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The Pathological Politics Of Criminal Law, William J. Stuntz

Michigan Law Review

Substantive criminal law defines the conduct that the state punishes. Or does it? If the answer is yes, it should be possible, by reading criminal codes (perhaps with a few case annotations thrown in), to tell what conduct will land you in prison. Most discussions of criminal law, whether in law reviews, law school classrooms, or the popular press, proceed on the premise that the answer is yes. Law reform movements regularly seek to broaden or narrow the scope of some set of criminal liability rules, always on the assumption that by doing so they will broaden or narrow the …

Are Shaming Punishments Beautifully Retributive? Retributivism And The Implications For The Alternative Sanctions Debate, Dan Markel

Vanderbilt Law Review

In the last few years, scholars and policymakers in the area of criminal justice have focused an increasing amount of attention on two topics. The first is the retributivist theory of punishment ("retributivism");' the second is the development of alternative sanctions to the orthodoxy of incarcerating criminals in publicly managed prisons. This Article is about what connections may properly be drawn between what justifies punishment and how we actually go about punishing offenders.

A preliminary word on retributivism may be helpful. Retributivism is a theory about retribution, and retribution's features, or its definition, may be understood in either a weak …

Sanctioning Government: Explaining America's Severity Revolution, Jonathan Simon

University of Miami Law Review

No abstract provided.

Crime, Punishment And Penal Policy, Ian O'Donnell

Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies

Academic interest in crime and punishment in Ireland has grown in recent years and a number of important books have appeared (Bacik and O'Connell 1998, Brewer et al 1997, McCullagh 1996, O'Mahony 1993, O'Malley 2000). However any attempt to create a detailed understanding of the criminal justice process is frustrated by a lack of data. Statistical information is often published years in arrears, is of poor quality and is uncritically accepted as accurate and meaningful. The purpose of this paper is to give a snapshot of current understanding of the criminal justice system and to highlight a small number of …

Research For Change: Young People, Youth Crime And The Use Of Custody On Teesside, Keith Munroe

Irish Journal of Applied Social Studies

This Action Research study was established in 1997 by the Society because of our concerns about the sharp increase in the use of custody for chi ldren and young people aged under 18 in England and Wales since 1992. Teesside was selected as the site for the enquiry because the local Courts have an established pattern of using high levels of custody for juveniles. The research also took place during a period when the Youth Justice Process in England and Wales was being reformed and reorganised via the Crime and Disorder Act (1998). MUltiple methods and sources were used to …

Rape, Murder, And Formalism: What Happens If We Define Mistake Of Law?, Gerald F. Leonard

Faculty Scholarship

The criminal law maxim "ignorance of the law is no excuse" represents a broad doctrine of strict liability in an area of law that usually insists on a culpable state of mind as a prerequisite for liability. For that reason, many scholars have attacked the harsh mistake-of-law rules as incompatible with basic principles of culpability. Other scholars have come to the defense of the maxim, and courts have adhered to it quite strongly even as the list of exceptions to the maxim has slowly grown. Oddly enough, however, this debate has proceeded without a definition of mistake of law. Distinguishing …

Principles In Public Reasoning About Criminal Justice : Victim Vulnerability, Trust, And Offender Status, Dianne R. Mckillop

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

It is popularly assumed that the public is highly punitive toward criminal offenders and that its reasoning about criminal offences is emotionally and morally based. This assumption has been challenged by social scientists who cite influences of news media and methodological flaws in empirical studies as contributing causes. Public sentiment is a basis for law and the increasing responsiveness of legislator to what is perceived to be public opinion on crime means that accurate information on enduring principles in the public's intuitive reasoning about criminal justice is vital. An initial exploratory study (N = 34) presented members of the public …