing the interacting major factors contributing to juvenile offending and the needs of the juvenile, the family, and the home environment. Implications include the need for legislators to access the social science research to craft legislation and programs which are effective. Suggestions for improvement include collaboration within communities and with knowledgeable and committed social science professionals and educators. Areas suggested for further research include education of the public, the media, and stakeholders; long term follow-up on promising programs; design and improvements in approaches based upon the social science research; meeting the needs of the juvenile, the family, and the home environment; and study of how the factors may differ for disabled juveniles.

With the expansion of the use of private prisons and detention centres worldwide and the increasing involvement of private actors in the provision of custodial services, this doctoral thesis considers life inside two private prisons in England. Using theoretically informed ethnography it evaluates the effect of responsibility on men imprisoned in two private prisons in England. Firstly, it briefly reviews the background and development of prison privatisation in England and Wales and considers the role and place of private prisons as part of a wider neo-liberal shift. Secondly, using qualitative data gathered inside two private prisons, it evaluates if these prisons, through their regimes, are trying to create responsible self-governing prisoners. The thesis reviews both, how regimes and practices in place in these two prisons attempt to forge responsible prisoners, and how individual men and groups of prisoners experience, feel about, cope with and assimilate penal messages of self-governance and responsibility. Finally, it questions both the impact of responsible prisoners for prisons and the impact of responsibility on prisoners and argues that, whilst there is a benefit to fostering environments in which prisoners are enabled to become responsible and self-governing, a careful balance must be maintained, as for some men the responsibility itself becomes characteristic of the "pain of imprisonment".

O objetivo desta pesquisa é explicar os mecanismos sociais das decisões judiciais. Em particular, a investigação centra-se no processo de tomadas de decisões de operadores do Direito no sistema de justiça juvenil em São Paulo. Busca-se, assim, verificar quais são os fatores determinantes da aplicação da medida socioeducativa de internação para adolescentes acusados de cometimento de ato infracional e o modo pelo qual se dá esse processo decisório. Desde a promulgação do Estatuto da Criança e do Adolescente, em 1990, o sistema de justiça juvenil brasileiro passou a operar em um novo registro: as medidas socioeducativas passaram a se restringir a autores de infrações penais; e a medida de internação, em particular, a crimes cometidos com violência e/ou grave ameaça à pessoa. Mas a gravidade do ato infracional é de fato o principal preditor das decisões judiciais na justiça juvenil? Ou haveria outros fatores explicativos, como aqueles relacionados às características sociais dos adolescentes, às relações de poder inscritas nas interações sociais ou mesmo à estrutura organizacional dos tribunais? Na busca pela explicação dos mecanismos sociais dessas decisões judiciais, esta pesquisa propôs um desenho multimetodológico, integrando técnicas quantitativas e qualitativas para investigar os mecanismos das decisões e verificar os determinantes da aplicação da medida socioeducativa de internação em São Paulo. Assim, em um primeiro momento, as hipóteses citadas foram testadas por meio de modelos logísticos binomiais tendo a decisão sobre a internação como variável dependente em um cenário multivariado. Os resultados encontrados indicam um alto grau de proporcionalidade entre crime e pena, tendo os atos infracionais considerados mais graves os mais significativos efeitos sobre a probabilidade de internação; mas indicam, também, a reprodução de relações de poder - adolescentes usuários de drogas e que não trabalham nem estudam, mantidas as outras dimensões constantes, também têm maior chance de receber a medida socioeducativa de internação. Em seguida, a fim de explicar os mecanismos dos efeitos do tratamento estimados anteriormente, foram acompanhadas semanalmente as audiências de apresentação e de continuação e as oitivas informais no Fórum Brás, em São Paulo. Ao mesmo tempo em que se concluiu que as oitivas informais, centrais no processo decisório, ocorrem cerimonialmente e que as decisões são tomadas via documentos, o que explica o mecanismo de proporcionalidade encontrado anteriormente, pôde-se concluir que eventualmente os Promotores de Justiça \"voltam atrás\" de suas decisões quando há um rompimento na definição da situação, o que explica o mecanismo dos efeitos das características individuais dos adolescentes. / This research aims at investigating the social mechanisms of judicial decisions. It particularly focuses on the decision-making process of legal actors in the juvenile justice system in São Paulo. Thus, the research aims at verifying the determinants of the confinement disposition for juveniles who have been accused of a crime and the way which this decision is made by. Since the Child and Adolescent Statute was promulgated in 1990, the Brazilian juvenile justice system started working under new guidelines: dispositions are now restricted to offenders; and the confinement disposition is restricted to offenses committed with violence and/or with a threat to a person. But is the seriousness of the crime indeed the best predictor of judicial decisions? Or are there other explanatory factors, such as the ones related to the individual characteristics of the teenagers, to the power relations within social interactions, or even to the court organizational structure? Aiming at a mechanism-based explanation of these judicial decisions, this research has proposed a mixed-methods research design, integrating both quantitative and qualitative techniques to investigate mechanisms of the decision-making process and to verify the determinants of the confinement disposition in São Paulo. Thus, at first, the aforementioned hypotheses were tested with binary logistic models, presenting the decision concerning the confinement disposition as the dependent variable on a multivariable scenario. Results indicate a high degree of proportionality between crime and punishment, with the seriousness of the offenses having significant effects on the probability of confinement; but the results also indicate some reproduction of power relations - drug user youth and those who neither work nor study increase their odds of being more severely punished. After that, aiming at explaining the mechanisms of the treatment effects estimated beforehand, both judicial and informal hearings (at the State\'s Attorney office) were weekly observed at the juvenile court in São Paulo. While it was possible to conclude that the informal hearings are central to the decision-making process and occur ceremonially, with decisions being made by documents-consulting (which explains the proportionality mechanism), the research also found that the Attorneys often regret their decisions when there is a rupture of the definition of the situation. This explains the mechanism of the individual characteristics effects on juvenile sentencing.

