Justice in the Risk Society (PDF)

`Hudson's Justice in the Risk Society is stunning in the depth and breadth of its scholarship. In examining the challenges the risk society presents for established conceptions of justice she compels a profound rethinking of what justice does, and can, mean. Her analysis will frame and inspire future debate' - Clifford Shearing, Professor, Law Program, Research School of Social Science, Australian National University

`Remarkably comprehensive, ambitious in its scope and morally compelling. Barbara Hudson draws skilfully from a wide range of frameworks... She asks fundamental questions about the nature of justice and argues for a radical rethink of liberalism. She explores complex subject matter in a clear and accessible fashion. This excellent book will surely reinvigorate theoretical thinking on the nature of punishment for years to come' - Kieran McEvoy, Professor of Law and Transitional Justice, School of Law, Queen's University Belfast

'The book makes an important contribution to the development of new perspectives on justice and provides a rigorous analysis of political and ethical theories that will be highly relevant to criminology and penology students, academics, criminal justice practitioners and policy makers' - SOCLAG Legal Journal

How much of a threat does society's preoccupation with `risk' pose to the ideal of `justice'?

Innovations in control and in penal policy are increasingly dominated by the theme of public protection, motivated by the aim of controlling risk rather than the aim of enhancing social justice.

In Justice in the Risk Society, Barbara Hudson outlines traditional liberal perspectives on justice, risk and security, as well as addressing some key concerns, including:

· the challenges to justice: the politics of risk and safety

· communitarian and feminist political and ethical theories

· how to use current theories and perspectives such as Habermas's discourse ethics and postmodern perspectives on justice

· how to develop new methods of re-affirming and reconstructing theories and institutions of justice

The book concludes with analysis of two of the most important elements of justice for late-modernity: discursiveness and human rights.

Justice in the Risk Society provides theoretical analysis with a discussion of policies, and arguments are illustrated by cases and examples.

The book reviews political and ethical theories in a way that is highly relevant and accessible to criminology and penology students, practitioners and academics, as well as making an original contribution to the development of new perspectives on justice.