Process evaluation of two mayor criminal law reforms in the UK and Spain

Abstract

In 2004 two pieces of legislation were passed in the UK and Spain regarding a very hot topic: domestic or gender violence. Both Governments confronted a difficult issue, filled with numerous connections beyond criminal legislation and related to education, culture and values. They both had to deal with a very worried society and a strong victim´s association movement. How did they both perform? Who was involved in the law-making process? Who did they consult with? How long did it take for them to pass both bills? What previous analyses and researches were used to make the appropriate decisions? I´ll try to answer some of those questions and, using these bills as an example, I´ll analyze how criminal legislation procedures vary from one country to another. I´ll also draw some conclusions on the effects such situation may have in the configuration of a countries´ Criminal Policy. I´ll present here the first part of my research: 1.- a contextual analysis that will allow me to determine why these two reforms may be compared from a process evaluation perspective; 2.- the main results obtained in such analysis. Next research steps will regard other interesting factors that take the compared analysis further and are, again, related to criminal public policy, such as the number and types of evaluations occurred in these ten years of implementation of the regulation as well as the number and importance of the reforms that such legislation have suffered after the approval of the 2004 acts.