The General Part Of Criminal Law

Concentrating upon those doctrines that make up the general part of the criminal law this collection of essays by leading American and British legal experts sheds theoretical light on key issues of contemporary relevance.

This is a comprehensive, insightful, lucid, intense and unrivalled text on the general part of the criminal law in Cameroon. Beginning with an account of the historical development of the criminal law generally, the author proceeds to analyse and discuss in detail the principles governing application of the criminal law, criminal responsibility, participation in crime, penalties, and sentencing. These principles are broadly the same in other jurisdictions. The book balances theoretical content with case-law illustrations to enhance readability, comprehension and assimilation. It is an invaluable source and essential reading for law students and teachers, and lawyers in private practice and government service.

How is modern-day thinking about crime different from that of previous centuries? What are the similarities and differences in attitudes and systems between the civil and common law societies of Europe and North America? These and other questions were addressed at an international conference on crime and criminal justice at The University of Calgary attended by historians, professors of law, judges, and criminologists. The essays in Part I consider the evolution of criminal law doctrine, and those in Part II analyse the theory and measurement of crime in the past and at present. Parts III and IV examine the courts and prosecution, and Part V assesses the historical roots of the insanity defence and the theory and practice of punishment. The volume will be of interest, across national boundaries, to historians, sociologists, social workers, lawyers, and persons involved in the administration of justice as well as the general reader concerned about civil rights, social values, and justice. The eighteen contributors include F.H. Baker, J.M. Beattie, W.A. Calder, T.C. Curtis, D. Hay, H. Diederiks, A. Lachance, His Honour W.G. Morrow, A. Soman, and S. Verdun-Jones.

Criminal Law: A Comparative Approach presents a systematic and comprehensive analysis of the substantive criminal law of two major jurisdictions: the United States and Germany. Presupposing no familiarity with either U.S. or German criminal law, the book will provide criminal law scholars and students with a rich comparative understanding of criminal law's foundations and central doctrines. All foreign-language sources have been translated into English; cases and materials are accompanied by heavily cross-referenced introductions and notes that place them within the framework of each country's criminal law system and highlight issues ripe for comparative analysis. Divided into three parts, the book covers foundational issues - such as constitutional limits on the criminal law - before tackling the major features of the general part of the criminal law and a selection of offences in the special part. Throughout, readers are exposed to alternative approaches to familiar problems in criminal law, and as a result will have a chance to see a given country's criminal law doctrine, on specific issues and in general, from the critical distance of comparative analysis.

"The Most Important Treatise on Criminal Law Produced by American Legal Scholarship" First published to great acclaim in 1947, Hall's General Principles of Criminal Law is one of the undisputed classics in its field. It provides more than a broad overview. Drawing on his expertise in jurisprudence and the work of the legal realists, it analyzes the principles that comprise criminal activity with an emphasis on its creation and definition by officials. This process is explored in the chapters on criminology, criminal theory and penal theory and, in more specific terms, the chapters on legality, mens rea, harm, causation, punishment, strict liability, ignorance and mistake, necessity and coercion, mental disease, intoxication and criminal attempt. "For many years, our standard work on criminal law has been Bishop's. First published in 1856, Bishop's is the only American book in the field that has conspicuously influenced our criminal law. (...) When Jerome Hall's, General Principles of Criminal Law (1947) appeared, it represented the first significant effort to articulate the principles of criminal law since Bishop's era. Hall's work may, in fact, represent the most important treatise on criminal law produced by American legal scholarship." --Fred Cohen, Journal of Legal Education 16 (1963-64) 260.