At last, here is an empirical volume that addresses head-on the thorny issue of tort reform in the US. Ongoing policy debates regarding tort reform have led both legal analysts and empirical researchers to reevaluate the civil jury 's role in meting out civil justice. Some reform advocates have called for removing certain types of more complex cases from the jury 's purview; yet much of the policy debate has proceeded in the absence of data on what the effects of such reforms would be. In addressing these issues, this crucial work takes an empirical approach, relying on archival and experimental data. It stands at the vanguard of the debate and provides information relevant to both state and national civil justice systems.

In 1906 a white lawyer named Dabney Marshall argued a case before the Mississippi Supreme Court demanding the racial integration of juries. He carried out a plan devised by Mississippi's foremost black lawyer of the time: Willis Mollison. Against staggering odds, and with the help of a friendly newspaper editor, he won. How Marshall and his allies were able to force the court to overturn state law and precedent, if only for a brief period, at the behest of the U.S. Supreme Court is the subject of "Jury Discrimination," a book that explores the impact of the Civil War and Reconstruction on America's civil rights history.
Christopher Waldrep traces the origins of Americans' ideas about trial by jury and provides the first detailed analysis of jury discrimination. Southerners' determination to keep their juries entirely white played a crucial role in segregation, emboldening lynchers and vigilantes like the Ku Klux Klan. As the postbellum Congress articulated ideals of national citizenship in civil rights legislation, most importantly the Fourteenth Amendment, factions within the U.S. Supreme Court battled over how to read the amendment: expansively, protecting a variety of rights against a host of enemies, or narrowly, guarding only against rare violations by state governments. The latter view prevailed, entombing the amendment in a narrow interpretation that persists to this day.
Although the high court clearly denounced the overt discrimination enacted by state legislatures, it set evidentiary rules that made discrimination by state officers and agents extremely difficult to prove. Had these rules been less onerous, Waldrep argues, countless black jurors could have been seated throughout the nation at precisely the moment when white legislators and jurists were making and enforcing segregation laws. Marshall and Mollison's success in breaking through Mississippi law to get blacks admitted to juries suggests that legal reasoning plausibly founded on constitutional principle, as articulated by the Supreme Court, could trump even the most stubbornly prejudiced public opinion.

The Routledge International Handbook of Penal Abolition provides an authoritative and comprehensive look at the latest developments in the 21st-century penal abolitionism movement, both reflecting on key critical thought and setting the agenda for local and global abolitionist ideas and interventions over the coming decade. Penal abolitionists question the legitimacy of criminal law, policing, courts, prisons and more broadly the idea of punishment, to argue that rather than effectively handling or solving social problems, interpersonal disputes, conflicts and harms, they actually increase individual and societal problems. The Routledge International Handbook of Penal Abolition is organized around six key themes: Social movements and abolition organizing Critical resistance to the penal state Voices from imprisoned and marginalized communities Diversity of abolitionist thought International perspectives on abolitionism Building new justice practices as a response to social and individual wrongdoing. A global-centred and world-encompassing project, this book provides the reader with an alternative and critical perspective from which to reflect and raises the visibility of abolitionist ideas and strategies in a time when there is considerable discussion of how we will move forward in response to what has given rise to the criminalizing system: white supremacy, racial capitalism and human wrongdoing. It is essential reading for all those engaged with punishment and penology, criminology, sociology, corrections and critical prisons studies. It will appeal to any reader who seeks an innovative response to the calamitous failures of the modern criminalizing system.

Sentencing Policies and Practices in the 21st Century focuses on the evolution and consequences of sentencing policies and practices, with sentencing broadly defined to include plea bargaining, judicial and juror decision making, and alternatives to incarceration, including participation in problem-solving courts. This collection of essays and reports of original research explores how sentencing policies and practices, both in the United States and internationally, have evolved, explores important issues raised by guideline and non-guideline sentencing, and provides an overview of recent research on plea bargaining in the United States, Australia, and the United Kingdom. Other topics include the role of criminal history in sentencing, the past and future of capital punishment, strategies for reducing mass incarceration, problem-solving courts, and restorative justice practices. Each chapter summarizes what is known, identifies the gaps in the research, and discusses the theoretical, empirical, and policy implications of the research findings. The volume is grounded in current knowledge about the specific topics, but also presents new material that reflects the thinking of the leading minds in the field and that outlines a research agenda for the future. This is Volume 4 of the American Society of Criminology's Division on Corrections and Sentencing handbook series. Previous volumes focused on risk assessment, disparities in punishment, and the consequences of punishment decisions. The handbooks provide a comprehensive overview of these topics for scholars, students, practitioners, and policymakers.

