Illusion of Order

Illusion of Order
Author: Bernard E. Harcourt
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 310
Release: 2005-02-15
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 9780674038318

This is the first book to challenge the broken-windows theory of crime, which argues that permitting minor misdemeanors, such as loitering and vagrancy, to go unpunished only encourages more serious crime. The theory has revolutionized policing in the United States and abroad, with its emphasis on policies that crack down on disorderly conduct and aggressively enforce misdemeanor laws. The problem, argues Bernard Harcourt, is that although the broken-windows theory has been around for nearly thirty years, it has never been empirically verified. Indeed, existing data suggest that it is false. Conceptually, it rests on unexamined categories of law abiders and disorderly people and of order and disorder, which have no intrinsic reality, independent of the techniques of punishment that we implement in our society. How did the new order-maintenance approach to criminal justice--a theory without solid empirical support, a theory that is conceptually flawed and results in aggressive detentions of tens of thousands of our fellow citizens--come to be one of the leading criminal justice theories embraced by progressive reformers, policymakers, and academics throughout the world? This book explores the reasons why. It also presents a new, more thoughtful vision of criminal justice.

Illusion of Justice

Illusion of Justice
Author: Mike Nash
Publisher: Page Publishing Inc
Total Pages: 76
Release: 2022-04-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1662456530

Twin boys, torn apart, never lose their honor, respect, or belief in the “Code of the West.” Identical, custom-made, 1873 Colt 45s, known as the Peacemaker, become the tools to enforce that code. And the use of a disconcerting illusion can help. A heart filled with mixed feelings of pain, hate, and love learns justice is more than revenge. Justice is found when reality is based on the illusion, and the illusion becomes reality. Hard times demand men of strength and courage. But strength, courage, and Colt’s Peacemaker don’t always guarantee success. This is but one of the many stories building the myths, legends, and folklore that created America’s pride in the great American West.

Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility

Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility
Author: Gregg D. Caruso
Publisher: Lexington Books
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2013-07-05
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 073917732X

Exploring the Illusion of Free Will and Moral Responsibility investigates the philosophical and scientific arguments for free will skepticism and their implications. Skepticism about free will and moral responsibility has been on the rise in recent years. In fact, a significant number of philosophers, psychologists, and neuroscientists now either doubt or outright deny the existence of free will and/or moral responsibility—and the list of prominent skeptics appears to grow by the day. Given the profound importance that the concepts of free will and moral responsibility hold in our lives—in understanding ourselves, society, and the law—it is important that we explore what is behind this new wave of skepticism. It is also important that we explore the potential consequences of skepticism for ourselves and society. Edited by Gregg D. Caruso, this collection of new essays brings together an internationally recognized line-up of contributors, most of whom hold skeptical positions of some sort, to display and explore the leading arguments for free will skepticism and to debate their implications.

Actual Innocence

Actual Innocence
Author: Jim Dwyer
Publisher: Doubleday Books
Total Pages: 314
Release: 2000
Genre: Law
ISBN: 038549341X

Ten true tales of people falsely accused detail the flaws in the criminal justice system that landed these people in prison

Friendly Fire- the Illusion of Justice

Friendly Fire- the Illusion of Justice
Author: Adam Bereki
Publisher:
Total Pages: 160
Release: 2010-03
Genre: Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN: 9780984453108

Adam Bereki began his career in law enforcement at age 15. By 20, he was sponsored to the police academy and graduated with top honors in his class. He was well respected and regularly received commendations from his supervisors and people on the streets he patrolled. It all changed when his co-workers began to suspect he was a closeted gay man. He was sexually assaulted and harassed by his partners. Charges were fabricated against him, and his evaluations-once focused on praise-became tools to plot his destruction at the hands of those he once trusted. Having known it would be career suicide to come out, he tolerated the attacks for years until he had finally had enough. Rather than quit, he mustered the courage to stand up to the department and filed over a dozen allegations of misconduct. The harassment only escalated, leading to an unfair demotion with a reduction in pay. Though the idealistic optimism with which he began his career was fading away, he persisted and ultimately settled one of the biggest gay discrimination lawsuits in history. His journey, however, was far from over. Visit www.friendlyfirethebook.com for more information.

Yesterday's Monsters

Yesterday's Monsters
Author: Hadar Aviram
Publisher: University of California Press
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2020-02-18
Genre: Social Science
ISBN: 0520291549

In 1969, the world was shocked by a series of murders committed by Charles Manson and his “family” of followers. Although the defendants were sentenced to death in 1971, their sentences were commuted to life with parole in 1972; since 1978, they have been regularly attending parole hearings. Today all of the living defendants remain behind bars. Relying on nearly fifty years of parole hearing transcripts, as well as interviews and archival materials, Hadar Aviram invites readers into the opaque world of the California parole process—a realm of almost unfettered administrative discretion, prison programming inadequacies, high-pitched emotions, and political pressures. Yesterday’s Monsters offers a fresh longitudinal perspective on extreme punishment.

