A policy-oriented approach to social representations of criminal justice in Malta

Abstract

State-administered criminal justice is one of the more tangible manifestations of social contract theory, embodying a republic's right to pre-empt and punish crime on account of collective prosperity. Despite this common theoretical foundation, national representations of criminal justice are widely believed to be conditioned by a community's socio-political and cultural environment. This study builds on evidence of this contextual relativity through quantitative and qualitative content analysis of Maltese criminal justice policies. Institutionalised means of communication were used to access and examine the social representations of criminal justice that reached the Maltese public over the past four legislatures. Systematic coding of the quality and quantity of criminal justice policies demonstrated aggregate policy trends, including local tendencies for incrementalism, reactive response, and managerialist practices. This exercise enabled the selection of an illustrative example of criminal justice policy – domestic violence policy. A discursive analysis of this case study revealed an uncomplicated narrative revolving around victims, villains and heroes. It also represented criminal justice as a politicised, victim-oriented and systemised practice. The triangulation of results demonstrated local criminal justice's complex and heterogeneous manifestations, prompting further research in this area. Based on its results, the study encourages conceptual reflexivity among researchers and institutional reflexivity among policymakers. This should promote academic research and policy outputs which are faithful to the Maltese cultural ideal of criminal justice.