Crime and Culpability

Crime and Culpability
Author: Larry Alexander
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 375
Release: 2009-03-23
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0521518776

This book presents a comprehensive theory of a culpability-based criminal law.

Reflections on Crime and Culpability

Reflections on Crime and Culpability
Author: Larry Alexander
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 237
Release: 2018-10-11
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1107159946

Through one coherent retributivist vision of the criminal law, this book explores under examined problems within criminal law theory.

The Age of Culpability

The Age of Culpability
Author: Gideon Yaffe
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 252
Release: 2018
Genre: Law
ISBN: 019880332X

Why be lenient towards children who commit crimes? Reflection on the grounds for such leniency is the entry point into the development, in this book, of a theory of the nature of criminal responsibility and desert of punishment for crime. Gideon Yaffe argues that child criminals are owed lesser punishments than adults thanks not to their psychological, behavioural, or neural immaturity but, instead, because they are denied the vote. This conclusion is reached through accounts of the nature of criminal culpability, desert for wrongdoing, strength of legal reasons, and what it is to have a say over the law. The centrepiece of this discussion is the theory of criminal culpability. To be criminally culpable is for one's criminal act to manifest a failure to grant sufficient weight to the legal reasons to refrain. The stronger the legal reasons, then, the greater the criminal culpability. Those who lack a say over the law, it is argued, have weaker legal reasons to refrain from crime than those who have a say. They are therefore reduced in criminal culpability and deserve lesser punishment for their crimes. Children are owed leniency, then, because of the political meaning of age rather than because of its psychological meaning. This position has implications for criminal justice policy, with respect to, among other things, the interrogation of children suspected of crimes and the enfranchisement of adult felons.

Fundamentals of Criminal Law

Fundamentals of Criminal Law
Author: Andrew Simester
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Total Pages: 537
Release: 2021-02-04
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0198853149

This book explores the philosophical underpinnings of the law's major doctrines concerning actus reus, mens rea, and defences, showing that they are not always driven by culpability but are grounded also in principles of moral responsibility, ascriptive responsibility, and wrongdoing.

Psychiatry and Criminal Culpability

Psychiatry and Criminal Culpability
Author: Ralph Slovenko
Publisher: John Wiley & Sons
Total Pages: 454
Release: 1995-02-28
Genre: Psychology
ISBN: 9780471054252

Of related interest . . . PSYCHOLOGICAL SERVICES FOR LAW ENFORCEMENT —Theodore H. Blau This unique training guide/reference was written in response to the ever-growing demand for psychological services in law enforcement agencies. Written by one of the nation's most respected experts in forensic psychology, it offers psychologists now working in law enforcement agencies and those interested in entering the field, a detailed overview of the many functions psychologists serve within those agencies. Organized by sections corresponding to the major functions psychologists perform—assessment, intervention, consultation, and training—the book deals with all issues that psychologists working in law enforcement will encounter in their practice, including officer recruitment, fitness-for-duty evaluations, stress counseling, drug and alcohol counseling, hostage negotiations, investigative hypnosis, management consultation, and much more. 1994 (0-471-55950-4) 454 pp. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL EXAMINATION OF THE CHILD —Theodore H. Blau Over twenty-five years in the making and the result of examinations of over four thousand children, this book is a comprehensive guide to performing psychological examinations on children. Covering virtually every aspect of the examination procedure, it offers specific recommendations and step-by-step guidelines to everything from office decor, requisite equipment, test selection, rating categories, and techniques for minimizing stress to administering tests, writing reports, and making recommendations. Closely following Dr. Blau's famous Basic Psychological Examination package, the book guides readers in their assessment of environmental pressure, behavioral responses, intellectual factors, neuropsychological status, response capabilities, academic achievement, and personality. 1991 (0-471-63559-6) 279 pp. THE PSYCHOLOGIST AS EXPERT WITNESS —Theodore H. Blau This very practical guide arms mental health professionals with everything they need to serve comfortably and effectively as expert witnesses. With the help of numerous real-life examples, excerpts from transcripts, sample forms, checklists, and legal documents, it shows you how to: prepare for your day in court; avoid being manipulated by attorneys; write up depositions and psychological and technical reports; and much more. And, as the use of mental health professionals as expert witnesses continues to extend beyond traditional judicial applications, the author addresses a wide range of untraditional situations and types of cases in which readers may be called upon to serve, including cases of liability and personal injury, eyewitness identification research, trademark and patent litigation, and others. 1984 (0-471-87129-X) 424 pp. PSYCHIATRY AND CRIMINAL CULPABILITY How do we distinguish between sin and sickness? Few cases in recent memory so well typify the current confusion over this question as that of Jeffrey Dahmer. The confessed killer of fifteen young men, Dahmer had sex with and cannibalized his victims' bodies. Yet, because he was not found to be mentally ill—the threshold requirement in tests of legal insanity-—he was convicted and sentenced to 936 years imprisonment. How is it that such a severely disturbed person as Dahmer is adjudged sane and therefore culpable, while "Twinkiedefense" killer, Dan White and would-be presidential assassin John Hinckley, Jr., are deemed not guilty by reason of insanity? What are the origins of tests for criminal responsibility, and how is mental illness defined under them? Can causal links be shown to exist between specific crimes and disorders? Psychiatry and Criminal Culpability explores, in-depth, these questions and many others at the heart of one of the most controversial issues in our criminal justice system today. Throughout, Dr. Ralph Slovenko, an acknowledged expert whose professional experience straddles both the worlds of psychiatry and the law, brings a wealth of scholarship and direct experience to bear on the subject. Citing numerous landmark cases and historical formulations of criminal responsibility dating back to biblical times, he traces the evolution of current legal and psychiatric notions of culpability and the relationship between culpability and insanity. Writing for both a mental health and legal audience, Dr. Slovenko clearly and eloquently addresses a wide range of important topical issues. He explains the distinctions between the defenses of not guilty by reason of insanity, guilty but mentally ill, and diminished capacity. He identifies the types of mental illness that currently qualify under the test of criminal responsibility, including disorders that psychiatrists do not regard as psychotic, but which, nevertheless, many experts assert negate responsibility. He explores the role of the mental health professional as an expert character witness in cases where it is uncertain whether the accused committed the crime in question. And much more. Fascinating, thought-provoking, and enlightening, Psychiatry and Criminal Culpability helps guide mental health and legal professionals through the moral and technical complexities of one of the knottiest issues of our day.

Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment
Author: Hyman Gross
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2012-01-12
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0199644713

Presenting an engaging critique of current criminal justice practice in the UK and USA, this book introduces central questions of criminal law theory. It develops a forceful argument that the prevailing justifications for punishment are misguided, and have resulted in the systematic infliction of unnecessary human misery.

Criminally Ignorant

Criminally Ignorant
Author: Alexander Sarch
Publisher:
Total Pages: 297
Release: 2019
Genre: Law
ISBN: 0190056576

The willful ignorance doctrine says defendants should sometimes be treated as if they know what they don't. This book provides a careful defense of this method of imputing mental states. Though the doctrine is only partly justified and requires reform, it also demonstrates that the criminal law needs more legal fictions of this kind. The resulting theory of when and why the criminal law can pretend we know what we don't has far-reaching implications for legal practice and reveals a pressing need for change.

Individual Criminal Responsibility for the Financing of Entities involved in Core Crimes

Individual Criminal Responsibility for the Financing of Entities involved in Core Crimes
Author: Laura Ausserladscheider Jonas
Publisher: BRILL
Total Pages: 256
Release: 2021-12-28
Genre: Law
ISBN: 900447093X

Anchored by the normative framework, this book aims to clarify the basis for individual criminal liability for persons who finance entities that perpetrate core crimes. The objective of this monograph is to clarify the rules to enable international courts and tribunals to identify the extent to which individual criminal liability attaches to the financing of core crimes, as well as the legal basis for such liability. By clarifying the criminal liability of individual who finance entities that perpetrate core crimes, this book also seeks to clarify the mental elements of the mode of liability of aiding and abetting. This is achieved through a thorough analysis of the applicable rules in the international arena, as well as through the comparative analysis.

The Limits of Blame

The Limits of Blame
Author: Erin I. Kelly
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 241
Release: 2018-11-12
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0674980778

Faith in the power and righteousness of retribution has taken over the American criminal justice system. Approaching punishment and responsibility from a philosophical perspective, Erin Kelly challenges the moralism behind harsh treatment of criminal offenders and calls into question our society’s commitment to mass incarceration. The Limits of Blame takes issue with a criminal justice system that aligns legal criteria of guilt with moral criteria of blameworthiness. Many incarcerated people do not meet the criteria of blameworthiness, even when they are guilty of crimes. Kelly underscores the problems of exaggerating what criminal guilt indicates, particularly when it is tied to the illusion that we know how long and in what ways criminals should suffer. Our practice of assigning blame has gone beyond a pragmatic need for protection and a moral need to repudiate harmful acts publicly. It represents a desire for retribution that normalizes excessive punishment. Appreciating the limits of moral blame critically undermines a commonplace rationale for long and brutal punishment practices. Kelly proposes that we abandon our culture of blame and aim at reducing serious crime rather than imposing retribution. Were we to refocus our perspective to fit the relevant moral circumstances and legal criteria, we could endorse a humane, appropriately limited, and more productive approach to criminal justice.

Culpable Carelessness

Culpable Carelessness
Author: Findlay Stark
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 351
Release: 2016-10-20
Genre: Law
ISBN: 1107038901

A doctrinal and theoretical analysis of culpability for unjustified risk-taking in Anglo-American criminal law.