Life imprisonment: a global human rights analysis

Life imprisonment has replaced capital punishment as the most common sentence imposed for heinous crimes worldwide. As a consequence, it has become the leading issue in international criminal justice reform. In the first global survey of prisoners serving life terms, Dirk van Zyl Smit and Catherine...

Full description

Saved in:  
Bibliographic Details
Authors: Zyl Smit, Dirk van 1949- (Author) ; Appleton, Catherine (Author)
Format: Print Book
Language:English
Published: Cambridge, Massachusetts London, England Harvard University Press 2019
In:Year: 2019
Online Access: Table of Contents
Table of Contents
Blurb
Availability in Tübingen:Present in Tübingen.
UB: KB 20 A 9930
Check availability: HBZ Gateway
Subito Delivery Service: Order now.
Keywords:
Related Items:Erscheint auch als: 1042552975
Description
Summary:Life imprisonment has replaced capital punishment as the most common sentence imposed for heinous crimes worldwide. As a consequence, it has become the leading issue in international criminal justice reform. In the first global survey of prisoners serving life terms, Dirk van Zyl Smit and Catherine Appleton argue for a human rights-based reappraisal of this exceptionally harsh punishment. The authors estimate that nearly half a million people face life behind bars, and the number is growing as jurisdictions both abolish death sentences and impose life sentences more freely for crimes that would never have attracted capital punishment. Life Imprisonment explores this trend through systematic data collection and legal analysis, persuasively illustrated by detailed maps, charts, tables, and comprehensive statistical appendices. The central question--can life sentences be just?--is straightforward, but the answer is complicated by the vast range of penal practices that fall under the umbrella of life imprisonment. Van Zyl Smit and Appleton contend that life imprisonment without possibility of parole can never be just. While they have some sympathy for the jurisprudence of the European Court of Human Rights, they conclude that life imprisonment, in many of the ways it is implemented worldwide, infringes on the requirements of justice. They also examine the outliers--states that have no life imprisonment--to highlight the possibility of abolishing life sentences entirely. Life Imprisonment is an incomparable resource for lawyers, lawmakers, criminologists, policy scholars, and penal-reform advocates concerned with balancing justice and public safety.--
Debating life -- Describing life -- Prevalence of life -- Exempt from life -- Offenses that carry life -- Imposing life -- Doing life -- Implementing life well -- Release from life -- Life after life -- Rethinking life
Item Description:Enthält Literaturangaben und Sachregister
Physical Description:xvi, 447 Seiten Illustrationen
ISBN:9780674980662