Qualities of Mercy: Justice, Punishment, and Discretion

Edited by Carolyn Strange

Published by: UBC Press

Imprint: UBC Press

Sales Date: 1996-12-06

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CA$34.95
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Published: December 1996

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Imprint: UBC Press

Page Count: 198 Pages

Dimensions: 6.00 x 8.99

198 Pages, 6.00 x 8.99 x 0.56 in

Paperback

CA$34.95

ISBN: 9780774805858

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<p><em>Qualities of Mercy</em> deals with the history of mercy, the remittance of punishments in the criminal law. The writers probe the discretionary use of power and inquire how it has been exercised to spare convicted criminals from the full might of the law. Drawing on the history of England, Canada, and Australia in periods when both capital and corporal punishment were still practised, they show that contrary to common assumptions the past was not a time of unmitigated terror and they ask what inspired restraint in punishment. They conclude that the ability to decide who lived and died -- through the exercise or denial of mercy -- reinforced the power structure.</p> <p>The essays are an important contribution to current public policy debates. If today's move towards unyielding and harsher punishment proceeds, including campaigns to reinstate capital punishment, mercy alone will fail to neutralize the inequities of criminal justice. Only profound cultural shifts and transitions of sensibility have the force to stem the tide of unprecedented punitiveness.</p> </div> </div> <div id="tab-3" class="tabs__panel tabs__panel--authors" style="display: none"> <div class="tabs__content"> <p><!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 3.2//EN"> <html> <head> <meta name="generator" content="HTML Tidy, see www.w3.org"> <title> Carolyn Strange teaches at the Centre of Criminology at the University of Toronto. She is the author of Toronto's Girl Problem: The Perils and Pleasures of the City, 1880-1930.

Foreword / Douglas Hay

Acknowledgments

Introduction / Carolyn Strange

1. Civilized People Don't Want to See That Sort of Thing: The Decline of Physical Punishment in London, 1760-1840 / Greg T. Smith

2. In Place of Death: Transportation, Penal Practices, and the English State, 1770-1830 / Simon Devereaux

3. `Harshness and Forbearance': The Politics of Pardons and the Upper Canada Rebellion / Barry Wright

4. Savage Mercy: Native Culture and the Modification of Capital Punishment in Nineteenth-Century British Columbia / Tina Loo

5. Discretionary Justice: Political Culture and the Death Penalty in New South Wales and Ontario, 1890-1920 / Carolyn Strange

Punishment in Late-Twentieth-Century Canada: An Afterword / Anthony N. Doob

This thought-provoking and well-written book will be of particular interest to students of law, sociology, public policy, and criminal justice administration. Anna Leslie, Canadian Book Review Annual

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Qualities of Mercy: Justice, Punishment, and Discretion

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