Magister Philosophiae - MPhil / The National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) is critical in the proper functioning of South Africa’s criminal justice system and upholding of the rule of law. And for it to play this critical role it must be independent from any external influence and manipulation and carry out its functions without fear, favour and prejudice. Once it allows external interference in its prosecutorial function it runs the risk of functioning with fear and favour of powerful forces in the society, thereby losing its independence. This may result in loss of trust in and support by the public of the rule of law. However, in recent history the NPA has taken decisions that raise questions about its independence. These questionable decisions involve high profile politicians and government officials who are, allegedly, involved in illegal and corrupt activities and practices, but are either not prosecuted, or credible cases against them are being suspiciously withdrawn. This state of affairs has caused uncomfortable allegations and counter allegations, all of which question the independence of the NPA, and these can no longer be ignored. State institutions, especially the security cluster, are allegedly heavily involved and the judiciary is threatened overtly when certain decisions go against some politicians. The study, therefore, is designed to investigate the extent to which the alleged interferences impact negatively with the administration of justice. It then assesses and evaluates the constitutional and legislative safeguards guaranteeing the independence of the NPA in order to determine if they are adequate enough to prevent the NPA from external executive and political interference in its prosecutorial decision-making function. To achieve this, the charging, prosecution and dropping of charges against Jacob Zuma, on various counts of corruption and other related matters will, inter alia, be the primary focus of the study. The study comes up with set of recommendations aimed at strengthening the integrity of the NPA, in particular, and the criminal justice system in general.

The objectives of this thesis were to observe how the Canadian youth justice system has dealt with the regulation of the transfer of young offenders to the adult court and how the Canadian statutes have regulated the imposition of adult offences for young offenders. For this, I drew a distinction between two levels of observation: first, I observed the process of "creation of statutes" by the political system. Second, I observed the process of "understanding and interpretation of statutes" by the judicial system. The notion of "political system" includes the legislation enacted by Parliament, parliamentary debates, and reports published by the Government of Canada. The notion of "judicial system" includes the decisions of the Montreal Youth Court. For the first level of observation ("creation of statutes"), I observed and analyzed the work of the political system for the period 1842 to 2012. Starting in 1857, many statutes regulated different aspects of the criminal law system as it applied to young people. The first statute to deal with youth offenders comprehensively and different from adult offenders was the Juvenile Delinquents Act (1908); this statute was replaced by the Young Offenders Act (1982). The current statute is the Youth Criminal Justice Act (2002). With regard to the Juvenile Delinquents Act (1908) and the Young Offenders Act (1982), I observed how the political system regulated the mechanism of transferring a young person to the adult court. This mechanism allowed the youth court to decide a question of jurisdiction: whether the young person would be processed and sentenced within the youth justice system, or whether the young person would be sent to the adult court for him to be dealt with and sentenced therein. With regard to the Youth Criminal Justice Act (2002), I observed how the political system has regulated the imposition of adult sentences by the youth court. This statute replaced the mechanism of transfer under the two previous statutes by the imposition of adult sentences within the youth justice system. For the second level of observation ("the understanding and interpretation of statutes"), I observed how the Montreal Youth Court had understood and interpreted the statutory provision that allowed the youth court to transfer a young person to the adult court for the young person to be dealt with and sentenced therein. My period of observation is from 1911 to 1995. I argue that both the political and the judicial systems have been strongly influenced by the theories of deterrence, denunciation, retribution, and rehabilitation. The influence that each theory has exercised on each system varies. The political system, originally focused on the rehabilitation of young people, has been slowly “contaminated” by the most punitive theories, such as deterrence and denunciation. This shift started in the 70’s and slowly increased over the years. Conversely, while the judicial system does not seem to have been originally influenced by the theories of rehabilitation, its focus has slowly shifted towards this objective as the primary goal of their intervention towards young offenders since the 70’s. However, the “successful rehabilitation” of a young person has become a goal in itself, where “unsuccessful offenders” have been transferred to the adult court and dealt with the adult punitive justice system.