While there is extensive research published concerning juvenile justice and sentencing, most of the research focuses on individual and extra-legal factors, such as age, race, and gender, with scant attention paid to the impact of macro-level factors. This book assesses how a specific contextual factor-concentrated disadvantage-impacts juvenile court outcomes and considers the relevant implications for the current state of juvenile justice processing. Using case-level data from a Southern state with a large, diverse population and contextual-level data from the 2010 US Census and American Community Survey, Maroun assesses whether youth living in neighborhoods of concentrated disadvantage experience harsher outcomes than their counterparts from other types of neighborhoods. Additionally, she examines whether concentrated disadvantage interacts with individual race/ethnicity to influence juvenile court outcomes. Results suggested a direct impact of concentrated disadvantage on diversion, adjudication, and probation type. Further, race significantly interacted with concentrated disadvantage in impacting adjudication and probation outcomes, while ethnicity significantly interacted with concentrated disadvantage in impacting disposition and commitment type. This research expands the knowledge of macrolevel influences on juvenile court outcomes, providing support for the notion that community context impacts juvenile justice processing. Results also highlight the fact that judges use discretion as well as other legal and extralegal factors in exerting social control, and do so differently at each stage of processing. This monograph is essential reading for those engaged in youth and juvenile justice efforts and scholars interested in issues surrounding race, class, social policy, and justice.

Family Activism in the Aftermath of Fatal Violence explores how family and family activism work at the intersection of personal and public troubles and considers what influence family testimonies of fatal violence can have on matters of crime, justice, and punishment. The problem of fatal violence represents one end of a long continuum of violence that marks society, the effects of which endure in families and friends connected through ties of kinship, identity and social bonds. The aftermath of fatal violence can therefore be an intensely personal encounter which confronts families with disorder and uncertainty. Nevertheless, bereaved families are often found at the forefront of efforts to expose injustice, rouse public consciousness, and drive forward social change that seeks to prevent violence from happening again. This book draws upon ethnographic research with those bereaved by gun violence who became involved in family activism in the context of fatal violence: namely, the attempts by bereaved families to manage their experiences of violent death through public expressions of grief and become proxies for wider debates on social injustice. This is an ever more pressing issue in a landscape which increasingly sees the delegation of responsibility to families and communities that are left to deal with the aftermath of violence. An accessible and compelling read, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, cultural studies, and all those interested in learning more about the after-effects of fatal violence.

Drawing on extensive research from Australia, this book examines the experiences of sexual offence victims who submit a victim impact statement. Victim impact statements are used in sentencing to outline the harm caused to victims. There has been little research on the impact statement experiences of sexual offence victims. This book fills this gap, examining the perspectives of six adult female victims and 15 justice professionals in Australia. This is supplemented by analysis of 100 sentencing remarks, revealing how courts use such statements in practice. This book examines victims' experiences of preparing and submitting statements, justice professionals' experiences of working with victims to submit statements, and the judicial use of impact statements in sentencing. It identifies an overarching lack of clarity around the purpose of impact statements, which affects the information that can be included and the way they can be used by the court. It consequently explore issues associated with balancing the expressive and instrumental purposes of such statements, and the challenges in communication between professionals and victims of crime. The findings highlight several issues with the operation of impact statement regimes. Based on these findings, the book makes recommendations to clarify such regimes, to improve communication between justice professionals and victims of crime, and to enhance the therapeutic goals of such statements. An accessible and compelling read, this book is essential reading for all those engaged with victimology, sentencing, and sexual violence.

Motherhood after Incarceration: Community Reintegration for Mothers in the Criminal Legal System explores the relationships of women with their children immediately after periods of incarceration. The analysis draws on in-depth interviews with 39 women who are mothers and who had recently been released in the Portland, Oregon, metropolitan area. Using data collected from these interviews, the authors address three interrelated questions: (1) How does incarceration affect mother/child bonds? (2) What obstacles interfere with successful reintegration of these mothers into the community? (3) Do mothers who regain immediate custody of their children after incarceration reintegrate better than those with delayed (or no) resumption of child custody? Implications of these findings for policy are explored. The research results demonstrate the struggles justice-involved mothers experience over time as they seek to reintegrate into the community and resolve their relationships with their children, while also struggling with employment, housing, family relationships, and avoiding situations that might ultimately lead to recidivism. The authors suggest that policies for reducing recidivism among reentering women should provide more resources for housing, childcare, mental health, and job training and coaching. Further, there are often behavioral and emotional repercussions associated with the lengthy separation of mother and child, which highlights the need for parenting support for these mothers and their children, including social and emotional counseling, and resources directed toward the maintenance of family ties. This book's detailed look at motherhood after incarceration, both for mothers with custody and without, will appeal to academics, policy makers, community advocates and activists, and undergraduate and graduate students in social science courses on correctional policy, gender and crime, and social work.

