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Boston Review Bks.: The Story of Cruel and Unusual by Colin Dayan (2007, Hardcover)

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A searing indictment of the American penal system that finds the roots of the recent prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo in the steady dismantling of the Eighth Amendment's prohibition of "cruel and unusual" punishment. The revelations of prisoner abuse and torture at Abu Ghraib and more recently at Guantanamo were shocking to most Americans. And those who condemned the treatment of prisoners abroad have focused on U.S. military procedures and abuses of executive powers in the war on terror, or, more specifically, on the now-famous White House legal counsel memos on the acceptable limits of torture. But in The Story of Cruel and Unusual , Colin Dayan argues that anyone who has followed U.S. Supreme Court decisions regarding the Eighth Amendment prohibition of "cruel and unusual" punishment would recognize the prisoners' treatment at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo as a natural extension of the language of our courts and practices in U.S. prisons. In fact, it was no coincidence that White House legal counsel referred to a series of Supreme Court decisions in the 1980s and 1990s in making its case for torture.Dayan traces the roots of "acceptable" torture to slave codes of the nineteenth century that deeply embedded the dehumanization of the incarcerated in our legal system. Although the Eighth Amendment was interpreted generously during the prisoners' rights movement of the late 1960s and 1970s, this period of judicial concern was an anomaly. Over the last thirty years, Supreme Court decisions have once again dismantled Eighth Amendment protections and rendered such words as "cruel" and "inhuman" meaningless when applied to conditions of confinement and treatment during detention. Prisoners' actual pain and suffering have been explained away in a rhetorical haze-with rationalizations, for example, that measure cruelty not by the pain or suffering inflicted, but by the intent of the person who inflicted it. The Story of Cruel and Unusual is a stunningly original work of legal scholarship, and a searing indictment of the U.S. penal system.

Product Identifiers

Publisher
MIT Press
ISBN-10
0262042398
ISBN-13
9780262042390
eBay Product ID (ePID)
57208059

Product Key Features

Book Title
Story of Cruel and Unusual
Author
Colin Dayan
Format
Hardcover
Language
English
Topic
Constitutional, Military / General, Civil Rights, Penology, Political Freedom, Criminology
Publication Year
2007
Genre
Law, History, Social Science, Political Science
Number of Pages
128 Pages

Dimensions

Item Length
7.2in
Item Height
0.6in
Item Width
4.8in
Item Weight
6.4 Oz

Additional Product Features

Lc Classification Number
Hv8599.U6.D39 2007
Grade from
College Graduate Student
Reviews
[Dayan] builds her argument around one basic principle: that in a society of laws, we frame cruelty in terms of intent. Thus, she writes, we always have a loophole; it's not what we do but what we mean.... The argument may be somewhat overstated, but with its implicit sense that cruel and unusual punishment is an ever-shifting standard, it can't help but raise compelling questions, forcing us to reconsider our founding documents and what they say about us. David Ulin Los Angeles Times Book Review, [Dayan] builds her argument around one basic principle: that in a society of laws, we frame cruelty in terms of intent. Thus, she writes, we always have a loophole; it's not what we do but what we mean.... The argument may be somewhat overstated, but with its implicit sense that cruel and unusual punishment is an ever-shifting standard, it can't help but raise compelling questions, forcing us to reconsider our founding documents and what they say about us., [Dayan] builds her argument around one basic principle: that in a society of laws, weframe cruelty in terms of intent. Thus, she writes, we always have a loophole; it's not what we dobut what we mean.... The argument may be somewhat overstated, but with its implicit sense that crueland unusual punishment is an ever-shifting standard, it can't help but raise compelling questions,forcing us to reconsider our founding documents and what they say about us. David Ulin Los Angeles Times Book Review, [Dayan] builds her argument around one basic principle: that in a society of laws, we frame cruelty in terms of intent. Thus, she writes, we always have a loophole; it's not what we do but what we mean.... The argument may be somewhat overstated, but with its implicit sense that cruel and unusual punishment is an ever-shifting standard, it can't help but raise compelling questions, forcing us to reconsider our founding documents and what they say about us. - David Ulin, Los Angeles Times Book Review
Copyright Date
2007
Target Audience
Trade
Lccn
2006-030290
Dewey Decimal
364.60973
Series
Boston Review Bks.
Dewey Edition
22

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Boston Review Bks.: The Story of Cruel and Unusual by Colin Dayan (2007, Hardcover)

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Product Identifiers

Product Key Features

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All listings for this product

item 1 The Story of Cruel and Unusual (Boston Review Books)

item 2 The Story of Cruel and Unusual (Boston Review Books)

item 3 The Story of Cruel and Unusual by Dayan, Colin

item 4 The Story of Cruel and Unusual Hardcover Colin Dayan

item 5 The Story of Cruel and Unusual Hardcover Colin Dayan

item 6 The Story of Cruel and Unusual Hardcover Colin Dayan

item 7 The Story of Cruel and Unusual by Colin Dayan: Used

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Sailor Moon Raisonne ART WORKS 1991 - 2023 Normal Edition 9784065309094

😇, 😇DIAGNOSTIC STATISTICAL MANUAL OF MENTAL DISORDERSvTEXT REVISION DSM 5 TR

If I Did It: Confessions of the Killer by The Goldman Family (English) Paperback

THE BOOK OF ENOCH - Translated by R. H Charles (1917 Translation, Hardback)

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