Coroners' Recommendations and the Promise of Saved Lives

This timely book is an investigation of the highly debated questions: do coroners' recommendations save lives and how often are they implemented? It is the first socio-legal investigation of coroners' recommendations from several countries. Based on an extensive study, it analyses Coroner's Court findings and litigation from Canada, England, Ireland, Australia and Scotland as well as over 2000 New Zealand coroners' recommendations and includes more than 100 interviews and over 40 surveys. The book probes coroners', organisations' and families' experiences of the Coroner's Court in detail and includes substantial quotations from, and discussion of, their experiences. The data analyzed demonstrates that while coronial recommendations can be useful tools for intervention and policy development, coroners' contribution to morbidity and mortality prevention at the population level requires further development.

In addition to coroners, lawyers, health practitioners, families, organisations and policy makers, researchers from Law, Medicine and the Social Sciences will find this pioneering volume an important and illuminating resource.

Contents:

1. Learning From Death

2. Coronial Jurisdictions

3. Coroners' Recommendations

4. Do Coroners' Recommendations ''Disappear Into A Black Hole?''

5. The Promise Of Saved Lives: Coroners' Preventive Function

6. Mandatory Responses To Coroners' Recommendations

7. Dying For Change

Index