Working within the framework of law and politics, JUDICIAL PROCESS: LAW, COURTS, AND POLITICS IN THE UNITED STATES combines detailed information about the major structures and processes of the American judiciary with an insider's understanding of the importance of courthouse dynamics. From the organization and procedures of the various courts to the current applications of specific laws, the 7th Edition explores the roles and impact of the judicial system. Throughout the text, the authors not only explain what the legal rules are but also explore each rule's underlying assumptions, history, and goals, providing a complete and balanced look at the role of the judicial system today.

Prisons are everywhere. Yet they are not everywhere alike. How can we explain the differences in cross-national uses of incarceration? The Politics of Punishment explores this question by undertaking a comparative sociological analysis of penal politics and imprisonment in Ireland and Scotland. Using archives and oral history, this book shows that divergences in the uses of imprisonment result from the distinctive features of a nation's political culture: the different political ideas, cultural values and social anxieties that shape prison policymaking. Political culture thus connects large-scale social phenomena to actual carceral outcomes, illuminating the forces that support and perpetuate cross-national penal differences. The work therefore offers a new framework for the comparative study of penality. This is also an important work of sociology and history. By closely tracking how and why the politics of punishment evolved and adapted over time, we also yield rich and compelling new accounts of both Irish and Scottish penal cultures from 1970 to the 1990s. The Politics of Punishment will be essential reading for students and academics interested in the sociology of punishment, comparative penology, criminology, penal policymaking, law and social history.

Bringing together a variety of diverse international contributors from the Convict Criminology community, Convict Criminology for the Future surveys the historical roots of Convict Criminology, the current challenges experienced by formerly incarcerated people, and future directions for the field. Over the past two decades research has been conducted in the field of Convict Criminology, recognizing that the convict voice has long been ignored or marginalized in academia, criminal justice practice, and public policy debates. This edited volume provides a much-needed update on the state of the field and how it has evolved. Seven primary themes are examined. Historical underpinnings of Convict Criminology Adaptations to prison life Longstanding challenges for prisoners and formerly incarcerated people Post-secondary education behind bars The expansion of Convict Criminology beyond North America Conducting scholarly research in carceral settings Future directions in Convict Criminology A global line up of contributors, from the fields of Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law, Political Science, and Sociology, comprehensively tackle each topic, reviewing causes, reactions, and solutions to challenges. The volume also includes a chronology of significant events in the history of Convict Criminology. Integrating current events with research using a variety of methods in scholarly analysis, Convict Criminology for the Future is invaluable reading for students and scholars of corrections, criminology, criminal justice, law, and sociology.

Bringing together a variety of diverse international contributors from the Convict Criminology community, Convict Criminology for the Future surveys the historical roots of Convict Criminology, the current challenges experienced by formerly incarcerated people, and future directions for the field. Over the past two decades research has been conducted in the field of Convict Criminology, recognizing that the convict voice has long been ignored or marginalized in academia, criminal justice practice, and public policy debates. This edited volume provides a much-needed update on the state of the field and how it has evolved. Seven primary themes are examined. Historical underpinnings of Convict Criminology Adaptations to prison life Longstanding challenges for prisoners and formerly incarcerated people Post-secondary education behind bars The expansion of Convict Criminology beyond North America Conducting scholarly research in carceral settings Future directions in Convict Criminology A global line up of contributors, from the fields of Criminology, Criminal Justice, Law, Political Science, and Sociology, comprehensively tackle each topic, reviewing causes, reactions, and solutions to challenges. The volume also includes a chronology of significant events in the history of Convict Criminology. Integrating current events with research using a variety of methods in scholarly analysis, Convict Criminology for the Future is invaluable reading for students and scholars of corrections, criminology, criminal justice, law, and sociology.