A busca por alternativas à prisão é antiga, e a vigilância eletrônica surgiu como uma solução tecnológica. O contexto cultural dos Estados Unidos no fim do século XX propiciou o surgimento do monitoramento eletrônico, influenciado também pelo utilitarismo e pela cultura do controle do delito. O monitoramento deve respeitar os princípios do Estado Democrático de Direito (dignidade humana) e estar vinculado aos fins preventivos da pena (prevenção especial positiva). Por si só não reduz a população carcerária e não diminui a reincidência, mas as vantagens econômicas e os bons resultados obtidos por outros países não podem ser desprezados. Assim, a experiência estrangeira revela bons resultados no uso da vigilância junto a programas de acompanhamento social. No Brasil, o monitoramento eletrônico foi introduzido por lei na execução penal e como medida cautelar. Interessante seria que fosse estabelecido como modo de execução da prisão (alternativa aos estabelecimentos penitenciários). Poderia ser previsto ainda para a execução das penas restritivas de direitos que demandam fiscalização, consolidando um sistema alternativo de penas capaz de promover a prevenção e substituir o cárcere para delitos menores. O monitoramento eletrônico restringe direitos fundamentais e, assim, deve ser previsto em lei, limitado à restrição imposta, aplicado se necessário e com a menor visibilidade possível. / The search for alternatives to prison is old, and electronic surveillance has emerged as a technological solution. The cultural context of the United States at the end of the twentieth century has propitiated the emergence of electronic monitoring, also influenced by utilitarism and by the culture of offense control. Monitoring should respect the principles of Democratic Rule of Law (human dignity) and to be linked to the preventive purposes of sentence (positive special prevention). By itself it does not decrease the prison population and it does not reduce recidivism, but the economic gains and the good results obtained by other countries can not be ignored. Thus, foreign experience shows good results in the use of surveillance along with programs of social support. In Brazil, the electronic monitoring was introduced by law in criminal enforcement and as a precautionary measure. It would be interesting if it could be established as a way of prison enforcement (alternative to prisons). It could be also expected to enforce restrictive penalties of rights that require monitoring, consolidating an alternative system of penalties that can promote prevention and replace the prison for minor offenses. The electronic monitoring restricts fundamental rights and thus it should be provided by law, limited to the restriction, applied when it is necessary with the least visibility.