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Edited by Gertrude Ezorsky

Delve into the intricate world of punishment through a philosophical lens with the updated second edition of "Philosophical Perspectives on Punishment." This thought-provoking book offers a comprehensive exploration of the moral, ethical, and societal implications of punishment, inviting readers to reflect on the complex nature of justice and retribution. From ancient philosophical theories to modern-day perspectives, this edition delves into the evolving discourse surrounding punishment in a changing world. Whether you are a scholar, student, or simply a curious mind, this book provides a nuanced understanding of punishment through the philosophical perspectives that shape our conceptions of right and wrong.

NY. SUNY Press. 2015. 446p.

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HERBERT L. PACKER

FROM THE INTRODUCTION: THIS Is A BOOk about law and some related subjects; but it is not a specialized book, and I hope that it will be read by people who are not specialists. It is a book about a social problem that has an important legal dimension: the problem of trying to control antisocial behavior by imposing punishment on people found guilty of violating rules of conduct called criminal statutes. This device I shall call the criminal sanction. The rhetorical question that this book poses is: how can we tell what the criminal sanction is good for? Let us hypothesize the existence of a rational lawmaker-a man who stops, looks, and listens before he legislates. What kinds of questions should he ask before deciding that a certain kind of conduct (bank robbery, income tax evasion, marijuana use) ought to be subjected to the criminal sanction?

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, STANFORD, CALIFORNIA. 1968. 389p.

By Marta Nelson, Samuel Feineh and Maris Mapolski

To understand how the United States became one of the most incarcerated nations in the world, it is critical to understand the role that excessive and harsh sentencing has played. In this report, Vera addresses a main driver of mass incarceration: our sentencing system. Dismantling our system of mass incarceration in favor of a narrowly tailored sentencing response to unlawful behavior can produce more safety, repair harm, and reduce incarceration by close to 80 percent, according to modeling on the federal system. This report summarizes the evidence surrounding sentencing’s impact on safety, offers new guiding principles for sentencing legislation that privilege liberty, outlines seven key sentencing reforms in line with these guiding principles, and suggests a “North Star” for sentencing policy with a presumption toward community-based sentences except in limited circumstances. Severe sentences do not deter crime, retribution often does not help survivors of crime heal, and the U.S. sentencing system overestimates who is a current danger to the community and when incarceration is needed for public safety. Instead, we need a system that privileges liberty while creating real safety and repairing harm.

New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2023. 81p.

By Philip Bean

From the Preface: In 1976 I wrote Rehabilitation and Deviance as an intended polemic against the then prevailing view that rehabilitation was the only acceptable and humanitarian means of dealing with offenders. It brought forth from those who supported rehabilitation a considerable amount of hostility but no real debate. It was almost as if rehabilitation had become a belief system which was open to challenge only from the non-believers. However, in the last f o u ryears the subject matter has movedon a great deal, and it seems now as if the time is right to produce a less polemical and wider view of the issues involved in punishment. What follows therefore i san attempt to examine the major arguments relating to punishment, to show how those arguments relate to justice, and to show how a penal system would operate if any of those argumentsdominated. There is also a concluding chapter on the punishment of children - an area neglected by traditional forms of philosophical inquiry but now assuming increasing importance. The book is written mainly from a philosophical standpoint, for ti seemed to me that criminology must draw on its philosophical foundations fi ti is to continue its development. It also seemed as fi the argument about punishment was a moral one requiring constant justification.

London. Oxford. 1981. 222p. CONTAINS MARK-UP

By Robert Johnson

From the Preface: Hard Time is a book about prisons.The focus is on men, but core concerns of women are considered as well. The book explores what I believe are basic human dimensions of prison life and adjustment, and closes with an inclusive, person-centered vision of prison reform. Firsthand testimony and observations drawn from people who live or work in prisons are highlighted and specially marked with black squares (H) throughout the book. Most of the people we send to prison are men, roughly 94 percent. Most prisoners serve time in prisons that are, as living environments if not in terms of strict classification criteria, maximum-security institutions.1 The maximum- security prison for men has served as the explicit or implicit model—the point of departure if not the template—for virtually all men’s prisons and many women's prisons as well. Life in these prisons is depriving and painful. On that score at least, prisons vary in degree, not kind. The inhabitants of every prison serve hard time. Nothing can change this basic and enduring fact. That hard time can also be constructive time is, in my view, the key to understanding and reforming the prison.

Belmont, CA. Wadsworth/Thomson Learning.2001. 356p.

By Andrew Von Hirsch

Report of the Committee for the Study of Incarceration. Preface by Charles E. Goodell, Chairman. Introduction by Willard Gaylin And David J. Rothman.

