Harsh Justice: Criminal Punishment and the Widening Divide Between America and Europe - Hardcover

Whitman, James Q.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0195155254 ISBN 13: 9780195155259

Publisher: Oxford University Press, 2003

Synopsis

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 transgressors--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.

About this title

About the Author

James Q. Whitman is Ford Foundation Professor of Comparative and Foreign Law at Yale University. He has taught at Stanford and Harvard Law Schools and was trained as a historian at the University of Chicago before taking his law degree at Yale.

Review

"Whitman's whirlwind tour of the punishment practices of three countries over the last two centuries is well worth the price of admission. He has a deep pool of knowledge and an eye for the telling detail--a picture, a turn of phrase, or a small historical event--that helps to advance his thesis." --Boston Review

"Its combination of elegant writing, deep erudition and bold theorizing make the book a terrific read. Indeed, it ought to be required reading for anyone interested in how a society comes to punish the way it does--and how it should."--American Prospect

"Harsh Justice is original, imaginative, and erudite. I read it with great pleasure. The mastery of sources in many languages is awe-inspiring and Whitman's argument resounds with daring suggestions and bold insights. A genuinely learned book, nothing short of brilliant." -Lawrence Friedman, Stanford University

"In this book James Whitman asks and answers questions in realms where others fear to tread. He confronts the brutal fact that we punish more harshly in the United States than do Europeans and forces us to think about the questions of social structure that lie behind this practice. He develops a thesis about the current impact of Nazi jurisprudence that is sure to trigger arguments from more conventional thinkers. This is a profound book, impeccably researched and documented, one that will change the way we think about criminal punishment and increase our appreciation of comparative legal studies." -George Fletcher, Columbia Law School

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 0195155254
• ISBN 13: 9780195155259
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 336