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...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Van Zyl Smit, Dirk
Other Authors: Appleton, Catherine
Format: Book
Language:English
Published: Cambridge, Massachusetts : Harvard University Press, 2019
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001 1031422088
003 OCoLC
005 20190619094215.0
008 180315t20192019maua b 001 0 eng c
010 |a 2018012887 
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020 |a 0674980662 
040 |a MH/DLC  |b eng  |e rda  |c DLC  |d OCLCO  |d OCLCF  |d BDX  |d HLS  |d YDX  |d OCLCO  |d TOH  |d GZL  |d NYP  |d UKMGB  |d CHVBK 
042 |a pcc 
049 |a VLAM 
050 0 0 |a K5105.5  |b .V36 2019 
100 1 |a Van Zyl Smit, Dirk 
245 1 0 |a Life imprisonment :  |b a global human rights analysis /  |c Dirk van Zyl Smit, Catherine Appleton 
260 |a Cambridge, Massachusetts :  |b Harvard University Press,  |c 2019 
300 |a xvi, 447 pages :  |b illustrations ;  |c 25 cm 
504 |a Includes bibliographical references and index 
505 0 |a 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 
520 |a 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.--  |c Provided by publisher 
650 0 |a Life imprisonment 
700 1 |a Appleton, Catherine 
907 |a .b2403778 
998 |a lower 
999 |c 114081 
852 |a Law Library  |b Lower Level  |h K5105.5 .V36 2019  |p 33940004510796