Legal Violence and the Limits of the Law: Cruel and Unusual eBook

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What is the meaning of punishment today? Where is the limit that separates it from the cruel and unusual? In legal discourse, the distinction between punishment and vengeance—punishment being the measured use of legally sanctioned violence and vengeance being a use of violence that has no measure—is expressed by the idea of “cruel and unusual punishment.” This phrase was originally contained in the English Bill of Rights (1689). But it (and versions of it) has since found its way into numerous constitutions and declarations, including Article 5 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, as well as the Amendment to the US Constitution. Clearly, in order for the use of violence to be legitimate, it must be subject to limitation. The difficulty is that the determination of this limit should be objective, but it is not, and its application in punitive practice is constituted by a host of extra-legal factors and social and political structures. It is this essential contestability of the limit which distinguishes punishment from violence that this book addresses. And, including contributions from a range of internationally renowned scholars, it offers a plurality of original and important responses to the contemporary question of the relationship between punishment and the limits of law.

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Additional ISBNs
9781138814141, 9781315747699

Legal Violence and the Limits of the Law: Cruel and Unusual 1st Edition and published by Routledge. The Digital and eTextbook ISBNs for Legal Violence and the Limits of the Law are 9781317602101, 1317602102 and the print ISBNs are 9781138347984, 1138347981. Additional ISBNs for this eTextbook include 9781138814141, 9781315747699.