The need for new criminal justice & criminological approaches to end the ‘War on Terror’

Abstract

Violent attacks in the West in recent years by terrorist groups have reinforced the fact that acts of violence by extremist groups are increasingly becoming a feature of 21st Century life. Understandably, such acts have been met with outrage, condemnation, horror and fear. In addition, the West's responses to such events have been amongst other things, more bombing for Syria; more resources given to the police; more powers for security agencies, greater surveillance employed and new laws passed which highlight that the war on terror is active. However, George Bush’s declaration that the ‘war on terror’, "will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated" is unrealistic. The state response to terrorism broadly follows a ‘war on terror’ approach; similarly current criminal justice and criminological approaches also broadly follow a retributive style approach. This paper will argue that a new paradigm for an emotionally intelligent CJS is needed, one which utilises theories and models of criminal justice that are also emotionally intelligent, in order to put an end to the patterns of separation, exclusion, excessive punishment, shaming and humiliation and thus end the misguided approach used at present specifically in relation to terrorism (and more generally in relation to criminality).