Synopses & Reviews
Is life without parole the perfect compromise to the death penalty? Or is it as ethically fraught as capital punishment? This comprehensive, interdisciplinary anthology treats life without parole as “the new death penalty.” Editors Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. and Austin Sarat bring together original work by prominent scholars in an effort to better understand the growth of life without parole and its social, cultural, political, and legal meanings. What justifies the turn to life imprisonment? How should we understand the fact that this penalty is used disproportionately against racial minorities? What are the most promising avenues for limiting, reforming, or eliminating life without parole sentences in the United States? Contributors explore the structure of life without parole sentences and the impact they have on prisoners, where the penalty fits in modern theories of punishment, and prospects for (as well as challenges to) reform.
Review
“Agyeman's advocacy for just sustainability effectively addresses the equity deficit of mainstream sustainability. In his conclusion, he suggests a number of strategies that could be of use to those of us in the design community. One of these is the concept of an 'environmental space,' built on the idea of a sustainable community place. In this matrix, not only are traditional environmental resources considered but also included in the equation are social and economic entitlements. Environmental space analysis is exactly the kind of hybrid problem that design professionals commonly work with. This creative reframing of urban space and social justice issues is a strategy that might well be duplicated in rethinking our course projects and other scholarly pursuits.”
-Journal of Architectural Education,
Review
“A lively and thought-provoking text, with informative case study examples, which allows the reader plenty of opportunity to follow Agyeman's reasoning and analysis.”
-Journal of the American Planning Association,
Review
“Covering both theory and proactive, environmental organizations are indexed according to their commitment to justice and/or sustainability principles as set forth in their mission statements. Examples illustrating broad issue categories of successful projects that exemplify just sustainability enhance the discussion.”-Choice, Recommended,
Review
“Julian Agyeman once again pushes us all to think more critically about how to integrate two important political and intellectual projects. This book is at the cutting edge of research on sustainability and environmental justice. Agyeman has set the standard for the next generation of studies on these critical challenges.”
-David Naguib Pellow,co-author of The Silicon Valley of Dreams
Review
“Worth the effort.”
-In Brief,
Review
“One frightening by-product of the American struggle over capital punishment is the proliferation of Life Without Parole as its bastard offspring. LWOP is embraced without scrutiny by abolitionists who assume that anything is better than execution. It is enshrined as a prosecutorial consolation prize when cases meet the technical standards for 'capital' murder but defendants lack blameworthiness. The unqualified condemnation of LWOP comes from a crazy displacement of distrust that puts extra suffering on offenders because citizens dont trust those who govern. Fighting capital punishment must be a central concern in the United States. But threats to human rights rarely develop one at a time, so injustice must be fought on multiple fields of engagement. Ogletree, Sarat, and their distinguished contributors perform an important public service by taking a sustained look at yet another dangerous punitive excess.”-Franklin Zimring,William G. Simon Professor of Law, University of California, Berkeley
Review
"A timely and engaging wake-up call, Life Without Parole is the first sustained attempt to understand the meaning of the newest weapon in the American punitive armory. This provocative collection, clear-sighted in its prophetic potential, questions whether LWOP is a humane alternative to the death penalty or a fate worse than death. A must-read for all who want to understand the dark underside of twenty-first century democracy in a country where ever more citizens are condemned to a vast penal complex that redefines death as it expands criminality."-Colin Dayan,author of The Law is a White Dog
Review
"Life Without Parole raises fundamental concerns both about the justice and the wisdom of this uniquely American phenomenon. It also poses uncomfortable questions for the reform community about the complex intersection between the death penalty and life without parole. If we hope to produce a justice system premised on human rights, we will have to find ways to respond to these challenges. Life Without Parole does a masterful job of pointing us in the right direction to begin that process."-Marc Mauer,Executive Director, The Sentencing Project
Review
"An essential title for students of criminal justice."-Library Journal,
Synopsis
Popularized in the movies
Erin Brockovich and
A Civil Action, “environmental justice” refers to any local response to a threat against community health. In this book, Julian Agyeman argues that environmental justice and the sustainable communities movement are compatible in practical ways. Yet sustainability, which focuses on meeting our needs today while not compromising the ability of our successors to meet their needs, has not always partnered with the challenges of environmental justice.
Sustainable Communities and the Challenge of Environmental Justice explores the ideological differences between these two groups and shows how they can work together. Agyeman provides concrete examples of potential model organizations that employ the types of strategies he advocates. This book is vital to the efforts of community organizers, policymakers, and everyone interested in a better environment and community health.
About the Author
Charles J. Ogletree, Jr. is the Jesse Climenko Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Charles Hamilton Houston Institute for Race and Justice at Harvard Law School. Previous collaborations for NYU Press with Austin Sarat include
From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America (2006),
When Law Fails: Making Sense of Miscarraiges of Justice (2009), and
The Road to Abolition? The Future of Capital Punishment in the United States (2010).
Austin Sarat is William Nelson Cromwell Professor of Jurisprudence and Political Science at Amherst College. Previous collaborations for NYU Press with Charles J. Ogletree include From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America (2006), When Law Fails: Making Sense of Miscarraiges of Justice (2009), and The Road to Abolition? The Future of Capital Punishment in the United States (2010).
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments Introduction: Lives on the Line: From Capital Punishment
to Life without Parole
Charles J. Ogletree, Jr., and Austin Sarat
Part I: Life without Parole in Context
1 Mandatory Life and the Death of Equitable Discretion
Josh Bowers
2 Death-in-Prison Sentences: Overutilized and Underscrutinized
Jessica S. Henry
3 Creating the Permanent Prisoner
Sharon Dolovich
4 Life without Parole under Modern Theories of Punishment
Paul H. Robinson
Part I I : Prospects for Reform
5 Defending Life
I. Bennett Capers
6 Life without Parole and the Hope for Real Sentencing Reform
Rachel E. Barkow
7 No Way Out? Life Sentences and the Politics of Penal Reform
Marie Gottschalk
8 Dignity and Risk: The Long Road from Graham v. Florida
to Abolition of Life without Parole
Jonathan Simon
About the Contributors
Index