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Author: Barry Mitchell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1782250263
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 142
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Book Description
Murder is often regarded as both the 'ultimate' and a unique crime, and whereas courts are normally given discretion in sentencing offenders, for murder the sentence is mandatory – indeterminate imprisonment. Since the crime and the punishment come as a 'package deal' this book looks at both the legal nature of the offence and at the current operation of the mandatory life sentence. Not only does the book adopt a critical approach, by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the status quo, it also draws upon comparative material from both common and civil law jurisdictions in an attempt to provide a comprehensive exploration of these issues. The need for public confidence in the criminal justice system is particularly acute in the way it deals with the most serious homicides. In this book the authors report findings from the first systematic exploration of public attitudes to sentencing murder in this or any other common law jurisdiction. The picture of public opinion emerging from this recent large-scale nationwide qualitative and quantitative survey, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, is likely to surprise many, and will be of interest to all jurisdictions where the mandatory life sentence for murder has been questioned.
Author: Barry Mitchell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1782250263
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 142
Get Book Here
Book Description
Murder is often regarded as both the 'ultimate' and a unique crime, and whereas courts are normally given discretion in sentencing offenders, for murder the sentence is mandatory – indeterminate imprisonment. Since the crime and the punishment come as a 'package deal' this book looks at both the legal nature of the offence and at the current operation of the mandatory life sentence. Not only does the book adopt a critical approach, by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the status quo, it also draws upon comparative material from both common and civil law jurisdictions in an attempt to provide a comprehensive exploration of these issues. The need for public confidence in the criminal justice system is particularly acute in the way it deals with the most serious homicides. In this book the authors report findings from the first systematic exploration of public attitudes to sentencing murder in this or any other common law jurisdiction. The picture of public opinion emerging from this recent large-scale nationwide qualitative and quantitative survey, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, is likely to surprise many, and will be of interest to all jurisdictions where the mandatory life sentence for murder has been questioned.
Author: Barry Mitchell
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1782250255
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 196
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Book Description
Murder is often regarded as both the 'ultimate' and a unique crime, and whereas courts are normally given discretion in sentencing offenders, for murder the sentence is mandatory – indeterminate imprisonment. Since the crime and the punishment come as a 'package deal' this book looks at both the legal nature of the offence and at the current operation of the mandatory life sentence. Not only does the book adopt a critical approach, by assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the status quo, it also draws upon comparative material from both common and civil law jurisdictions in an attempt to provide a comprehensive exploration of these issues. The need for public confidence in the criminal justice system is particularly acute in the way it deals with the most serious homicides. In this book the authors report findings from the first systematic exploration of public attitudes to sentencing murder in this or any other common law jurisdiction. The picture of public opinion emerging from this recent large-scale nationwide qualitative and quantitative survey, funded by the Nuffield Foundation, is likely to surprise many, and will be of interest to all jurisdictions where the mandatory life sentence for murder has been questioned.
Author: Margaret E. Leigey
Publisher: Rutgers University Press
ISBN: 0813569494
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 243
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Book Description
Today there are approximately fifty thousand prisoners in American prisons serving life without parole, having been found guilty of crimes ranging from murder and rape to burglary, carjacking, and drug offences. In The Forgotten Men, criminologist Margaret E. Leigey provides an insightful account of a group of aging inmates imprisoned for at least twenty years, with virtually no chance of release. These men make up one of the most marginalized segments of the contemporary U.S. prison population. Considered too dangerous for rehabilitation, ignored by prison administrators, and overlooked by courts disinclined to review such sentences, these prisoners grow increasingly cut off from family and the outside world. Drawing on in-depth interviews with twenty-five such prisoners, Leigey gives voice to these extremely marginalized inmates and offers a look at how they struggle to cope. She reveals, for instance, that the men believe that permanent incarceration is as inhumane as capital punishment, calling life without parole “the hard death penalty.” Indeed, after serving two decades in prison, some wished that they had received the death penalty instead. Leigey also recounts the ways in which the prisoners attempt to construct meaningful lives inside the bleak environment where they will almost certainly live out their lives. Every state in the union (except Alaska) has the life-without-parole sentencing option, despite its controversial nature and its staggering cost to the taxpayer. The Forgotten Men provides a much-needed analysis of the policies behind life-without-parole sentencing, arguing that such sentences are overused and lead to serious financial and ethical dilemmas.
