In this compelling book, Lawrence M. Friedman looks at situations where killing is condemned by law but not by social norms and, therefore, is rarely punished. He shows how penal codes categorize homicides by degree of intent, which are in turn based on society's sense of moral outrage. Despite being officially defined as murder, many homicides have historically gone unpunished. Friedman looks at early vigilante justice, crimes of passion, murder of necessity, mercy killings, and assisted suicides. In his explorations of these unpunished homicides, Friedman probes what these circumstances tell us about conflicts in social and cultural norms, and the interaction of law and society.

A revelatory account of the misdemeanor machine that unjustly brands millions of Americans as criminals. Punishment Without Crime offers an urgent new interpretation of inequality and injustice in America by examining the paradigmatic American offense: the lowly misdemeanor. Based on extensive original research, legal scholar Alexandra Natapoff reveals the inner workings of a massive petty offense system that produces over 13 million cases each year. People arrested for minor crimes are swept through courts where defendants often lack lawyers, judges process cases in mere minutes, and nearly everyone pleads guilty. This misdemeanor machine starts punishing people long before they are convicted; it punishes the innocent; and it punishes conduct that never should have been a crime. As a result, vast numbers of Americans -- most of them poor and people of color -- are stigmatized as criminals, impoverished through fines and fees, and stripped of drivers' licenses, jobs, and housing. For too long, misdemeanors have been ignored. But they are crucial to understanding our punitive criminal system and our widening economic and racial divides. A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2018

Translation of: Chernobyl 20 let spust'ia.

The Rackets Committee of the United States Senate, of which Senator John L. McClellan was chairman, was engaged for more than five years in a bitter battle against criminals at all levels of our society, whether in labor unions or in great corporations, whether sleek, polished leaders of national crime syndicates or furtive, fly-by-night tinhorns who help their bosses extort upwards of fifty billion dollars annually from united States citizens. In this report of the committee’s activities, Senator McClellan tells how some of the greatest labor unions in the nation were corrupted by conscienceless men, how racketeers prey upon honest businessmen, how criminal influences have become so widespread that they threaten the very future of our nation. In Crime Without Punishment, Senator McClellan takes his readers behind the scenes of the nationally televised hearings and shows how they were developed by a dedicated staff of top-notch investigators, formerly headed by the committee’s chief counsel, Robert F. Kennedy, who became Attorney General of the United States. The reader sees the full picture of James Hoffa and Dave Beck, of the mammoth Teamsters Union, of the invasion of racketeers into many other unions, of the operations of the nation’s top-level gangsters in the fields of labor and management. This report of the committee’s activities and findings does more, however, than tell a fascinating story: it sounds a warning to every citizen of the nation. It reveals in stark terms the national apathy which permits criminals to travel their evil pathways without stop or hindrance. It raises a question that must be answered: are the punishments, the penalties, to be exacted from the men who committed the crime—or must they be visited upon the entire nation? Crime Without Punishment is important, vital reading. “Pulls no punches—names names...from top to bottom of the crime hierarchy.”—Miami Herald

Explores different examples of unpunished homicides and what these tell us about the interaction of law and society.

Over the past forty years, the criminal justice system in the United States has engaged in a very expensive policy failure, attempting to punish its way to public safety, with dismal results. So-called "tough on crime" policies have not only failed to effectively reduce crime, recidivism, and victimization but also created an incredibly inefficient system that routinely fails the public, taxpayers, crime victims, criminal offenders, their families, and their communities. Strategies that focus on behavior change are much more productive and cost effective for reducing crime than punishment, and in this book, William R. Kelly discusses the policy, process, and funding innovations and priorities that the United States needs to effectively reduce crime, recidivism, victimization, and cost. He recommends proactive, evidence-based interventions to address criminogenic behavior; collaborative decision making from a variety of professions and disciplines; and a focus on innovative alternatives to incarceration, such as problem-solving courts and probation. Students, professionals, and policy makers alike will find in this comprehensive text a bracing discussion of how our criminal justice system became broken and the best strategies by which to fix it.

Golash addresses the value of punishment in contemporary society.