ABSTRACT
The transition to late modernity This chapter focuses very much on the contemporary world. What are the major trends affecting the criminal justice systems and practices of the developed economies in the early twenty-fi rst century? How should we understand any common themes that appear to be emerging, and should we be focusing on similarities or differences in seeking to make sense of contemporary trends? Central to the many accounts of the changing nature of the modern, developed world is the idea that the nation state is somehow being undermined by a combination of globalising and localising forces. As the nation state is generally understood to be one of the defi ning features of modern times, such a fundamental transition represents, some argue, evidence of a shift into a qualitatively new historical era. Much of this is to do with the changing nature of capital and business, which have been progressively internationalised or transnationalised, and which increasingly lie beyond the control of individual nation states.
