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Full-Text Articles in Law
Is America Becoming A Nation Of Ex-Cons?, John A. Humbach
Is America Becoming A Nation Of Ex-Cons?, John A. Humbach
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
Recent rates of mass incarceration have become a concern, but those rates are only part of the challenge facing (and posed by) the American criminal justice system. An estimated 25% of the U.S. adult population already has a criminal record and, with new felony convictions churning out at a rate of a million per year, America is well on its way to becoming a nation of ex-cons. Already, the ex-offender class is the nation’s biggest law-defined, legally discriminated-against minority group, and it is growing. The adverse social implications of this trend remain unclear and the critical demographic tipping point is …
Punishing Without Free Will, Luis E. Chiesa
Punishing Without Free Will, Luis E. Chiesa
Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications
This Article will argue that there are good moral reasons to conclude that the scientific plausibility of determinism ought to lead us to abandon the notion of free will. Contra P. F. Strawson and Moore, this Article suggests that rejecting free will does not undermine the human experience, and doing so is plausible and attractive because it would likely lead to more humane and efficient institutions of blaming and punishing.