The operation of the partial defence of provocation has animated significant debate for more than two decades among scholars, legal practitioners, politicians and the community. In recognition of the injustices that result from its operation, criminal justice systems worldwide have conducted reviews of the law of provocation and have implemented divergent reforms targeted at minimizing the influence of gender bias in the law's operations.
Drawing on the voices of over one hundred members of the Victorian, New South Wales and English criminal justice systems, this book provides a much-needed comparative analysis of the operation of this controversial partial defence to murder, the varied approaches taken to reforming the law of provocation and the effects of these reforms in practice.
Centrally concerned with conceptual questions of gender, justice and the role of denial in the criminal justice system, Fitz-Gibbon's analysis provides a unique view of the injustice of the provocation defence alongside the unintended consequences of homicide law reform that either retains, replaces or abolishes the doctrine.
This insightful book offers valuable lessons for future jurisdictions that seek to improve the adequacy of the law's response to lethal violence and to solve the problem of provocation, and will appeal to scholars of Criminology, Socio-Legal Studies and Law, as well as domestic violence advocates and legal stakeholders.