Research Areas
Criminal Justice Policy
Criminal justice policy is one of the interdisciplinary areas of research and teaching in the Department. Criminal justice is concerned with the institutions that administer and enforce the criminal law and the norms that govern, or should govern, those institutions, their policies, and the criminal law itself. Criminal justice is informed by criminology, a multidisciplinary field partaking of the social, cognitive, behavioral, and forensic sciences. Other aspects of criminal justice are concerned with non-criminals as victims and resistors as well as with non-criminal activities (such as legal firearms commerce and ownership).
Moral-political philosophy and philosophic jurisprudence are concerned with criminal justice and the criminal law in at least the following respects: (1) What is justice? (2) what is just (criminal) law? and (3) what are justifiable policies for enforcing the criminal law and effecting justice in society by means of criminal law? There are several theories of justice (distributive, compensatory, retributive) and several theories of the justifiability of enforcement of, or penalty for, infractions of the criminal law (incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, retribution). And there are a variety of moral philosophic theories one might appeal to in trying to justify specific criminal laws or criminal justice policies (utilitarian, deontological, social contractarian).
Research topics in criminal justice or criminal law that Department faculty pursue include the following.
(1) Controversy over the putative right to die underlying the issue of medically assisted suicide in the criminal law (Cavalier, Covey)
(2) The public policy issue of gun control (Covey)
(3) The law and ethics that govern law enforcement officers (Covey, London).
(4) The law and ethics of self-defense, as apply to victims or potential victims of criminal violence (Covey).