Preface for Pertanika Journal of Social Sciences and Humanities: A Special Edition Devoted to Issues in Criminal Justice in the 21st Century: Spirit, Form & Challenges

This Issue comprises of selected papers from the International Conference on Law, Order and Criminal Justice, which took place on 19th and 20th November 2014, at the beautiful ISTAC Campus. The Conference was hosted by the Ahmad Ibrahim Kulliyyah of Laws, IIUM, in collaboration with the Malaysian Judiciary, the Royal Malaysian Police, the Institute of Public Security Malaysia (IPSOM) and the National Council of Professors. The Conference focused on the modern criminal justice system with the aim of looking at the effectiveness of this existing system as a comprehensive system of controlling crimes and ensuring the safety of the public through various institutions, which are directed at maintaining social order and minimising crimes. In lieu of the challenges of the current criminal justice system, this Conference adopted the term “Law, Order and Criminal Justice” to cover all the different agencies and organisations involved in enforcing law and order, preventing crimes and meting out punishments, as well as how they work together in establishing the principles of equity, fairness and justice. In this fast-changing world, these practices and institutions cannot remain static. They must change and evolve as criminals and syndicates also adopt sophisticated tactics to commit various types of crimes. On top of that, new technologies such as ICT and biotechnology further challenge the traditional notions and “forms” of crimes. As such, these have an impact to the collection of evidence as well as the need to revisit the appropriateness of the existing punishments. The forces of globalisation and international trade have also given rise to new commercial crimes across borders that require re-thinking of traditional concepts such as criminality, evidence gathering and punishment. The theme of the Conference, “Criminal Justice Systems in the 21st Century: Spirit, Forms and Challenges”, reflects all the various tensions faced by the modern criminal justice system in all its five pillars, namely, the community, the law enforcement agencies and mechanisms, the prosecution, the court and the correctional system. Should we strive to achieve the main spirit behind criminal punishments alone? Do the forms of punishments matter? If so, what are the main challenges in meting out punishments? In order to unearth the various issues surrounding criminal justice, the Conference organisers accepted papers based on eight broad themes, namely; crimes against the state; commerce and new forms of crimes; new technologies and the criminal justice system; punishment and reform; law enforcement; judiciary and administration of justice; criminal evidence and other related issues on criminal justice. The Conference also encouraged papers which offered Islamic perspectives on issues surrounding these themes