Author: Committee on Causes and Consequences of High Rates of Incarceration
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 9780309298018
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 800
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Book Description
After decades of stability from the 1920s to the early 1970s, the rate of imprisonment in the United States has increased fivefold during the last four decades. The U.S. penal population of 2.2 million adults is by far the largest in the world. Just under one-quarter of the world's prisoners are held in American prisons. The U.S. rate of incarceration, with nearly 1 out of every 100 adults in prison or jail, is 5 to 10 times higher than the rates in Western Europe and other democracies. The U.S. prison population is largely drawn from the most disadvantaged part of the nation's population: mostly men under age 40, disproportionately minority, and poorly educated. Prisoners often carry additional deficits of drug and alcohol addictions, mental and physical illnesses, and lack of work preparation or experience. The growth of incarceration in the United States during four decades has prompted numerous critiques and a growing body of scientific knowledge about what prompted the rise and what its consequences have been for the people imprisoned, their families and communities, and for U.S. society. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines research and analysis of the dramatic rise of incarceration rates and its affects. This study makes the case that the United States has gone far past the point where the numbers of people in prison can be justified by social benefits and has reached a level where these high rates of incarceration themselves constitute a source of injustice and social harm. The Growth of Incarceration in the United States examines policy changes that created an increasingly punitive political climate and offers specific policy advice in sentencing policy, prison policy, and social policy. The report also identifies important research questions that must be answered to provide a firmer basis for policy. This report is a call for change in the way society views criminals, punishment, and prison. This landmark study assesses the evidence and its implications for public policy to inform an extensive and thoughtful public debate about and reconsideration of policies.
Author: National Research Council
Publisher: National Academies Press
ISBN: 0309254167
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 144
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Book Description
Many studies during the past few decades have sought to determine whether the death penalty has any deterrent effect on homicide rates. Researchers have reached widely varying, even contradictory, conclusions. Some studies have concluded that the threat of capital punishment deters murders, saving large numbers of lives; other studies have concluded that executions actually increase homicides; still others, that executions have no effect on murder rates. Commentary among researchers, advocates, and policymakers on the scientific validity of the findings has sometimes been acrimonious. Against this backdrop, the National Research Council report Deterrence and the Death Penalty assesses whether the available evidence provides a scientific basis for answering questions of if and how the death penalty affects homicide rates. This new report from the Committee on Law and Justice concludes that research to date on the effect of capital punishment on homicide rates is not useful in determining whether the death penalty increases, decreases, or has no effect on these rates. The key question is whether capital punishment is less or more effective as a deterrent than alternative punishments, such as a life sentence without the possibility of parole. Yet none of the research that has been done accounted for the possible effect of noncapital punishments on homicide rates. The report recommends new avenues of research that may provide broader insight into any deterrent effects from both capital and noncapital punishments.
Author: Mary Bosworth
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 019878323X
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 324
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Book Description
Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Oxford Centre for Criminology, this edited collection of essays seeks to explore the changing contours of criminal justice over the past half century and to consider possible shifts over the next few decades.The question of how social science disciplines develop and change does not invite any easy answer, with the task made all the more difficult given the highly politicised nature of some subjects and the volatile, evolving status of its institutions and practices. A case in point is criminal justice: at once fairly parochial, much criminal justice scholarship is now global in its reach and subject areas that are now accepted as central to its study - victims, restorative justice, security, privatization, terrorism, citizenship and migration (to name just a few) - were topics unknown to the discipline half a century ago. Indeed, most criminologists would have once stoutly denied that they had anything to do with it. Likewise, some central topics of past criminological attention, like probation, have largely receded from academic attention and some central criminal justice institutions, like Borstal and corporal punishment, have, at least in Europe, been abolished. Although the rapidity and radical nature of this change make it quite impossible to predict what criminal justice will look like in fifty years' time, reflection on such developments may assist in understanding how it arrived at its current form and hint at what the future holds.The contributors to this volume have been invited to reflect on the impact Oxford criminology has had on the discipline, providing a unique and critical discussion about the current state of criminal justice around the world and the origins and future implications of contemporary practice. All are leading internationally-renowned criminologists whose work has defined and often re-defined our understanding of criminal justice policy and literature.