This volume addresses major issues and research in corrections and sentencing with the goal of using previous research and findings as a platform for recommendations about future research, evaluation, and policy. The last several decades witnessed major policy changes in sentencing and corrections in the United States, as well as considerable research to identify the most effective strategies for addressing criminal behavior. These efforts included changes in sentencing that eliminated parole and imposed draconian sentences for violent and drug crimes. The federal government, followed by most states, implemented sentencing guidelines that greatly reduced the discretion of the courts to impose sentences. The results were a multifold increase in the numbers of individuals in jails and prisons and on community supervision-increases that have only recently crested. There were also efforts to engage prosecutors and the courts in diversion and oversight, including the development of prosecutorial diversion programs, as well as a variety of specialty courts. Penal reform has included efforts to understand the transitions from prison to the community, including federal-led efforts focused on reentry programming. Community corrections reforms have ranged from increased surveillance through drug testing, electronic monitoring, and in some cases, judicial oversight, to rehabilitative efforts driven by risk and needs assessment. More recently, the focus has included pretrial reform to reduce the number of people held in jail pending trial, efforts that have brought attention to the use of bail and its disproportionate impact on people of color and the poor. This collection of chapters from leading researchers addresses a wide array of the latest research in the field. A unique approach featuring responses to the original essays by active researchers spurs discussion and provides a foundation for developing directions for future research and policymaking.

This thorough and detailed book provides a comprehensive analysis of the various ways in which laws and rules are produced and lays the foundations for a more systematic understanding of lawmaking as a production process. Leading scholars and experts provide coverage and insight on key issues such as the optimal specificity and timing of legal intervention, the nature of expressive law, the production of customary law, and the effect of social norms and social stigma on legal compliance. The original essays shed new light on important issues concerning the institutional design of lawmaking through the lens of economic analysis and public choice theory, and together form an important reference tool. This state-of-the-art resource forms part of the Encyclopedia of Law and Economics, and will appeal strongly to researchers and postgraduate students from both law and economics backgrounds.

This book presents a detailed analysis of Hawaii's Opportunity Probation with Enforcement (HOPE) program. Developed by Judge Steven Alm in Hawaii in 2004, this model of 'swift, certain and fair' justice has been widely adopted across the United States. The book argues that although HOPE has principally been viewed in terms of its deterrent impact, it is in fact best understood through the lens of therapeutic jurisprudence and solution-focused courts, especially drug courts. Bartels presents a detailed overview of HOPE's operation, as well as a critical assessment of the evaluation findings of HOPE and other programs based on this model. Crucially, the book draws on observational research to demonstrate that much of the commentary on HOPE has been based on misunderstandings about the program, and Bartels ultimately provides much-needed in-depth analysis of critiques of the HOPE model. A rigorous study which concludes by identifying key issues for jurisdictions considering implementing the model and areas for future research, this book will be of special interest to scholars of criminal justice, recidivism and drug-related issues.

This book offers an assessment of Barbara Wootton's legacy as a pioneering public criminologist. Barbara Wootton (1897-1988) was a leading British social scientist, magistrate, academic and public servant. She was also a life peer (Baroness Wootton of Abinger) and the first woman to sit on the Woolsack in the House of Lords as Deputy Speaker. One of the Royal Commissions on which she served was on the Penal System, (1964) and two of the Departmental Committees were on the Business of the Criminal Courts (1958) and Criminal Statistics (1963). Of her written work perhaps the most famous is `Social Science and Social Pathology` (published in 1959) which was an attempt to discover what the social sciences had to say about criminality, its causes and its social effects. This book examines her career in historical context, and her contribution to thinking and scholarship on a range of topics. These topics range from the courts and the penal system and her report on the Community Service Order, to crime and criminal law and her analysis of the notions of mens rea, to her work on psychiatry and criminal justice. It explores her contribution as a utilitarian critic in Criminology, within the British empiricist tradition. Written in a clear and direct style, this book will appeal to students and scholars of criminology, sociology, criminal justice, law and all those interested in learning more about Barbara's life and times.

- Includes case studies offering insight into famous historical cases and contemporary practicing laboratories. - Represents the first publication to offer a comprehensive introduction to the topic for beginners. - Written by an experienced professional working in the field.

- Includes case studies offering insight into famous historical cases and contemporary practicing laboratories. - Represents the first publication to offer a comprehensive introduction to the topic for beginners. - Written by an experienced professional working in the field.

Originally published in 1991, this book traces the evolution of the House of Lords as a court for private litigation during the critically important years from 1621 to 1675. It offers new insights into contemporary politics, government and religion, adding an important dimension to our understanding of the House of Lords. This book is primary reading for advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students on courses on early Stuart England, the Civil War and Restoration history.

