Like medicine, law is replete with axioms of prevention. Prevention is better than cure has a long pedigree in both fields. 17th century jurist Sir Edward Coke observed that preventing justice excelleth punishing justice. A century later, Sir William Blackstone similarly stated that preventive justice is ...preferable in all respects to punishing justice. This book evaluates the feasibility and legitimacy of state attempts to regulate prevention. Though prevention may be desirable as a matter of policy, questions are inevitably raised as to its limits and legitimacy, specifically, how society reconciles the desirability of averting risks of future harm with respect for the rule of law, procedural fairness and human rights. While these are not new questions for legal scholars, they have been brought into sharper relief in policy and academic circles in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks. Over the past 15 years, a body of legal scholarship has tracked the intensified preventive focus of anti-terrorism law and policy, observing how this focus has impacted negatively upon traditional legal frameworks. However, preventive law and policy in other contexts, such as environmental protection, mental health, immigration and corruption has not received sustained focus. This book extends that body of scholarship, through use of case studies from these diverse regulatory settings, in order to examine and critique the principles, policies and paradoxes of preventive justice.Whereas earlier scholars looked upon preventive justice as a source and means of regulation, the powerfully argued contributions to this volume provide forceful reasons to consider whether we would do better talk about regulating preventive justice. Professor Lucia Zedner, Oxford University
1. Introduction, Rebecca Ananian-Welsh, Simon Bronitt, Sarah Murray and
Tamara Tulich Part 1: The preventive justice concept
2. Critical Reflections
on Preventive justice: theory and history, Tamara Tulich
3. Prevention,
Precaution and Adaptive Management: An Environmental Law Perspective on
Preventative Justice , Jocelyn Stacey Part 2: Preventive justice: legal
spaces, techniques and technologies
4. Preventive Justice, Risk of Harm and
Mental Health Laws, Bernadette McSherry
5. Policing Persons with Mental
Illness: Preventive Justice or Preventing Injustice?, Helen Punter
6. Recent
Amendments to the Australian Control Order Scheme, Susan Donkin
7. If at
first you dont succeed: The Escalation of Preventive Organised Crime
Measures, Rebecca Ananian-Welsh
8. Preventive Justice in the Context of the
Legal and Policy Discussion Surrounding Illicit Drugs: A Comparative
Perspective, Christopher Michaelson and Sam Hartridge
9. Preventive Justice
and Immigration Law and Policy: the detention of non-citizens in the United
Kingdom and Australia, Peter Billings Part 3: Evaluating preventive justice:
measuring costs and benefits, payoffs and pitfalls
10. New Anti-Corruption
Strategies: Counting the Costs and Benefits of Deferred Prosecution, Simon
Bronitt
11. Preventive Justice, the Courts and the Pursuit of Legitimacy,
Sarah Murray
12. The Effectiveness of Anti-Terror PDOs, George Williams and
Svetlana Tyulkina
13. Preventive Justice Principles for Soft Responses to
Terrorism, Keiran Hardy
14. An Evaluation of Preventative Measures and
Counter-Terrorism Laws, Tim Legrand and Teneille Elliott
15. Conclusion
Tamara Tulich is a Lecturer at the University Of Western Australia.
Rebecca Ananian-Welsh is a Lecturer at the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland, Australia.
Simon Bronitt is a Professor at the TC Beirne School of Law, University of Queensland, Australia.
Sarah Murray is a Senior Lecturer at the University Of Western Australia.
