Harsh Justice
Subtitle: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide Between America and Europe
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Published: March 27, 2003
Language: eng
Number of pages: 336
ISBN-13: 9780195155259
First sentence: American punishment is comparatively harsh, comparatively degrading, comparatively slow to show mercy.
Description: Publisher's description: Criminal punishment in America is harsh and degrading-more so than anywhere else in the liberal west. Executions and long prison terms are commonplace in America. Countries like France and Germany, by contrast, are systematically mild. European offenders are rarely sent to prison, and when they are, they serve far shorter terms than their American counterparts. Why is America so comparatively harsh? In this novel work of comparative legal history, James Whitman argues that the answer lies in America's triumphant embrace of a non-hierarchical social system and distrust of state power which have contributed to a law of punishment that is more willing to degrade offenders.