This book presents practical advice to law students and those entering and now working in the legal profession that will help them to reconcile who they are as a person with the demands and opportunities of a legal career. The book sets out a clear framework and practice examples for: (i) defining "success", (ii) understanding the role of a professional in relation to clients, colleagues, adversaries and community, (iii) reconciling demands of practice within ethical rules and norms, business considerations and personal values and (iv) building a values-centered, economically viable practice and reputation. Complete with practical advice and experiences that produce and reinforce a holistic approach, this book provides invaluable support for second- and third-year law students and lawyers in practice to establish elusive work-life balance over the course of a legal career.

Nasty, below-the-belt campaigns, mudslinging, and character attacks. These tactics have become part and parcel of today's election politics in America, and judicial elections are no exception. "Attacking Judges "takes a close look at the effects of televised advertising, including harsh attacks, on state supreme court elections. Author Melinda Gann Hall investigates whether these divisive elections have damaging consequences for representative democracy. To do this, Hall focuses on two key aspects of those elections: the vote shares of justices seeking reelection and the propensity of state electorates to vote. In doing so, "Attacking Judges "explores vital dimensions of the conventional wisdom that campaign politics has deleterious consequences for judges, voters, and state judiciaries.
Countering the prevailing wisdom with empirically based conclusions, Hall uncovers surprising and important insights, including new revelations on how attack ads influence public engagement with judicial elections and their relative effectiveness in various types of state elections. "Attacking Judges "is a testament to the power of institutions in American politics and the value of empirical political science research in helping to inform some of the most significant debates on the public agenda. This book's results smartly contest and eradicate many of the fears judicial reformers have about the damaging effects of campaign negativity in modern state supreme court elections.

Recalibrating Juvenile Detention chronicles the lessons learned from the 2007 to 2015 landmark US District Court-ordered reform of the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Center (JTDC) in Illinois, following years of litigation by the ACLU about egregious and unconstitutional conditions of confinement. In addition to explaining the implications of the Court's actions, the book includes an analysis of a major evaluation research report by the University of Chicago Crime Lab and explains for scholars, practitioners, administrators, policymakers, and advocates how and why this particular reform of conditions achieved successful outcomes when others failed. Maintaining that the Chicago Crime Lab findings are the "gold standard" evidence-based research (EBR) in pretrial detention, Roush holds that the observed "firsts" for juvenile detention may perhaps have the power to transform all custody practices. He shows that the findings validate a new model of institutional reform based on cognitive-behavioral programming (CBT), reveal statistically significant reductions in in-custody violence and recidivism, and demonstrate that at least one variation of short-term secure custody can influence positively certain life outcomes for Chicago's highest-risk and most disadvantaged youth. With the Quarterly Journal of Economics imprimatur and endorsement by the President's Council of Economic Advisors, the book is a reverse engineering of these once-in-a-lifetime events (recidivism reduction and EBR in pretrial detention) that explains the important and transformative implications for the future of juvenile justice practice. The book is essential reading for graduate students in juvenile justice, criminology, and corrections, as well as practitioners, judges, and policymakers.

Law, Judges and Visual Culture analyses how pictures have been used to make, manage and circulate ideas about the judiciary through a variety of media from the sixteenth century to the present. This book offers a new approach to thinking about and making sense of the important social institution that is the judiciary. In an age in which visual images and celebrity play key roles in the way we produce, communicate and consume ideas about society and its key institutions, this book provides the first in-depth study of visual images of judges in these contexts. It not only examines what appears within the frame of these images; it also explores the impact technologies and the media industries that produce them have upon the way we engage with them, and the experiences and meanings they generate. Drawing upon a wide range of scholarship - including art history, film and television studies, and social and cultural studies, as well as law - and interviews with a variety of practitioners, painters, photographers, television script writers and producers, as well as court communication staff and judges, the book generates new and unique insights into making, managing and viewing pictures of judges. Original and insightful, Law, Judges and Visual Culture will appeal to scholars, postgraduates and undergraduates from a variety of disciplines that hold an interest in the role of visual culture in the production of social justice and its institutions.

This book analyzes why the Rehnquist Court never fulfilled expectations for the reversal of liberal judicial decisions from the Warren and Burger Courts. At its conservative high point in 1991-1992 the Supreme Court was dominated by seven justices who had dependably conservative voting records over the course of their early careers. Five of these justices were appointed in the 1980s and early 1990s by Reagan and Bush, presidents who made concerted efforts to appoint judicial officers who would undo liberal precedents. This is the first book to focus on scholars' growing recognition that the Rehnquist Court has not been as conservative as most presumed it would be. In focusing on Justice Antonin Scalia, whose role inadvertently contributed to the Court's failure to achieve conservative goals, the study examines how individual justices can affect Supreme Court decisions through their judicial behavior.