Main description:

The goal of improving public health involves the use of different tools, with the law being one way to influence the activities of institutions and individuals. Of the regulatory mechanisms afforded by law to achieve this end, criminal law remains a perennial mechanism to delimit the scope of individual and group conduct. Utilising criminal law may promote or hinder public health goals, and its use raises a number of complex questions that merit exploration. This examination of the interface between criminal law and public health brings together international experts from a variety of disciplines, including law, criminology, public health, philosophy and health policy, in order to examine the theoretical and practical implications of using criminal law to improve public health.

Contents:

1. Introduction A. M. Viens, John Coggon and Anthony S. Kessel; 2. Criminal law, regulatory frameworks and public health Roger Brownsword; 3. Drugs, crime and public health: an insight from criminology Doug Husak; 4. Criminal law, drugs and harm reduction Tom Walker; 5. Morality and strategy in politicising tobacco use: criminal law, public health, and philosophy John Coggon; 6. Pursued by the 'fat' police? Prosecuting the parents of obese children Tracey Elliot; 7. Disease transmission, liability and criminal law James Chalmers; 8. Compulsion, surveillance, testing and treatment: a truly 'criminal' matter? Jean V. McHale; 9. Epidemiological criminology and violence prevention: addressing the co-occurrence of criminal violence and poor health outcomes Roberto H. Potter and Timothy A. Akers; 10. Forensic epidemiology: strange bedfellows or the perfect match? Can public health and criminal law work together without losing their souls? Zita Lazzarini; 11. From the criminal to the consensual: the shifting mechanisms of environmental regulation Robert G. Lee and Mark Stallworthy; 12. Criminal law and global health governance David P. Fidler.