Consent in Modern Criminal Law

This article considers the law, of New Zealand and England and Wales, relating to determinations whether P consented in various kinds of interaction with D. (The interactions considered are between persons old enough to validly consent to the conduct at issue and who are capable of evaluating and reflecting upon the consequences of their actions.) In the context of sexual interactions, the law in both jurisdictions is in a process of fitful change—from a regime in which consent could be vitiated only by threatened or actual force, impersonation, or radical misunderstanding, towards a position where the question of consent is less categorical and at large. A contrast is drawn between sexual and other interactions, including offences against the person and, especially, commercial misconduct. In the former cases, the central concern is justice between the parties. By contrast, in delineating the boundaries of what amounts to lawful commerce, it is permissible to consider what a ruling about consent may entail for the commercial system as a whole: something that can lead to a very thin conception of what makes for valid consent. The most general lesson that goes with this argument is that consent in law is not a pre-legal phenomenon

Urban space and the social control of incivilities: perceptions of space influencing the regulationof anti-social behaviour

Contemporary cities are increasingly governed through space. In this article,we examine how urban space and perceptions thereof can influence the social control inthe area of incivilities. To this end, we first inspect the existing literature, in particularthe socio-spatial studies that emphasise the importance of culture and values in theinteraction with social control. Partly drawing on examples from our previous studies,we suggest that people’s perceptions of urban space (influenced by cultural symbols,social and media representations, aesthetics and other values) affect their perceptions ofincivilities, while the latter often determine or at least importantly contribute to theshaping of the social control of incivilities. We further highlight the role of gentrifica-tion as a medium and a tool of social control. The paper concludes by discussingimplications of this for the possible future, more integrated and interdisciplinaryresearch on the social control of incivilities in the city

What’s public about crime?

It is often claimed that the fact that some wrongs are public is a fact that is important to our thinking about permissible criminalisation. We argue that it is not. Some say: what gives us reason to criminalise wrongs—when we have such a reason—is the fact that those wrongs are public. Others say: the fact that a wrong is public is a necessary condition of there being reason to criminalise that wrong, or of its permissible criminalisation. What we should make of these statements depends on what is meant by a public wrong. If the claim that a wrong is public is simply the conclusion of a sound argument that there is reason to criminalise the wrong, or that the wrong is permissibly criminalised, the above statements are true, but trivially so. If the claim that a wrong is public is a premise in an argument that there is reason to criminalise the wrong, or that the wrong is permissibly criminalised, the above statements, we argue, are false. We conclude that it would be better, when we think about permissible criminalisation, to do without the idea of a public wrong