Orientador: Ana Gabriela Mendes Braga / Resumo: O presente trabalho se concentra no estudo do Sistema de Justiça Criminal, através da análise dos mecanismos que se articulam por meio das práticas e discursos empregados pelas respectivas instituições e seus agentes. Situei o debate dentro da perspectiva de gênero, problematizando as representações e demandas das mulheres que chegam até o referido sistema de controle, dando enfoque aos cenários e atividades empreendidas pelas personagens atuantes na Delegacia de Defesa da Mulher. Sendo essa instituição um cenário rico na criação de interações subjetivas e relações de poder inerentes ao Sistema de Justiça Criminal, pretendi, a partir desse recorte, mapear o padrão normativo e institucional produzido pelas personagens que ali atuam, sejam elas policiais, escrivãs, delegadas, etc. Para tanto, foi empregada a metodologia empírica-indutiva de abordagem qualitativa, a partir de pesquisa de campo na Delegacia de Defesa da Mulher, buscando a observação de caráter etnográfico com anotações de campo, alinhada à cartografia deleuziana, utilizando, inclusive, imagens e ilustrações. Parti, enfim, do pressuposto de que a possibilidade desses deslocamentos discursivos reflete que o direito não é um aparelho fechado em si mesmo, mas aberto a reposicionamentos e reconstrução de identidades, criando subjetividades e posições do sujeito, delimitando espaços, formas de linguagem e respostas às pessoas que provocam o sistema jurídico. / Abstract: This work focuses on the study of the Criminal Justice System, through the analysis of the mechanisms that are articulated along the practices and discourses used by the respective institutions and their agents. The debate came up from a gender perspective, problematizing the representations and demands of the women who reach the control system, focusing on the scenario and activities undertaken by the characters in the Women's Defense Police Department. Considering the institution as a rich scenario in the creation of subjective interactions and power relations of the Criminal Justice System, I intended to map the normative and institutional patterns produced by the characters who work there. In order to do so, the empirical-inductive methodology of a qualitative approach was used, based on field research in the Women's Defense Police Department, through ethnographic observation with field notes, along with Deleuzian cartography, including images and illustrations. I have departed the assumption that the possibility of these discursive displacements reflects law not as closed apparatus in itself, but open to repositioning and reconstruction of identities, creating subjectivities and positions of the subject, delimiting spaces, forms of language and responses to the people who provoke the legal system. / Mestre

The thesis Prison Privatization in the United States: The Limits and Consequences of the Transfer of Public Power into Private Hands analyzes selected consequences of prison privatization in the United States. Although the prison privatization in the US is considered a modern phenomenon, the private sector was involved in corrections from the very early history of the US. Therefore, the thesis introduces the history and philosophy of private sector involvement in corrections. The thesis then examines the factors that led to the decision to privatize prisons, namely overcrowding of prisons, other political factors, and so-called PIE-program that enabled interstate trade with prisoner-made goods. Further, it provides detailed statistics to illustrate the steep rise in the prison population. It also addresses the question of cost-savings and efficiency and it provides examples of specific factors that influence economic performance of private prisons. Important part is dedicated to the growth of prison-industrial complex characterized by the overlapping interests of bureaucracy, politicians and private prison companies that lead to increased pressure to maintain or increase the prison population. In the final chapter, the thesis analyzes the consequences such as increasing tax burden; demographic...

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Magister Legum - LLM / Members of the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) are required to be dedicated to the rule of law. Yet, recent and past decision-making has caused instability in the functioning of the NPA. The decision to prosecute or not to prosecute involves the exercise of discretion. The NPAs use of this discretion has been called into question on numerous occasions which has resulted in the erosion of its independence and credibility. There are constitutional and legislative provisions in place to guide prosecutors in the decision-making process which allows for a measure of accountability. However, the link between prosecutorial independence and accountability for decision-making is not clear when looking at recent and past decisions by the National Directors of Public Prosecutions. Therefore, an evaluation of the instability in the office of the National Director of Public Prosecutions during the period of 1998-2018 will be discussed. The research discusses the unwarranted intrusion on prosecutorial decision-making. Furthermore, external interfering has resulted in the loss of public confidence in the functioning of the NPA. The administrative duties of prosecutors are guided by constitutional and legislative procedures. Hence, the research will identify whether these procedures are efficient for the effective administration of the NPA. Key to the already mentioned will be providing recommendations on how to create stability in an institution that has been surrounded by instability for the past 20 years.

