Markus D. Dubber and Tatjana Hörnle, Criminal law: A comparative approach
| Author | Julian R. Murphy |
| Date | 01 December 2016 |
| Published date | 01 December 2016 |
| DOI | 10.1177/0004865816640773 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
the situation in the United States. The latter is provided throughout a number of the
chapters and is the focus of Danielle McDonald and Alexis Miller’s contribution. They
detail changes in media perceptions and reporting of sexual assault within prison fol-
lowing the passage of the Prison Rape Elimination Act in 2003. They find that the media
is now much less likely to portray sex between staff and inmates as consensual or as the
result of a bribe, and instead focus on the non-consensual nature of the conduct. The
contribution emphasises the importance of education and role of the public in holding
prison officials to account for the conditions in detention.
Other contributions include a concluding chapter by the editors, and a data-heavy
review of the ‘‘three eras’’ of research on sexual victimisation in prison by Richard
Tewksbury and David P. Connor. The chapter illustrates first-hand the problem with
the multiplicity of research on sex in prison, and while the body of literature is growing,
useful comparisons are not easily achieved.
The chapters are individually interesting and collectively provide a ready source of
information about sex in prison. However, it may have been more beneficial for the
collection to adopt a focus on a specific larger question, for example ‘‘what is the impact
of failing to respond to sex in prison?’’ If anything, the book underscores that while the
US has long been taking steps to address criminal behaviour (including illegal behaviour
in the form of sexual violence in prison), it has a long way to go before we can have
confidence in its ability to ensure the fair and humane treatment of those in detention.
Markus D Dubber and Tatjana Ho
¨rnle, Criminal law: A comparative approach. Oxford University Press:
Oxford, 2014; 671 pp. ISBN 978-0-19-958960-9, £100 (hbk)
Reviewed by: Julian R Murphy, Judge’s Associate, High Court of Australia, Australia
Readers of comparative legal scholarship usually hope to learn more about the laws of
their own country, by seeing them compared to those of another. What, then, can a book
comparing the criminal laws of Germany and the USA offer readers in Australia and
New Zealand? (No Australian cases or legislation are referenced in the near 700 pages,
although New Zealand garners one rather disparaging mention in the discussion of
attempted crimes at p. 353.) The answer, of course, is that after considering foreign
legal systems and modes of thinking, we see our own in a new light, with a new aware-
ness of our peculiarities and strengths. Markus Dubber and Tatjana Ho
¨rnle are uniquely
qualified to conduct this comparison. Dubber is a giant in the field of comparative
criminal law, author of the first German language book-length study of American crim-
inal law and co-editor of the seminal The Handbook of Comparative Criminal Law
(Heller & Dubber, 2010). Ho
¨rnle is also a comparatist of note having edited The
Oxford Handbook of Criminal Law with Dubber (Dubber & Ho
¨rnle, 2014); she also
holds the august position of Professor of Criminal Law, Comparative Criminal Law,
and Penal Philosophy at Berlin’s Humboldt University.
The book is organised into three parts named with typical German functionality –
‘Foundations’, ‘The General Part’, and ‘The Special Part’ – each with between three and
eight chapters. ‘Part I – Foundations’ opens with a discussion of the legal philosophical
principles upon which each system is based (including the principle of legality and
602 Australian & New Zealand Journal of Criminology 49(4)
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