This thesis examines in detail the provisions of the Criminal Justice Act 1991
which allow for the incapacitation of the 'dangerous' offender. Incapacitation has
been used as an example of a growing trend in criminal justice towards viewing
crime in terms of risk. This risk discourse points to the use of actuarial practices
and insurance techniques in this field, with a resultant 'abstraction' of the
traditional view of crime as a moral wrong. The technologies of risk assessment
are central to the very power of the discourse, it has been argued that these
techniques further increase the effectiveness of control and that they are a
response to a growing preoccupation in society with security. It is argued that risk
is, in a sense, pre-political in that as risk takes hold, overtly political responses to
crime become more difficult.
Given that incapacitation has been used as an example of crime as risk, this
thesis takes the form of a micro-study of the above incapacitatory legislation. It
assesses the degree to which this legislation can be seen to be a part of the risk
discourse. It is argued that on a general level the legislation does fit within the
risk model, seeking to incapacitate 'bad risks'. However, it is argued that as the
legislation has been conceived, formulated and employed, it does not make use
of the actuarial techniques of risk assessment - seen as so central to 'internal
dynamic' of the risk discourse - to a significant extent. Rather, it is argued that the
legislation embodies a politically motivated appeal to the idea of risk rather than
to risk assessment itself. It is concluded that this use of risk - once shed of its
attendant technologies - far from making political responses more difficult, sits
well with punitive responses demanded by a government of the right.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:BVAU.2429/5784 |
| Date | 05 1900 |
| Creators | Robinson, Keith Liam Hamilton |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Relation | UBC Retrospective Theses Digitization Project [http://www.library.ubc.ca/archives/retro_theses/] |
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