The aim of the project is to think through the ideas of blame and responsibility at the heart of criminal justice practices, how these compete with a variety of other ideas in the law, and how such practices relate to underlying ethical issues and historical contexts.

When we talk of criminal justice, we often use other labels to compare or contrast, such as ‘preventive justice’, ‘restorative justice’, ‘transitional justice’, ‘informal justice’, ‘popular justice’, ‘social justice’, ‘victors’ justice’. One way of expressing the nature of the project would be to say that its aim is to think through the nature of criminal justice in its relation to these other labels.’