Harsh justice : criminal punishment and the widening divide between America and Europe
著者
書誌事項
Harsh justice : criminal punishment and the widening divide between America and Europe
Oxford University Press, 2003
大学図書館所蔵 全6件
  青森
  岩手
  宮城
  秋田
  山形
  福島
  茨城
  栃木
  群馬
  埼玉
  千葉
  東京
  神奈川
  新潟
  富山
  石川
  福井
  山梨
  長野
  岐阜
  静岡
  愛知
  三重
  滋賀
  京都
  大阪
  兵庫
  奈良
  和歌山
  鳥取
  島根
  岡山
  広島
  山口
  徳島
  香川
  愛媛
  高知
  福岡
  佐賀
  長崎
  熊本
  大分
  宮崎
  鹿児島
  沖縄
  韓国
  中国
  タイ
  イギリス
  ドイツ
  スイス
  フランス
  ベルギー
  オランダ
  スウェーデン
  ノルウェー
  アメリカ
注記
Includes bibliographical references (p. 273-299) and index
収録内容
- Degradation, harshness and mercy
- Contemporary American harshness : rejecting respect for persons
- Continental dignity and mildness
- The continental abolition of degradation
- Low status in the Anglo-American world
内容説明・目次
内容説明
Why is American punishment so cruel? While in continental Europe great efforts are made to guarantee that prisoners are treated humanely, in America sentences have gotten longer and rehabilitation programs have fallen by the wayside. Western Europe attempts to prepare its criminals for life after prison, whereas many American prisons today leave their inhabitants reduced and debased. In the last quarter of a century, Europe has worked to ensure that the baser human inclination toward vengeance is not reflected by state policy, yet America has shown a systemic drive toward ever increasing levels of harshness in its criminal policies. Why is America so short on mercy? In this deeply researched, comparative work, James Q. Whitman reaches back to the 17th and 18th centuries to trace how and why American and European practices came to diverge. Eschewing the usual historical imprisonment narratives, Whitman focuses instead on intriguing differences in the development of punishment in the age of Western democracy.
European traditions of social hierarchy and state power, so consciously rejected by the American colonies, nevertheless supported a more merciful and dignified treatment of offenders. The hierarchical class system on the continent kept alive a tradition of less-degrading "high-status" punishments that eventually became applied across the board in Europe. The distinctly American, draconian regime, on the other hand, grows, Whitman argues, out of America's longstanding distrust of state power and its peculiar, broad-brush sense of egalitarianism. Low-status punishments were evenly meted out to all offenders, regardless of class or standing. America's unrelentingly harsh treatment of trangressors-this "equal opportunity degradation"- is, in a very real sense, the dark side of the nation's much vaunted individualism. A sobering look at the growing rift between the United States and Europe, Harsh Justice exposes the deep cultural roots of America's degrading punishment practices.
「Nielsen BookData」 より