ABSTRACT
This chapter shows that the real force of the radical criticisms lies in their charge that even at a deep theoretical level the modern systems of criminal justice are defective, and that it is not just a failure of putting sound principles into practice that leads to tangible injustices in the courts. Radical critics claim that even in theory the system of criminal justice in modern legal systems does not stand up to examination, because it rests on internally inconsistent foundations and flatly contradictory attitudes towards justice. The criticism ranges from Marxist and critical legal studies (CLS) historical analysis of criminal law as essentially an instrument of class oppression, designed primarily for the protection of private property, to feminist critiques of the masculine assumptions behind its theory and practice, to postmodernist deconstructions of all the doctrines, theories and concepts that sustain criminal law.
