Overcriminalization: The Limits of the Criminal Law

ISBN-13: 9780195328714 / Angielski / Twarda / 2008 / 248 str.

Douglas Husak

Opis

The United States today suffers from too much criminal law and too much punishment. Husak describes the phenomena in some detail and explores their relation, and why these trends produce massive injustice. His primary goal is to defend a set of constraints that limit the authority of states to enact and enforce penal offenses. The book urges the weight and relevance of this topic in the real world, and notes that most Anglo-American legal philosophers have neglected it. Husak's secondary goal is to situate this endeavor in criminal theory as traditionally construed. He argues that many of the resources to reduce the size and scope of the criminal law can be derived from within the criminal law itself-even though these resources have not been used explicitly for this purpose. Additional constraints emerge from a political view about the conditions under which important rights such as the right implicated by punishment-may be infringed. When conjoined, these constraints produce what Husak calls a minimalist theory of criminal liability. Husak applies these constraints to a handful of examples-most notably, to the justifiability of drug proscriptions.

Recenzje

This is a rich and thought-provoking account of a much undertheorized and yet hugely important issue. It is true that the model Husak offers is far from comprehensive, with the task of adding substantive content to its skeleton being candidly deferred or delegated at key points. As Husak rightly emphasizes, however, these moments of uncertainty, ambiguity, or imprecision should not be seen as shortcomings, but should be recognizes as challenges for future scholarship...Husak's book signals a bold attempt to 'shake up' the discipline and to reignite our interest in the core issues of justice, wrong, blame, desert, and to proportionality with which we should be concerned.

O autorze

Douglas Husack is Professor of Philosophy at Rutgers University.