Author: Roger Hood
Publisher: OUP Oxford
ISBN: 0191005312
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 612
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Book Description
The fifth edition of this highly praised study charts and explains the progress that continues to be made towards the goal of worldwide abolition of the death penalty. The majority of nations have now abolished the death penalty and the number of executions has dropped in almost all countries where abolition has not yet taken place. Emphasising the impact of international human rights principles and evidence of abuse, the authors examine how this has fuelled challenges to the death penalty and they analyse and appraise the likely obstacles, political and cultural, to further abolition. They discuss the cruel realities of the death penalty and the failure of international standards always to ensure fair trials and to avoid arbitrariness, discrimination and conviction of the innocent: all violations of the right to life. They provide further evidence of the lack of a general deterrent effect; shed new light on the influence and limits of public opinion; and argue that substituting for the death penalty life imprisonment without parole raises many similar human rights concerns. This edition provides a strong intellectual and evidential basis for regarding capital punishment as undeniably cruel, inhuman and degrading. Widely relied upon and fully updated to reflect the current state of affairs worldwide, this is an invaluable resource for all those who study the death penalty and work towards its removal as an international goal.
Author: Cara H. Drinan
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190605553
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 241
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Book Description
Despite inventing the juvenile court a little more than a century ago, the United States has become an international outlier in its juvenile sentencing practices. The War on Kids explains how that happened and how policymakers can correct the course of juvenile justice today.
Author: Louis Blom-Cooper
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1782257292
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 376
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Book Description
Over the years of the developing judicial review of ministerial and governmental decisions, Louis Blom-Cooper was a leading advocate who grew up with the advent of a distinctive brand of public law. His range of public activities, both in and outwith the courtroom, saw him dubbed by his colleagues as a polymath practitioner.It included chairmanship of plural public inquiries in child abuse and mental health, media contributions in the broadsheet press and in broadcasting, and innovation in penal reform, as an ardent campaigner for the abolition of capital punishment and a plea for a modern Homicide Act. He styled himself as a modern, reconstructed liberal – a man before his time. This collection of essays is uniquely prefaced by a self-examination of his unorthodox philosophy towards the law in action. It covers a variety of socio-legal topics that expresses his ambition to inform a poorly-educated public on the workings of the legal system. This aim involves a discussion of the constitutional history of Britain, unwritten and insufficiently interpreted; it reflects a commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights and portrays its international origins. The collection opines on crime and punishment; in the functioning of the courts and elsewhere the political shift from the penal optimism of the 1970s to the reactionary punitiveness of the post-1990s. The essays conclude with a miscellany of affairs, reflecting on professional practices and their product of judicial heroes in Lord Reid and Lord Bingham.
Author: Gaëtan Cliquennois
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1000824179
Category : Law
Languages : en
Pages : 232
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Book Description
The Evolving Protection of Prisoners’ Rights in Europe explores the development of the framing of penal and prison policies by the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR), clarifying the European expectations of national authorities, and describing the various models existing in Europe, with a view to analysing their mechanisms and highlighting those that seem the most suitable. A new frame of penal and prison policies in Europe has been progressively established by the ECHR and the Council of Europe (CoE) to protect the rights of detainees in Europe. European countries have reacted very diversely to these policies. This book has several key benefits for readers: • A global and detailed overview of the ECHR jurisprudence on penal and prison policies through an analysis of its development over time. • An analysis of the interactions between the Strasbourg Court and the CoE bodies (Committee of Ministers, Committee for the Prevention of Torture ...) and their reinforced framing of domestic penal and prison policies. • A detailed examination of the impacts of the European case law on penal and prison policies within ten nation states in Europe (including Romania which is currently very underresearched). • A robust engagement with the diverse national reactions to this European case law as a policy strategy. This book will be of great interest to scholars and students of Law, Criminal Justice, Criminology and Sociology. It will also appeal to civil servants (judges, lawyers, etc.), professionals and policymakers working for the CoE, the European Union, and the United Nations; Ministries of Justice; prison departments; and human rights institutions, as well as activists working for INGOs and NGOs.
