Reconstructing the Criminal: Culture, Law, and Policy in England, 1830-1914

ISBN-13: 9780521478823 / Angielski / Miękka / 1994 / 404 str.

Martin J. Weiner; Martin Joel Wiener

Opis

This ambitious and imaginative work interprets criminal justice history by relating it to intellectual and cultural history. Starting from the assumption that policies and statutes originate in a society's values and norms, the author skillfully and persuasively demonstrates how changes in criminal law and penal practice were related to the changing values of early, mid, and late Victorian and Edwardian society. Wiener traces changes in the criminal justice system by examining the treatment of offenders. During the Victorian period the system became more punitive and then reformed to be more welfarist. This work offers insight into the contemporary Anglo-American penal system. In addition, Wiener's wide-ranging discussion of issues, most notably of free will versus determinism, sheds light on a broad range of Victorian history, beyond crime and punishment.

Recenzje

'Martin J. Wiener's book provides an intellectual framework for understanding the varieties and complexities of the topic by considering attitudes and actions in their cultural settings. Borrowing methods from literature and using a wide range of sources, Wiener gives coherence to the practices of nineteenth-century penology and a foundation to those of the twentieth century.' E. M. Palmegiano, The American Historical Review

Spis treści

Introduction: criminal policy as cultural change; 1. The origins of Victorianism: impulse and motivation; 2. Victorian criminal policy I: reforming the law; 3. Victorian criminal policy II: reformed punishment; 4. A changing human image; 5. Late Victorian social policy - a changing context; 6. The demoralizing of criminality; 7. Prosecution and sentencing: the erosion of moral discourse; 8. Disillusion with the prison; 9. The outcome: social debility and positive punishment; Index