The Limits of the Criminal Sanction [Paperback]

Herbert Packer (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0804708991 | ISBN-13: 978-0804708999 | Publication Date: June 1, 1968 | Edition: 1

This book is "by far the best comprehensive treatment of the criminal law that I can recall in recent years. Although Professor Packer has addressed the book to the 'common reader, ' he has written a most uncommon book. It may be too soon to judge it a classic, but the indicia are there--lucidity...profundity, breadth and depth, structure, and style" (Murray S. Schwartz, "Stanford Law Review"). (Legal Reference)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The academic fascination with Herbert Packer's two models of the criminal process has yielded an amazing thread of scholarship involving a variety of academic disciples, linking various topics, offering interesting insights on many criminal justice institutions and phenomena, and spanning more than four decades . . . That this enthusiasm and engagement persist to this day is proof that criminal justice scholarship indeed stands on the shoulders of giants."—Hadar Aviram, Law & Social Inquiry

Product Details

• Paperback: 388 pages
• Publisher: Stanford University Press; 1 edition (June 1, 1968)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804708991
• ISBN-13: 978-0804708999
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 6.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #827,233 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Retributionist vs. Utilitarian views of criminal justice, February 15, 2000

By 

Thomas D. Worthen (tucson, az United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Limits of the Criminal Sanction (Hardcover)

I wish Stanford Press would reprint this book so that I could own a copy of my own. As a death-sentence abolitionist, I was looking for a philosophical treatment of criminal sanction. I found it here in spades. Packer's prose is always penetrable, and the most abstruse philosophical issues made vivid through it. Categories are made concrete by examples, often from real cases. Packer's view is that neither the retributionist nor the utilitarian view (which includes rehabilitation)is by itself a sufficient basis upon which to found a theory of criminal justice. The one looks backward to past conduct, the other forward to predictions of future conduct. The one looks to the punishment aspect of the justice system, the other to its deterrent effect on potential wrongdoers. It is in the domain of excusable crime where Packer finds that neither model is by itself sufficient. If law enforcement and the prosecution allow perpetrators to escape prosecution, conviction, and punishment, the deterrent effect of justice is compromised. And the punitive aspect is abandoned when criminal conduct become a necessary but insufficient criterion for imposing penalties. The cost to society in the loss of utilitarian deterrence is made up for by a gain in freedom owing to less state intervention, especially when such intervention interferes with individual moral choices, and the imposition of punishment would serve no useful purpose since we assume these perpetrators are justified in their actions and need no restraint or reform. This is where Packer reveals his 60's liberalism. The ideal of maximizing individual freedom to make moral choices has become exhausted by the excesses of civil disobedience, hate crimes, police brutality, assassinations, scofflaw splinter societies, etc. This society now stands poised to abrupt the civil freedoms and rights guaranteed by its Constitution and trade them off for a greater sense of private security. Perhaps the time has come to re-examine the common-law notions of justifiable and excusable crime. For example, since it seems impossible to pass meaningful legislation controlling the purchase and possession of firearms, laws should be passed countermanding justifiable homicide when a firearm is used to commit this act. Self-defense would be no plea if a gun is used to kill your alleged assailant. Upon the successful prosecution of a few such cases, there would be no utility in owning a firearm for self-defense. And once people gave up their useless guns, they would not be so adamant about the right to possess them and conceal them from view. Then they might be willing to see the imposition of laws restricting ownership, for no other reason than to help disarm those they fear may be their assailants. Packer was wrong: the Benthamite view of crime and punishment is the right one, and it is sufficient. But Packer's keen arguments lead one to cogitate these matters.