The number of females arrested for violent crimes has increased. The juvenile justice system continues to be challenged with developing gender-based treatment strategies to accommodate female delinquents. The purpose of this study was to examine probation officers' perceptions of the treatment provided for female delinquents and its ability to rehabilitate, reduce recidivism, and promote successful transition among female delinquents. The framework of this study encompassed the feminist theory from a criminology perspective. Data collection included interviews with 5 probation officers in El Paso County's Juvenile Justice Detention Center. Interviews were reviewed to generate a summary of relevancy. Themes and codes pertaining to the research were identified for analysis. The participants provided several recommendations for treating the female delinquent; they also identified that a lack of resources and funding for gender-responsive treatment contributed to the systems' inability to provide gender-specific treatment for female delinquents. Implementation by the Juvenile Justice Department of gender-responsive programs would respond to the varied needs of female delinquents; thereby increasing rehabilitation, reducing recidivism, and promoting successful transition among female delinquents. This implementation would benefit society as a whole, producing productive members who are able to affect social change.

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La victimisation secondaire survient lorsque les victimes d’actes criminels subissent une première blessure par le crime et une seconde par les acteurs du système de justice pénale. Cependant, les recherches empiriques actuelles ne sont pas concluantes quant à l’impact du système de justice pénale sur les victimes. À cet effet, l’absence d’instrument standardisé pour mesurer la victimisation secondaire donne lieu à une opérationnalisation différente de ce construit d’une étude à l’autre, ce qui rend difficile la comparaison des études sur le sujet entre elles. Dans cette recherche, une tentative de standardisation de ce construit a été entreprise, afin de fournir une meilleure compréhension de la victimisation secondaire et de ses effets. Nous avons ainsi créé l’Institutional Betrayal Questionnaire in the Criminal Justice System (IBQ-CJS), un questionnaire que nous avons adapté et traduit en français à partir du Institutional Betrayal Questionnaire (IBQ) de Smith et Freyd (2013, 2017). L’IBQ-CJS a été employé auprès de 26 victimes (N = 26) impliquées dans des poursuites judiciaires et dont la cause avait été ou était présentement entendue devant une cour criminelle du Québec pour mesurer la victimisation secondaire. L’analyse des propriétés psychométriques de l’IBQ-CJS montre une bonne consistance interne (α = 0,82), alors que la validité de construit de l’instrument n’a pu être démontrée. L’IBQ-CJS a ensuite été employé pour explorer les facteurs de risque et les conséquences potentiellement associés à la victimisation secondaire, ce qui s’est avéré infructueux lors des analyses bivariées. Les limites et les avantages de cette étude, ainsi que les implications qui en découle pour de futures recherches, seront finalement soulignés. / Secondary victimisation occurs when crime victims are firstly harmed by the crime and suffer a second injury or an additional harm afterwards by the authorities of the criminal justice system. However, empirical studies conducted so far on the impact of the criminal justice system on victims are inconclusive. On this matter, the lack of a standardized measure for secondary victimisation has generated different operationalizations of this construct across studies, making it difficult to arrive to any generalizable conclusions regarding the results of past research. This study attempts to standardize this construct to give a better understanding of secondary victimisation and its effects. We created the Institutional Betrayal Questionnaire in the Criminal Justice System (IBQ-CJS), a questionnaire that we adapted and translated in French based on the Institutional Betrayal Questionnaire (IBQ) by Smith and Freyd (2013, 2017). The IBQ-CJS was employed among 26 victims (N = 26) who were involved in legal proceedings and whose causes were currently or had been heard in a criminal court of the province of Quebec to assess secondary victimisation. The analysis of the psychometric properties of the IBQ-CJS shows a high internal consistency (α = 0,82), although the construct validity of this instrument was inconclusive. The IBQ-CJS was secondly used to explore risk factors and consequences that might be linked to secondary victimisation, which also proved to be inconclusive using bivariate analysis. The limitations and the benefits of this study, as well as the implications it holds for future research, will finally be emphasized.

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