The Illusion of Conscious Will

The Illusion of Conscious Will
Author: Daniel M. Wegner
Publisher: MIT Press
Total Pages: 725
Release: 2003-08-11
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 0262290553

A novel contribution to the age-old debate about free will versus determinism. Do we consciously cause our actions, or do they happen to us? Philosophers, psychologists, neuroscientists, theologians, and lawyers have long debated the existence of free will versus determinism. In this book Daniel Wegner offers a novel understanding of the issue. Like actions, he argues, the feeling of conscious will is created by the mind and brain. Yet if psychological and neural mechanisms are responsible for all human behavior, how could we have conscious will? The feeling of conscious will, Wegner shows, helps us to appreciate and remember our authorship of the things our minds and bodies do. Yes, we feel that we consciously will our actions, Wegner says, but at the same time, our actions happen to us. Although conscious will is an illusion, it serves as a guide to understanding ourselves and to developing a sense of responsibility and morality. Approaching conscious will as a topic of psychological study, Wegner examines the issue from a variety of angles. He looks at illusions of the will—those cases where people feel that they are willing an act that they are not doing or, conversely, are not willing an act that they in fact are doing. He explores conscious will in hypnosis, Ouija board spelling, automatic writing, and facilitated communication, as well as in such phenomena as spirit possession, dissociative identity disorder, and trance channeling. The result is a book that sidesteps endless debates to focus, more fruitfully, on the impact on our lives of the illusion of conscious will.

Free Will and Illusion

Free Will and Illusion
Author: Saul Smilansky
Publisher: OUP Oxford
Total Pages: 346
Release: 2000-03-30
Genre:
ISBN: 019158813X

Saul Smilansky presents an original treatment of the problem of free will, which lies at the heart of morality and human self-understanding. He maintains that we have most of the resources we need for a proper understanding of the problem; and the key to it is the role played by illusion. The major traditional philosophical approaches are inadequate, Smilansky argues: their partial insights need to be integrated into a hybrid view, which he calls Fundamental Dualism. Common views about justice, responsibility, human worth, and related notions are radically misguided, and the absurd looms large. We do, however, find some justification for enlightened moral views, and grounding for some of our most cherished views of human nature. The bold and perhaps disturbing claim of Free Will and Illusion is that we could not live adequately with a complete awareness of the truth about human freedom: illusion lies at the centre of the human condition. The necessity of illusion is seen to follow from the basic elements of the free will issue, helping keep our moral and psychological worlds intact. Smilansky offers the challenge of recognizing the centrality of illusion and trying to free ourselves to some extent from it; this is not only a philosophical challenge, but a moral and psychological one as well.

The Illusion of Simple

The Illusion of Simple
Author: Charles Forrest Jones
Publisher: University of Iowa Press
Total Pages: 274
Release: 2022-05-18
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1609388313

"In a dry Kansas riverbed, a troop of Girl Scouts finds a human hand. This discovery leads Billy Spire, the tough and broken sheriff of Ewing County, to confront the depths of his community. The racism, the dying economy, the lies and truths of friendship, and his own injured marriage. But like any town where people still breathe, there is also love and hope and the possibility of redemption. To flyover people, Ewing County appears nothing more than a handful of empty streets amid crop circles and the meandering, depleted Arkansas River. But the truth of this place - the interwoven lives and stories - is anything but simple"--

Remedies against Immunity?

Remedies against Immunity?
Author: Valentina Volpe
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 427
Release: 2021-04-08
Genre: Law
ISBN: 3662623048

The open access book examines the consequences of the Italian Constitutional Court’s Judgment 238/2014 which denied the German Republic’s immunity from civil jurisdiction over claims to reparations for Nazi crimes committed during World War II. This landmark decision created a range of currently unresolved legal problems and controversies which continue to burden the political and diplomatic relationship between Germany and Italy. The judgment has wide repercussions for core concepts of international law and for the relationship between different legal orders. The book’s three interlinked legal themes are state immunity, reparation for serious human rights violations and war crimes (including historical ones), and the interaction between international and domestic institutions, notably courts. Besides a meticulous legal analysis of these themes from the perspectives of international law, European law, and domestic law, the book contributes to the civic debate on the issue of war crimes and reparation for the victims of armed conflict. It proposes concrete legal and political solutions to the parties involved for overcoming the present paralysis with a view to a sustainable interstate conflict solution and helps judges directly involved in the pending post-Sentenza reparation cases. After an Introduction (Part I), Part II, Immunity, investigates core international law concepts such as those of pre/post-judgment immunity and international state responsibility. Part III, Remedies, examines the tension between state immunity and the right to remedy and suggests original schemes for solving the conundrum under international law. Part IV adds European Perspectives by showcasing relevant regional examples of legal cooperation and judicial dialogue. Part V, Courts, addresses questions on the role of judges in the areas of immunity and human rights at both the national and international level. Part VI, Negotiations, suggests concrete ways out of the impasse with a forward-looking aspiration. In Part VII, The Past and Future of Remedies, a sitting judge in the Court that decided Sentenza 238/2014 adds some critical reflections on the Judgment. Joseph H. H. Weiler’s Dialogical Epilogue concludes the volume by placing the main findings of the book in a wider European and international law perspective.