Document Type
Response or Comment
Publication Date
3-2013
Abstract
This essay responds to Nicola Lacey’s review of my recent book The Machinery of Criminal Justice (Oxford Univ. Press 2012). Lacey entirely overlooks the book’s fundamental distinction between making criminal justice policy wholesale and adjudicating deserved punishment at the retail level, in individual cases, which is quite consistent with keeping but tempering rules. She also undervalues America’s deep commitments to federalism, localism, and democratic self-government and overlooks the related problem of agency costs in criminal justice. Her top-down approach colors her desire to pursue equality judicially, to the exclusion of the political branches. Finally, Lacey denigrates the legitimate roles of emotion and retribution in criminal justice. A consideration of the recent outcry over a gang-rape-murder in India highlights the shortcomings of her clinical, therapeutic, overly professionalized approach to criminal justice.
Keywords
criminal law and procedure, equity in punishment, sentencing guidelines, democracy, localism, equality, professionalization, agency costs, public opinion, lay participation in criminal justice, community policing and prosecution, Nicola Lacey
Publication Title
Harvard Law Review Forum
Repository Citation
Bibas, Stephanos, "Criminal (In)Justice and Democracy in America" (2013). All Faculty Scholarship. 463.
https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/faculty_scholarship/463
Included in
Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Law and Politics Commons, Law Enforcement and Corrections Commons, Public Law and Legal Theory Commons
Publication Citation
126 Harv. L. Rev. F. 135 (2013)