Understanding Justice

2. Auflage 2003
ISBN: 978-0-335-22581-1
Verlag: Open University Press

Buch, Englisch

* Why should offenders be punished - what should punishments be designed to achieve?
* Why has imprisonment become the normal punishment for crime in modern industrial societies?
* What is the relationship between theories of punishment and the actual penalties inflicted on offenders?

This revised and updated edition of a highly successful text provides a comprehensive account of the ideas and controversies that have arisen within law, philosophy, sociology and criminology about the punishment of criminals. Written in a clear, accessible style, it summarises major philosophical ideas - retribution, rehabilitation, incapacitation - and discusses their strengths and weaknesses. This new edition has been updated throughout including, for example, a new section on recent cultural studies of punishment and on the phenomenon of mass imprisonment that has emerged in the United States. This second edition includes a new chapter on restorative justice, which has developed considerably in theory and in practice since the publication of the first edition.

The sociological perspectives of Durkheim, the Marxists, Foucault and their contemporary followers are analysed and assessed. A section on the criminological perspective on punishment looks at the influence of theory on penal policy, and at the impact of penal ideologies on those on whom punishment is inflicted. The contributions of feminist theorists, and the challenges they pose to masculinist accounts of punishment, are included. The concluding chapter presents critiques of the very idea of punishment, and looks at contemporary proposals which could make society's response to crime less dependent on punishment than at present.

Understanding Justice has been designed for students from a range of disciplines and is suitable for a variety of crime-related courses in sociology, social policy, law and social work. It will also be useful to professionals in criminal justice agencies and to all those interested in understanding the issues behind public and political debates on punishment.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Hudson, Barbara

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Soziologie | Soziale Arbeit Spezielle Soziologie Kriminalsoziologie

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Series foreword
Acknowledgements
Perspectives on punishment
Part one: The goals of punishment: the juridical perspective
Utilitarian approaches
Retribution
Hybrids, compromises and syntheses
Restorative justice
diversion, compromise or replacement discourse
Part two: Punishment and modernity: the sociological perspective
Punishment and progress
the Durkheimian tradition
The political economy of punishment
Marxist approaches
The disciplined society
Foucault and the analysis of penalty
Understanding contemporary penalty
Part three: Towards justice?
The struggle for justice
critical criminology and critical legal studies
Postscript
beyond modernity: the fate of justice
Glossary
Further reading
References
Index.

Über Autor(innen)

Barbara Hudson is Professor at the Lancashire Law School, University of Central Lancashire. She teaches penology on courses in law and criminology, and has researched and written extensively on criminal justice topics. Previously published works include Justice through Punishment: a Critique of the 'Justice' Model of Corrections (1987), Penal Policy and Social Justice (1993), and Racism and Criminology (1993, edited with Dee Cook).