From the preface: “In early 1971, the Field Foundation asked me to chair this study. There was growing disenchantment with prisons, and with the disparities and irrationalities of the sentencing process. Yet reformers lacked a rationale to guide them in their quest for alternatives, save for the more-than-century- old notion of rehabilitation that had nurtured the rise of the penitentiary. The purpose of our study was to consider afresh the fundamental concepts concerning what is to be done with the offender after conviction. The members of the Committee were chosen from a wide variety of disciplines, extending well beyond traditional correctional specialties. The project was staffed and organized during the spring and summer of 1971, and began its deliberations that fall…..What emerges from our study is a conceptual model that differs considerably from the dominant thinking about punishment during this century. The conventional wisdom has been that theT sentence should be fashioned so as to rehabilitate the offender and isolate him from society if he is dangerous. To accomplish that, the sentencer was to be given the widest discretion to suit the disposition to the particular criminal. For reasons which this book explains, we reject these notions as unworkable and unjust. ..”

NY. Hill And Wang •A division of Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1976. 200p.

Edited by Rudolph J. Gerber and Patrick D. McAnany, editors. Foreword by Norval Morris

From the cover: Contemporary Punishment provides a comprehensive and thoughtful overview of the criminal justice system. The authors present the various arguments for the justification of punishment and in the concluding section attempt to reconcile the discrepancies among the competing views. When the question is asked why society punishes criminals, the answer touches the foundations of our political, social and moral life. We have spent centuries dis­cussing how the coercive power of society will be applied to those who break the rules. As Max Weber has said; "It is a fact that most 'fundamental' questions are often left unregulated by law even in legal orders which are otherwise thor­oughly rationalized." This implies that each generation must wrestle with the problem and fashion an answer which satisfies its sense of justice.

London. University of Notre Dame Press. 1972. 263p.

By Joachim J. Savelsberg.

Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in Darfur. “It has often been argued for the case of Rwanda that the United Nations’ and the US government’s reluctance to call the 1994 mass killings genocidal prevented an appropriate response and cost hundreds of thousands of additional lives. It thus matters whether we define mass violence as a form of genocide specifically, as criminal violence generally, or as something else altogether.”

UC Press. (2015) 363 pages.

By Graeme Newman, Translated by by Kyung-Jae.

Translation of the classic The Punishment Response into Korean by Kyung-Jae. Contains color illustrations and other small additions appropriate for a Korean audience.

Harrow and Heston Classic Reprint. 2019. 434p.

By Pietro Marongiu and Graeme R. Newman

Gli Autori di questo saggio, che costituisce una pietra miliare negli studi sulla Vendetta, sono eminenti criminologi che hanno riunito diverse suggestioni provenienti dalla storia, dall’antropologia, dalla sociologia, dalla letteratura classica e dalla mitologia nell’intento di migliorare la nostra comprensione della violenza, della giustizia penale e del vigilantismo nella società moderna. Partendo da diverse rappresentazioni classiche della Vendetta nei miti greci, nei drammi di Shakespeare, nell’Inferno di Dante Alighieri, nel folklore del selvaggio west, fino alle saghe contemporanee dei supereroi come Batman e Superman, vengono indagate le radici storiche e culturali del desiderio universale di restituire i torti subiti. Marongiu e Newman affermano che tutti i comportamenti vendicativi originano da un “elementare senso di ingiustizia, un sentimento primitivo di ribellione contro un potere tirannico contro il quale si è impotenti a reagire” e che tutte le vendette sono fondamentalmente motivate da un bisogno generale e insopprimibile di uguaglianza, giustizia e reciprocità. Il libro ricostruisce la nascita e i cambiamenti che il bisogno di vendetta ha subito nel corso dei secoli e come esso ha influenzato i nostri sistemi legali, i nostri codici morali e i miti della nostra cultura.

Harrow and Heston Publishers. 2012. 152p.

By Pietro Marongiu and Graeme R. Newman.

As relevant to the 21st century as it was in the 20th century when it was first written, in this second edition of Vengeance: The Fight Against Injustice, the authors provide a cogent appraisal of the most recent scholarship on vengeance that has generally confirmed the theses developed in the first edition, and offer new insights into the nature and role of punishment in modern society. The authors examine the historic and cultural manifestations of the need to inflict punishment on one's enemies. They trace the ways the deep seated desire for vengeance has developed and changed over the centuries and has affected our legal system, moral codes, and cultural myths. By bringing together insights from history, anthropology, sociology, classical and literary studies, and mythology, the authors have produced a landmark study that greatly enlarges our understanding of the problems of violence, criminal justice, and vigilantism in modern society.

Harrow and Heston Publishers. 2019. 196p.

By Graeme R. Newman

The classical philosophical and historical analysis of punishment. Explains, for the most part, why we punish the way we do, who for the most part are the objects of punishment, and who are the onlookers.

Harrow and Heston Publishers. 1985. 318p.

Published by Transaction Press, now Routledge. 2005.