Rethinking imprisonment
- ISBN: 9780199209125
- Editorial: Oxford University Press
- Fecha de la edición: 2007
- Lugar de la edición: Oxford. Reino Unido
- Colección: Oxford Monographs on Criminal Law and Justice
- Encuadernación: Cartoné
- Medidas: 24 cm
- Nº Pág.: 270
- Idiomas: Inglés
Drawing on philosophical arguments, criminological evidence, and the legal literature on prisoners' rights, Rethinking Imprisonment defends a normative theory of imprisonment. Such a theory provides an account of the justified conditions of prison confinement - the restrictions and deprivations that can be legitimately imposed on serious offenders in the name of punishment. The theory of legal punishment upon which this account builds combines retributive and crime reduction elements, with the former accorded priority on both moral and epistemic grounds. Contrary to its formidable reputation, retributivism is shown to place important and substantial limits on the character of imprisonment, its appropriate use, and duration. Much of the contemporary use of imprisonment as a legal sanction is arguably unjustified on all three counts.
