American Criminal Justice Exposed: A Review of The Collapse of American Criminal Justice, by William Stuntz
Criminal Justice Ethics, 2012
12 Pages Posted: 28 Mar 2012 Last revised: 10 May 2012
Date Written: March 28, 2012
Abstract
William Stuntz, who recently passed away, was the most influential criminal procedure scholar of his generation. Thus it is no surprise that his last book, The Collapse of American Criminal Justice, contains a number of provocative insights about modern American policing and criminal adjudication. But the book also delves into substantive criminal law, criminology, political economy, and nineteenth- and twentieth-century cultural history, and weaves all of it together in a bracingly original way. As a result, The Collapse of American Criminal Justice is a far-ranging analysis of the flaws in American criminal justice, how they developed, and how they can be remedied. It is a tour de force that only someone who has easy familiarity with a wide array of disciplines could pull off.
Keywords: Stuntz, criminal justice, Warren Court, federalism, drug crime, mass incarceration, Prohibition
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