Research project SO/10/038 (Research action SO)
Problem and aims
Faced with a growing demand to intervene in the life of society, the judiciary is experiencing a major transformation in its identity and organisation that is being particularly felt in the criminal justice field. The latter’s crowning as default regulator of social problems raises a series of questions relating to the legitimacy, rationality and effectiveness of the new socio-penal measures implemented within this perspective. This research sets out to define more clearly the realities of contemporary justice as well as evaluate the adequacy of the response made by the judiciary to a series of problem situations in comparison with current changes to the relation between citizens, the law and the judiciary, the tension surrounding this relation (instrumentalisation versus re-symbolisation of judicial interventions) and, more generally, the tensions at play between the various tendencies in the evolution of justice (growing judiciarisation versus relief by way of de-judiciarisation, aid versus control, security pressures versus decriminalisation demands...).
These tensions/conflicts and the important issues they represent can be seen at the boundaries with other institutions (education, health, welfare, aid), at boundaries within the judiciary itself (judges/public prosecutor’s office/police) as well as on the material edges of the judiciary’s traditional responsibilities. The judiciary is consequently viewed here as an area of responsibilities whose boundaries are undergoing shifts, that is to say moving forwards or backwards, which are indicative of the uncertainties and redefinitions now affecting the legitimacy of the method the judiciary is using in order to regulate social problems.
Within this perspective, our primary objective is to identify shifts affecting the limits and methods of judicial action in order to be able to evaluate correctly the measure, its rationality and its effects. Our second objective is to highlight the dominant trends and reactive trends in the evolutions within criminal justice as well as the tensions between these trends that are likely to teach us about the inequality of the forces present. Since the judicial changes are the province of an unstable balance between demands made outside judicial circles (movements of citizens or users, informal economic and political pressures) and the levels of its internal norms (institutional, organisational and professional), we will then try to identify the balance between these two poles as it stands today.
"Stages" studied and method
Various emblematic stages of the shifts, trends and tensions raised have been selected on the basis of objective criteria (shifts in the material limits and methods of judicial action, forward or backward movements compared to previously demarcated judicial responsibilities, involvement of the main actors from the criminal justice system as well as from neighbouring or competing areas of intervention): judicial intervention in the face of minors at risk as well as judicial intervention in schools, disputes between neighbours, conflicts in the workplace, over-indebtedness, definition of the ‘problem’ consumer in terms of drugs, sexual delinquency and social work within the judicial system.
Initially, these various stages will be the subject of an empirical study using a research methodology shared by each of the university teams committed to the project. For each stage, there will be a group analysis of a dozen actors intervening in the management of problem situations. These analyses will focus on actual experiences of problems in comparison with the research questions and hypotheses. The method involves several strictly codified stages: the relating of an experience (for example, treatment given to a recent and particularly significant instance of the problems actors face), interpretations by actors using a system of round tables, the structuring of convergences and divergences between interpretations, major problem issues and teachings, the normative issues at stake and practical ideas.
Thereafter, these empirical studies will be subject to cross-analyses. The results of the efforts by the various groups will first be compared and structured and a summary text produced. Summary teachings will be illustrated using the most significant actual experiences and then feature in an analysis by four fresh groups of actors and decision-makers working in different sectors and belonging to the two main linguistic communities, in such a way as to shed the greatest possible light on general trends and problems and, conversely, possibilities for the transposition of concrete ideas from one sector to another.
Finally, the conclusions from these four groups will be compared, summarised and presented in turn at a final study day.
Partners:
Centre for Sociological Studies and Interdisciplinary Seminar on Legal Studies at the Facultés Universitaires Saint-Louis (Promoters: Y. Cartuyvels and L. Van Campenhoudt)
Study Group on Ethnicity, Racism, Migrations and Exclusion, Université Libre de Bruxelles (Promoter: A. Rea)
Centre for Criminology Research, Université Libre de Bruxelles (Promoter: Ph. Mary)
Criminology Research Unit, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Promoter: D. Kaminski)
Aux frontières de la justice, aux marges de la société : une analyse en groupes d'acteurs et de chercheurs
De Conninck, François - Cartuyvels, Yves - Franssen, Abraham ... et al Gent : Academia Press, 2005 (PB6143)
Aux frontières de la justice, aux marges de la société. Une analyse en groupes d'acteurs et de chercheurs : résumé
Bruxelles : Politique scientifique fédérale, 2005 (SP1531)
[To download]
Naar de grenzen van justitie, in de marges van de maatschappij. Een groepsanalyse van actoren en onderzoekers : samenvatting
Brussel : Federaal Wetenschapsbeleid, 2005 (SP1532)
[To download]
At the frontiers of justice, on the edges of society. A social actors and researchers group analysis : summary
Brussels : Belgian Science Policy, 2005 (SP1533)
[To download]
