This collection interrogates relationships between court architecture and social justice, from consultation and design to the impact of material (and immaterial) forms on court users, through the lenses of architecture, law, socio-legal studies, criminology, anthropology, and a former senior federal judge. International multidisciplinary collaborations and single-author contributions traverse a range of methodological approaches to present new insights into the relationship between architecture, design, and justice. These include praxis, photography, reflections on process and decolonising practice, postcolonial, feminist, and poststructural analysis, and theory from critical legal scholarship, political science, criminology, literature, sociology, and architecture. While the opening contributions reflect on establishing design principles and architectural methodologies for ethical consultation and collaboration with communities historically marginalised and exploited by law, the central chapters explore the textures and affects of built forms and the spaces between; examining the disjuncture between design intention and use; and investigating the impact of architecture and the design of space. The collection finishes with contemplations of the very real significance of material presence or absence in courtroom spaces and what this might mean for justice. Courthouse Architecture, Design and Social Justice provides tools for those engaged in creating, and reflecting on, ethical design and building use, and deepens the dialogue across disciplinary boundaries towards further collaborative work in the field. It also exists as a new resource for research and teaching, facilitating undergraduate critical thought about the ways in which design enhances and restricts access to justice.

The Democratic Courthouse examines how changing understandings of the relationship between government and the governed came to be reflected in the buildings designed to house the modern legal system from the 1970s to the present day in England and Wales. The book explores the extent to which egalitarian ideals and the pursuit of new social and economic rights altered existing hierarchies and expectations about how people should interact with each other in the courthouse. Drawing on extensive public archives and private archives kept by the Ministry of Justice, but also using case studies from other jurisdictions, the book details how civil servants, judges, lawyers, architects, engineers and security experts have talked about courthouses and the people that populate them. In doing so, it uncovers a changing history of ideas about how the competing goals of transparency, majesty, participation, security, fairness and authority have been achieved, and the extent to which aspirations towards equality and participation have been realised in physical form. As this book demonstrates, the power of architecture to frame attitudes and expectations of the justice system is much more than an aesthetic or theoretical nicety. Legal subjects live in a world in which the configuration of space, the cues provided about behaviour by the built form and the way in which justice is symbolised play a crucial, but largely unacknowledged, role in creating meaning and constituting legal identities and rights to participate in the civic sphere. Key to understanding the modern-day courthouse, this book will be of interest to scholars and students in all fields of law, architecture, sociology, political science, psychology and criminology.

Legal Architecture addresses how the environment in which the trial takes place can be seen as a physical expression of our relationship with ideals of justice; as it approaches the history of courthouse design as a reflection of the troubled history of notions of due process.

A remnant of the Renaissance : the transnational iconography of justice -- Civic space, the public square, and good governance -- Obedience : the judge as the loyal servant of the state -- Of eyes and ostriches -- Why eyes? : color, blindness, and impartiality -- Representations and abstractions : identity, politics, and rights -- From seventeenth-century town halls to twentieth-century courts -- A building and litigation boom in Twentieth-Century federal courts -- Late Twentieth-Century United States courts : monumentality, security, and eclectic imagery -- Monuments to the present and museums of the past : national courts (and prisons) -- Constructing regional rights -- Multi-jurisdictional premises : from peace to crimes -- From "rites" to "rights" -- Courts : in and out of sight, site, and cite -- An iconography for democratic adjudication.

They examine historic structures ranging from the Essex County courthouse (1729) and the King William County courthouse, built ca. 1725 and one of the oldest public buildings in continuous use in the nation, to the newer historic courthouses such as Richmond's massive Supreme Court/State Library Building, dedicated in 1941.

Court day in early Virginia transformed crossroads towns into forums for citizens of all social classes to transact a variety of business, from legal cases heard before the county magistrates to horse races, ballgames, and the sale and barter of produce, clothing, food, and drink. The Courthouses of Early Virginia is the first comprehensive history of the public buildings that formed the nucleus of this space and the important private buildings that grew up around them.

This innovative book proposes new theories on how the legal system can be made more comprehensible, usable and empowering for people through the use of design principles. Utilising key case studies and providing real-world examples of legal innovation, the book moves beyond discussion to action. It offers a rich set of examples, demonstrating how various design methods, including information, service, product and policy design, can be leveraged within research and practice.

This edited collection offers the first system-wide account of the impact of COVID-19 on crime and justice in England and Wales. Integrating first-hand narratives, it provides a critical discussion of the challenges faced by criminal justice agencies, together with policy and practice recommendations for future pandemic planning.

This edited collection presents current research dealing with crime involving information and communications technologies in the months immediately before, during and following the coronavirus pandemic since 2019. Information and communications technologies played a pivotal role during the pandemic in communicating information across the globe on the risks and responses to the pandemic but also in providing opportunities for various forms of illegality. This volume describes the nature and extent of such illegality, its connection to the pandemic and how digital technologies can assist in solving not only the health crisis but also the associated crime problems. The contributors are established academic scholars and policy practitioners in the fields of cybercrime and computer forensics. This book provides a ready source of content including technological solutions to cybercrime, legal and legislative responses, crime prevention initiatives and policy discussions dealing with the most critical issues present during and following the pandemic.