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Articles 1 - 5 of 5
Full-Text Articles in Law
Cruelty, Prison Conditions, And The Eighth Amendment, Sharon Dolovich
Cruelty, Prison Conditions, And The Eighth Amendment, Sharon Dolovich
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
The Eighth Amendment prohibits cruel and unusual punishment, but its normative force derives chiefly from its use of the word cruel. For this prohibition to be meaningful in a society where incarceration is the primary mode of criminal punishment, it is necessary to determine when prison conditions are cruel. Yet the Supreme Court has thus far avoided this question, instead holding in Farmer v. Brennan that unless some prison official actually knew of and disregarded a substantial risk of serious harm to prisoners, prison conditions are not “punishment” within the meaning of the Eighth Amendment. Farmer’s reasoning, however, does not …
Incarceration American-Style, Sharon Dolovich
Incarceration American-Style, Sharon Dolovich
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
In the United States today, incarceration is more than just a mode of criminal punishment. It is a distinct cultural practice with its own aesthetic and technique, a practice that has emerged in recent decades as a catch-all mechanism for managing social ills. In this essay, I argue that this emergent carceral system has become self-generating—that American-style incarceration, through the conditions it inflicts, produces the very conduct society claims to abhor and thereby guarantees a steady supply of offenders whose incarceration the public will continue to demand. I argue, moreover, that this reproductive process works to create a class of …
How (Not) To Think Like A Punisher, Alice G. Ristroph
How (Not) To Think Like A Punisher, Alice G. Ristroph
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
This article examines the several and sometimes contradictory accounts of sentencing in proposed revisions to the Model Penal Code. At times, sentencing appears to be an art, dependent upon practical wisdom; in other instances, sentencing seems more of a science, dependent upon close analysis of empirical data. I argue that the new Code provisions are at their best when they acknowledge the legal and political complexities of sentencing, and at their worst when they invoke the rhetoric of desert. When the Code focuses on the sentencing process in political context, it offers opportunities to deploy both practical wisdom and empirical …
Can Our Shameful Prisons Be Reformed?, David Cole
Can Our Shameful Prisons Be Reformed?, David Cole
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
No abstract provided.
The Harmful Side Effects Of Drug Prohibition, Randy E. Barnett
The Harmful Side Effects Of Drug Prohibition, Randy E. Barnett
Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works
Some drugs make people feel good. That is why some people use them. Some of these drugs are alleged to have side effects so destructive that many advise against their use. The same may be said about statutes that attempt to prohibit the manufacture, sale, and use of drugs. Advocating drug prohibition makes some people feel good because they think they are “doing something” about what they believe to be a serious social problem. Others who support these laws are not so altruistically motivated. Employees of law enforcement bureaus and academics who receive government grants to study drug use, for …