"In focusing his considerable historical and narrative talents on the question of status and degradation in the history of punishment, Whitman has done legal historians, criminologists, and cultural theorists a great service. For these reasons alone, Harsh Justice should quickly establish itself as a must-read book in the world of criminal law and cultural legal studies."

--Rechts Geschichte

"Whitman's whirlwind tour of the punishment practices of three countries over the last two centuries is well worth the price of admission. He has a deep pool of knowledge and an eye for the telling detail--a picture, a turn of phrase, or a small historical event--that helps to advance his thesis."

--Boston Review

"Its combination of elegant writing, deep erudition and bold theorizing make the book a terrific read. Indeed, it ought to be required reading for anyone interested in how a society comes to punish the way it does--and how it should."

--American Prospect

Publisher Web Site, June 2005

Why is American punishment so cruel? While in continental Europe great efforts are made to guarantee that prisoners are treated humanely, in America sentences have gotten longer and rehabilitation programs have fallen by the wayside. Western Europe attempts to prepare its criminals for life after prison, whereas many American prisons today leave their inhabitants reduced and debased. In the last quarter of a century, Europe has worked to ensure that the baser human inclination toward vengeance is not reflected by state policy, yet America has shown a systemic drive toward ever increasing levels of harshness in its criminal policies.

Why is America so short on mercy?

In this deeply researched, comparative work, James Q. Whitman reaches back to the 17th and 18th centuries to trace how and why American and European practices came to diverge. Eschewing the usual historical imprisonment narratives, Whitman focuses instead on intriguing differences in the development of punishment in the age of Western democracy. European traditions of social hierarchy and state power, so consciously rejected by the American colonies, nevertheless supported a more merciful and dignified treatment of offenders. The hierarchical class system on the continent kept alive a tradition of less-degrading "high-status" punishments that eventually became applied across the board in Europe.

The distinctly American, draconian regime, on the other hand, grows, Whitman argues, out of America's longstanding distrust of state power and its peculiar, broad-brush sense of egalitarianism. Low-status punishments were evenly meted out to all offenders, regardless of class or standing. America's unrelentingly harsh treatment of transgressors-- this "equal opportunity degradation"--is, in a very real sense, the dark side of the nation's much vaunted individualism.

A sobering look at the growing rift between the United States and Europe, Harsh Justice exposes the deep cultural roots of America's degrading punishment practices.

Features

• First book-length study to look at harshness of American punishment from a widely comparative perspective
• Argues that American pattern of status equality has played a central role in the rise of our stunningly harsh punishment practices
• An original and imaginative look at comparative legal culture
• Looks at the development of criminal punishment in America