Given that persons typically have a right not to be subjected to the hard treatment of punishment, it would seem natural to conclude that the permissibility of punishment is centrally a question of rights. Despite this, the vast majority of theorists working on punishment focus instead on important aims, such as achieving retributive justice, deterring crime, restoring victims, or expressing society's core values. Wellman contends that these aims may well explain why we should want a properly constructed system of punishment, but none shows why it would be permissible to institute one. Only a rights-based analysis will suffice, because the type of justification we seek for punishment must demonstrate that punishment is permissible, and it would be permissible only if it violated no one's rights. On Wellman's view, punishment is permissible just in case the wrongdoer has forfeited her right against punishment by culpably violating (or at least attempting to violate) the rights of others. After defending rights forfeiture theory against the standard objections, Wellman explains this theory's implications for a number of core issues in criminal law, including the authority of the state, international criminal law, the proper scope of the criminal law and the tort/crime distinction, procedural rights, and the justification of mala prohibita.

In this book, David Boonin examines the problem of punishment, and particularly the problem of explaining why it is morally permissible for the state to treat those who break the law in ways that would be wrong to treat those who do not? Boonin argues that there is no satisfactory solution to this problem and that the practice of legal punishment should therefore be abolished. Providing a detailed account of the nature of punishment and the problems that it generates, he offers a comprehensive and critical survey of the various solutions that have been offered to the problem and concludes by considering victim restitution as an alternative to punishment. Written in a clear and accessible style, The Problem of Punishment will be of interest to anyone looking for a critical introduction to the subject as well as to those already familiar with it.

In Rights Forfeiture and Punishment, Christopher Heath Wellman argues that those who seek to defend the moral permissibility of punishment should shift their focus from general justifying aims to moral side constraints. On Wellman's view, punishment is permissible just in case the wrongdoer has forfeited her right against punishment.

In The Immorality of Punishment Michael Zimmerman argues forcefully that not only our current practice but indeed any practice of legal punishment is deeply morally repugnant, no matter how vile the behaviour that is its target. Despite the fact that it may be difficult to imagine a state functioning at all, let alone well, without having recourse to punishing those who break its laws, Zimmerman makes a timely and compelling case for the view that we must seek and put into practice alternative means of preventing crime and promoting social stability.

In a series of newly commissioned essays from the leading scholars and advocates in criminal justice, Invisible Punishment explores, for the first time, the far-reaching consequences of our current criminal justice policies. Adopted as part of “get tough on crime” attitudes that prevailed in the 1980s and '90s, a range of strategies, from “three strikes” and “a war on drugs,” to mandatory sentencing and prison privatization, have resulted in the mass incarceration of American citizens, and have had enormous effects not just on wrong-doers, but on their families and the communities they come from. This book looks at the consequences of these policies twenty years later.

Asset Forfeiture Law in the United States - Second Edition serves as both a primer on forfeiture law for the newcomer to this area, as well as a handy resource for anyone needing a comprehensive discussion of any of the recurring and evolving forfeiture issues that arise daily in federal practice. The author is one of the federal government's leading experts on asset forfeiture law. As a federal prosecutor, he has been litigating asset forfeiture cases since the late 1980's, was a Deputy Chief of the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section for many years, and is now the Chief of the Asset Forfeiture and Money Laundering Section in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Baltimore, MD. Asset Forfeiture Law in the United States - Second Edition is a completely revised and up-to-date treatise that addresses important changes and significant developments in civil and criminal forfeiture law. Every chapter has been rewritten as a result of the explosive growth in this area of law and practice. This comprehensive one-volume resource examines and explores the outpouring of new case law stemming from federal law enforcement agencies that include the FBI, DEA, IRS and Homeland Security. The Second Edition continues to lead the practitioner, prosecutor, judge and policy maker through the labyrinth of statues, rules and cases that govern this dynamic area of the law. Many countries in Europe, Asia and Africa, as well as Australia and the Americas, have enacted asset forfeiture statutes modeled on U.S. law, making the cases interpreting the statutes relevant beyond the borders of the United States.