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A Pattern of Violence - How the Law Classifies Crimes and What It Means for Justice (Hardcover)
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A Pattern of Violence - How the Law Classifies Crimes and What It Means for Justice (Hardcover)
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A law professor and former prosecutor reveals how inconsistent
ideas about violence, enshrined in law, are at the root of the
problems that plague our entire criminal justice system-from mass
incarceration to police brutality. We take for granted that some
crimes are violent and others aren't. But how do we decide what
counts as a violent act? David Alan Sklansky argues that legal
notions about violence-its definition, causes, and moral
significance-are functions of political choices, not eternal
truths. And these choices are central to failures of our criminal
justice system. The common distinction between violent and
nonviolent acts, for example, played virtually no role in criminal
law before the latter half of the twentieth century. Yet to this
day, with more crimes than ever called "violent," this distinction
determines how we judge the seriousness of an offense, as well as
the perpetrator's debt and danger to society. Similarly, criminal
law today treats violence as a pathology of individual character.
But in other areas of law, including the procedural law that covers
police conduct, the situational context of violence carries more
weight. The result of these inconsistencies, and of society's
unique fear of violence since the 1960s, has been an application of
law that reinforces inequities of race and class, undermining law's
legitimacy. A Pattern of Violence shows that novel legal
philosophies of violence have motivated mass incarceration, blunted
efforts to hold police accountable, constrained responses to sexual
assault and domestic abuse, pushed juvenile offenders into adult
prisons, encouraged toleration of prison violence, and limited
responses to mass shootings. Reforming legal notions of violence is
therefore an essential step toward justice.
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