Published in 1999

Scottish criminal law and procedure are very different from their counterparts elsewhere in the United Kingdom. This book is the first socio-legal account of the Scottish criminal justice process and its constituent institutions. Its aims are: to explain the operation of the various elements which make up the ‘system’; to summarise the considerable volume of relevant Scottish research; and to locate this knowledge within contemporary theorising about criminal justice. To this end, the editors commissioned a team of experts to write chapters on the various stages of institutions of the Scottish criminal justice process. Given Scotland’s broad social and cultural similarities to the rest of the United Kingdom, the book also provides a useful comparative perspective which should help to discourage the tendency towards overly ethnocentric theorising south of the border.