Books in the STUDIES IN PENAL THEORY AND PHILOSOPHY series

Guilty Acts, Guilty Minds proposes an understanding of actus reus and mens rea (the guilty act and guilty mind) as limits on the authority of a democratic state to ascribe guilt. Going beyond discussions of legal justice, Stephen Garvey argues for actus reus and mens rea as necessary conditions, among others, for the legitimacy of state punishment.

Despite its increasing visibility as a social issue, mass incarceration - and its inconsistency with core democratic ideals - rarely surfaces in contemporary political theory. Democratic Theory and Mass Incarceration seeks to overcome this puzzling disconnect by deepening the dialogue between democratic theory and punishment policy.

Taming the Presumption of Innocence provides a comprehensive account of the presumption of innocence in criminal law and procedure. It defends a narrow but clearly defined role for the presumption and resists efforts to cast it as a panacea for many of what are believed to be the unnecessarily harsh features of contemporary criminal justice systems.

A collection of essays by major figures in punishment theory, law, and philosophy that reconsiders the popularity and prospects of retributivism, the notion that punishment is morally justified because people have behaved wrongly.

Just Sentencing is the first book in over forty years to present a fully developed punishment theory which incorporates both utilitarian and retributive sentencing purposes.

Focusing democratic theory on the pressing issue of punishment, Punishment, Participatory Democracy, and the Jury argues for participatory institutional designs as antidotes to the American penal state. Citizen action in institutions like the jury and restorative justice programs can foster the attunement, reflectiveness, and full-bodied communication needed as foundations for widespread civic responsibility for criminal justice.

What role should public opinion play in the way the state deals with criminal offenders? This volume brings together leading philosophers, legal theorists, and criminologists to consider the various aspects of the relationship between public opinion and state punishment.

In Playing Fair, Richard Dagger provides a unified theory of political obligation and the justification of punishment that takes its bearings from the principle of fair play. Dagger argues that members of a just polity have an obligation to obey its laws because they have an obligation of reciprocity or fair play to one another.

Hate, Politics, Law: Critical Perspectives on Combating of Hate offers a critical exploration and assessment of the basic assumptions, ideals, and agendas behind the modern fight against hate. The essays in this volumes explore these issues and provide a range of explanatory and normative perspectives on the awkward relationship between hate and liberal democracy.

What is the criminal law for? One influential answer is that the criminal law vindicates pre-political rights and condemns wrongdoing. In Criminal Law in the Age of the Administrative State, Vincent Chiao offers an alternative, public law account. By starting with the political morality of public institutions, rather than the interpersonal morality of private relationships, the public law account makes the case for regarding criminal law and criminal justiceas animated by the same political virtues that gave rise to the institutions of the modern administrative and welfare state. Chiao then shows how this approach to criminal justice provides a fresh perspective on a range of problems, from mass incarceration to overcriminalization, to due process and thecollateral consequences of a criminal conviction.