One of the most conspicuous trends in contemporary criminal justice policy is the increased influence of penal populism, which favours reliance on severe punishment to solve social issues. Within this discourse, the “victim” has emerged as an important focus of recent developments in criminal law; likewise, the rhetorical role of victims has been expanded within criminal justice policy-making. This new victim-centred perspective has changed the landscape of criminal justice by shifting its focus from traditional criminal law norms that impose responsibility on offenders after the commission of crimes, towards more regulatory responses aimed at managing potential risks to victims. This study argues specifically that, in England and Wales and South Korea, victim-driven criminal justice policy in the area of sexual offending against children operates as part of a trend towards penal populism leading to a reinforcement of the state’s power to intervene, which is mainly influenced by the American policy mode,. The ultimate purpose of this research is to discover how to conceptualise the interrelation of these trends and how to explain this convergence and divergence of policies by comparatively examining legislative responses to sexual offences against children through the conceptual framework of “policy transfer.” The political rhetoric and the rationales used by legislators who advocate such legislation and its role in policy transfer are also examined. Furthermore, by comparing two different settings of transfer that show a similar movement towards US-driven punitive trends, this thesis will explore the possibility that the phenomenon of transfer can occur not only between countries with similar legal systems and cultural traditions, but also between countries which have entirely different legal systems and cultures. Examining what makes convergence and divergence between jurisdictions relevant aids understanding of how legislation and policies have been developed in response to similar policy issues in different cultural settings.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:727409 |
| Date | January 2017 |
| Creators | Kang, Hyo Won |
| Publisher | Queen's University Belfast |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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