Criminal punishment in America is harsh and degrading--more so than anywhere else in the liberal west. Executions and long prison terms are commonplace in America. Countries like France and Germany, by contrast, are systematically mild. European offenders are rarely sent to prison, and when they are, they serve far shorter terms than their American counterparts. Why is America so comparatively harsh? In this novel work of comparative legal history, James Whitman argues that the answer lies in America's triumphant embrace of a non-hierarchical social system and distrust of state power which have contributed to a law of punishment that is more willing to degrade offenders.

This book is a collection of pathbreaking essays by the foremost criminologists currently working in the UK. It contains up-to-the-moment essays on New Labour and crime control, the changing face of the East End of London, developments in restorative justice, and current controversies over the legal justification for torture. The contributors include Stanley Cohen (Folk Devils and Moral Panics; States of Denial); Robert Reiner (The Politics of the Police); Frances Heidensohn (Women and Crime); Nicola 978-0-19-920840-1HLA Hart); and Rod Morgan (Oxford Handbook of Criminology).

Vols. for 1871-76, 1913-14 include an extra number, The Christmas bookseller, separately paged and not included in the consecutive numbering of the regular series.