Crime and Criminal Justice in Modern Germany

Crime and Criminal Justice in Modern Germany PDF

Author: Richard F. Wetzell

Publisher: Berghahn Books

Published: 2014-05-01

Total Pages: 368

ISBN-13: 178238247X

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The history of criminal justice in modern Germany has become a vibrant field of research, as demonstrated in this volume. Following an introductory survey, the twelve chapters examine major topics in the history of crime and criminal justice from Imperial Germany, through the Weimar and Nazi eras, to the early postwar years. These topics include case studies of criminal trials, the development of juvenile justice, and the efforts to reform the penal code, criminal procedure, and the prison system. The collection also reveals that the history of criminal justice has much to contribute to other areas of historical inquiry: it explores the changing relationship of criminal justice to psychiatry and social welfare, analyzes representations of crime and criminal justice in the media and literature, and uses the lens of criminal justice to illuminate German social history, gender history, and the history of sexuality.

The Criminal Code of the German Empire

The Criminal Code of the German Empire PDF

Author: Geoffrey Drage

Publisher: The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd.

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 380

ISBN-13: 1584775939

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The German Criminal Code (Reichsstrafgesetzbuch) was ratified by the newly-formed German Empire on 16 April 1871. It is a remarkable work of synthesis drawn mostly from the Constitutio Criminalis Carolina (1532), the Code Napoleon (1804), Feuerbach's Bavarian Criminal Code (1813) and the Prussian Penal Code (1851), which was influenced by the Code Napoleon. Its value lay not just in its establishment of uniform federal law but, as Drage notes in his excellent commentary, in its catholicity of historical and contemporary sources. Drawing on the idea of German unity, underscored in this case by the consensus-forming might of Prussian arms, the criminal code remained in force, despite various efforts at reform, until the triumph of National Socialism.

The Limits of Criminological Positivism

The Limits of Criminological Positivism PDF

Author: Michele Pifferi

Publisher: Routledge SOLON Explorations in Crime and Criminal Justice Histories

Published: 2023-05-31

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9781032133539

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The Limits of Criminological Positivism: The Movement for Criminal Law Reform in the West, 1870-1940 presents the first major study of the limits of criminological positivism in the West and establishes the subject as a field of interest. The volume will explore those limits and bring to life the resulting doctrinal, procedural, and institutional compromises of the early twentieth century that might be said to have defined modern criminal justice administration. The book examines the topic not only in North America and western Europe, with essays on Italy, Germany, France, Spain, the United Kingdom, Belgium, and Finland but also the reception and implementation of positivist ideas in Brazil. In doing so, it explores three comparative elements: (1) the differing national experiences within the civil law world; (2) differences and similarities between civil law and common law regimes; and (3) some differences between the two leading common-law countries. It interrogates many key aspects of current penal systems, such as the impact of extra-legal scientific knowledge on criminal law, preventive detention, the 'dual-track' system with both traditional punishment and novel measures of security, the assessment of offenders' dangerousness, juvenile justice, and the indeterminate sentence. As a result, this study contributes to a critical understanding of some inherent contradictions characterizing criminal justice in contemporary western societies. Written in a straight-forward and direct manner, this volume will be of great interest to academics and students researching historical criminology, philosophy, political science, and legal history. Chapter 2 of this book is available for free in PDF format as Open Access from the individual product page at www.routledge.com. It has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives 4.0 license.

Inventing the Criminal

Inventing the Criminal PDF

Author: Richard F. Wetzell

Publisher: Univ of North Carolina Press

Published: 2003-06-19

Total Pages: 365

ISBN-13: 0807861049

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Recent years have witnessed a resurgence of biological research into the causes of crime, but the origins of this kind of research date back to the late nineteenth century. Here, Richard Wetzell presents the first history of German criminology from Imperial Germany through the Weimar Republic to the end of the Third Reich, a period that provided a unique test case for the perils associated with biological explanations of crime. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources from criminological, legal, and psychiatric literature, Wetzell shows that German biomedical research on crime predominated over sociological research and thus contributed to the rise of the eugenics movement and the eventual targeting of criminals for eugenic measures by the Nazi regime. However, he also demonstrates that the development of German criminology was characterized by a constant tension between the criminologists' hereditarian biases and an increasing methodological sophistication that prevented many of them from endorsing the crude genetic determinism and racism that characterized so much of Hitler's regime. As a result, proposals for the sterilization of criminals remained highly controversial during the Nazi years, suggesting that Nazi biological politics left more room for contention than has often been assumed.

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