Honour Killings and Criminal Justice

Book excerpt: Despite recent reforms to the Turkish Penal Code, the country retains a high level of honour-based violence. This book analyses the motives behind honour-based violence in Turkey and examines the criminal justice system's approach to this type of crime. The work takes a socio-legal approach to explore the concepts of honour, patriarchy, and hierarchy, along with the roles of culture and tradition. It also examines how the legal system deals with this phenomenon, focusing on the decisions of the criminal courts in honour killing cases and drawing on prisoner interviews. These analyses show the extent to which the State follows a patriarchal approach when dealing with honour killings and inform recommendations for improving the legal and criminal justice system so as to deter crimes of this nature.