INDEX

This book addresses one of the most controversial issues in the criminal justice system today—the death penalty. Paternoster et al. present a balanced perspective that focuses on both the arguments for and against capital punishment. Coverage draws on legal, historical, philosophical, economic, sociological, and religious points of view.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Due Process , Public opinion, Country/Regional profiles,

Life in the Balance: a book on the Billy Wayne Sinclair Story, A Journey from Murder to Redemption Inside America’s Worst Prison System. The New York Times Book Review called it a “numbing tale of crime, punishment, and redemption.”

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Innocence, Country/Regional profiles,

Chavoret Jaruboon was personally responsible for executing 55 prison inmates in Thailand’s infamous prisons. As a boy, he wanted to be a teacher like his father, but his life changed when he chose one of the hardest jobs in the world. Honest and often disturbing – but told with surprising humour and emotion – ‘The Last Executioner’ is the remarkable story of a man who chose death as his vocation.

• Document type Book
• Countries list Thailand
• Themes list Firing Squad,

Europe is today the only region in the world where the death penalty has been almost completely abolished. In the Council of Europe’s 45 member states, including the European Union’s 15 member states and its 13 candidate countries, capital punishment is no longer applied. The Council of Europe played a pioneering role in the battle for abolition, believing that the death penalty has no place in democratic societies under any circumstances. This determination to eradicate the death penalty was reflected in Protocol No.6 to the European Convention on Human Rights, on the abolition of the death penalty in peacetime, which was adopted in April 1983, then in Protocol No.13 on the abolition of the death penalty in all circumstances, adopted in May 2002.Introduced by Roger Hood, an international expert on death penalty legislation, this book reviews the long and sometimes tortuous path to abolition in Europe. It also addresses the tangible problems which countries face once the death penalty has been abolished, and related issues: the situation of murder victims’ families and alternatives to capital punishment, particularly the choice of a substitute sentence.The Council of Europe’s campaign for abolition is currently being pursued beyond Europe’s borders, in those states which have Observer status with the organisation, particularly the United States and Japan: the situation in these countries is discussed here.This publication will be of interest to all those who feel concerned by this issue, particularly members of NGOs, lawyers, officials in departments dealing with legal and criminal affairs, and human rights campaigners.

• Document type Book
• Countries list France
• Available languages Peine de mort - Après l'abolition

In this collaborative work, the Jacksons, father (former presidential candidate and founder of the Rainbow Coalition) and son (a congressional representative) with Salon.com editor Shapiro, pursue a nationwide conversation on the issues surrounding the death penalty one that begins with the proposal of a moratorium and could lead to the eventual cessation of capital punishment. This book describes a bureaucratic nightmare involving defense lawyers asleep at trial, vengeance-hungry politicos and a problematic, imperfect justice system in which the handing out of death sentences is skewed, both racially and economically. An objective examination of this penal system would be beneficial to all, say the authors: since the Supreme Court allowed executions to resume in 1976, one in every eight prisoners on death row has been found innocent and released. There are undoubtedly cases, the authors argue, where the proof of innocence didn’t see the light of day in time. Navigating the historical precedents of the death penalty and the reasons why federally mandated executions were restored following a 10-year moratorium imposed in 1967, the authors thoroughly detail legitimate questions regarding what they view as erroneous deterrence theories, scriptural misrepresentation and simple vengeance.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

Turow bases his opinions on his experiences as a prosecutor and, in his post-prosecutorial years, working on behalf of death-row inmates, as well as his two years on Illinois’s Commission on Capital Punishment, charged by the former Gov. George Ryan.Turow presents both sides of the death penalty debate and seems himself to flip sides depending on the argument.Turow’s reflections include: * Thoughts on victims’ rights vs. community rights * Whether execution is a deterrent * The possible execution of an innocent person * If not the death penalty, what to do with the worst offenders

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States
• Themes list Networks,

The second edition of America’s Experiment with Capital Punishment is an updated and expanded version of the comprehensive first edition. Chapters, authored by the country’s leading legal and social science scholars, have been revised to include a host of important developments since the 1998 edition. Thus, new evidence and information is presented concerning racial disparities in the administration of the death penalty, wrongful convictions, deterrence, the prediction of future dangerousness, jury decision-making, public opinion about the death penalty, the effects of the capital punishment process on murder victims’ and offenders’ relatives, death row incarceration, the costs of capital punishment, execution methods, and many other issues.

• Document type Book
• Countries list United States

• Document type Book
• Themes list Beheading, Death Penalty,
• Available languages Réflexions sur la guillotineReflections on the guillotine: An essay on capital punishment思索斷頭台

Im Sommer des Jahres 1764 erschien in Livorno im Großherzogtum Toskana, das damals zum Habsburger Reich gehörte, ohne Namen des Verfassers ein schmales Buch von eben hundert Seiten über Verbrechen und Strafen: ‘Dei Delitti e delle Pene’. Das Titelblatt gab einen Satz Bacons wieder, der besagen sollte, daß der Zweck, dem dieses Buch diente, nicht sofort und mit einem Male zu erreichen sei, doch an die Beständigkeit und Festigkeit seiner Propagierung der Erfolg sich knüpfen werde. Cesare Beccaria (geboren am 15. März 1738 in Mailand, gestorben am 28. November 1794 ebendort) bestritt in dieser Abhandlung den Sinn der Todesstrafe und verfocht soziale Bedingungen, die Verbrechen einschränken müßten. Es war dies der erste wahrhaft unabhängige und von Rücksichten freie literarische Ausdruck der Aufklärung im Reich der Kaiserin Maria Theresia. Die vorliegende Neuübersetzung folgt der letzten Ausgabe Beccarias von 1766 und bringt im Anhang Texte aus der zeitgenössischen Diskussion.’Mißhandlung und Folter, all das Furchtbare wurde entweder tatsächlich beseitigt oder in den Strafprozessen aller Staaten wenigstens abgemildert; und dies ist das Werk nur eines Buches.’

• Document type Book
• Themes list Networks,
• Available languages Italian : Dei delitti e delle pene-Consulte criminaliDe Los Delitos Y De Las Penas论犯罪与刑罚Des délits et des peinesOf Crimes and Punishment

‘Dei delitti e delle pene’ è il testo da cui nasce la moderna criminalistica. Non è un trattato di giurisprudenza; è piuttosto un pamphlet, un libretto coraggioso, liberissimo”, nel quale “in massa le idee tutte si aggirano, e cospirano in vari punti di vista, che formano una grand’opera”, come ebbe a scrivere Alessandro Verri. Filosofo, economista e illustre letterato di metà Settecento, Beccaria spera che dall’aspra battaglia contro le istituzioni esistenti possa nascere un nuovo ordine, la cui affermazione è legata alla forza di espressione delle esigenze di progresso. “Le Consulte criminali” affrontano invece con impeto i temi della pena di morte, della prevenzione del crimine e delle condizioni di vita e di assistenza nelle carceri.

• Document type Book
• Themes list Networks,
• Available languages German : Über Verbrechen und StrafenDe Los Delitos Y De Las Penas论犯罪与刑罚Des délits et des peinesOf Crimes and Punishment