Suchergebnisse

Political theory reminds us that punishment is a fundamentally
political action, an exercise of political power. This book
is about penal reform and the philosophy of punishment as
both were debated in postrevolutionary America. Pestritto
combs through original writings of the founders and state
constitutions in an effort to elucidate leading philosophies
about the purpose of the criminal law and punishment. At a
macro level, the book provides a window into how the
American system, in Pestritto's venues of Pennsylvania, New
York, and Virginia, mediates between the tensions of the
preservation of individual liberty and maintenance of public
order. The book attempts to bridge the historical gap from
our founding to current issues in sentencing, such as the
three-strikes rule, determinate or mandatory sentencing laws,
and state experimentation in marrying sentences to available
prison space, or the cost of incapacitation. Pestritto's greatest
contribution is to mine new material in these historical
conversations on punishment, which allows them to be heard
in our contemporary debates.

Legal scholarship concerning "rights" published in four leading US law journals, 1900-1996, is examined to determine factors responsible for alterations to political understandings of rights. Content analysis of US rights scholarship revealed three findings: the notion of rights is used interchangeably with the concepts of liberty & privilege; whereas early-20th-century scholarship principally addressed negative rights, mid- & late-20th-century literature has demonstrated a growing concern with legal entitlements; & the popular perception that government has both a right to act & an obligation to establish standards & regulations has expedited discourse regarding positive rights. The extent to which such developments in contemporary rights discourse have affected relations between citizens & the state is also contemplated. Recommendations for future research are also offered, eg, investigating the American public's reasons for continuing to support the rule of law. J. W. Parker