Contents
Introduction
Part 1 Official discourse and modern societies
1 Official inquiry, truth and criminal justice, G Gilligan
2 Royal commissions and criminal justice: behind the ideal, D Brown
3 From deceit to disclosure: the politics of official inquiries in the United Kingdom, P Scraton
Part 2 Official discourse, legitimation and delegitimation
4 The acceptable prison: official discourse, truth and legitimacy in the nineteenth century, J Pratt
5 Truth, independence and effectiveness in prison inquiries, N Hancock and A Liebling
6 Police governance and official inquiry, D Dixon
7 The role of commissions of inquiry in establishing the 'truth' about 'Aboriginal justice' in Canada, P Stenning and C LaPrairie
8 Penal truth comes to Europe: think tanks and the 'Washington consensus' on crime and punishment, L Wacquant
Part 3 Official discourse as closure, healing or crisis management
9 From Brixton to Bradford: official discourse on race and urban violence in the UK, J Lea
10 Exhausting whiteness: the 1996-98 Belgian parliamentary inquiry into the handling of a paedophilia affair, R Lippens
11 Repairing the future: the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission at work, S Leman-Langlois and C. D. Shearing
12 Peace or punishment? N Christie
Part 4 Official discourse reconsidered
13 Official discourse, comic relief and the play of governance, P Carlen
Index
This book is concerned to analyse the production of criminological knowledge, with particular reference to one of the most important institutions in the western world involved in this - the official inquiry. The core focus of this book is thus to investigate the structures and processes of official discourse, and the ways in which this produces knowledge on crime and justice - a much neglected topic in comparison to the attention that has been played to the role of the media in this process. The mechanisms that produce official discourse vary according to different jurisdiction, but some clear themes nevertheless emerge.
