Dimensions Of Justice Ethical Issues In The Administration Of Criminal Law

Criminal justice is centrally concerned with what people deserve―with the rights a defendant can properly claim when charged with a crime, with the punishment a judge should impose for wrongdoing, with the scope of discretion officials may exercise when enforcing the law. At their core, these are questions about justice. Currently, no textbook directly confronts issues of justice for undergraduate majors in criminal justice. Dimensions of Justice: Ethical Issues in the Administration of Criminal Law closes this gap. In studying Dimensions of Justice, undergraduate criminal justice majors will acquire the vocabulary needed for thinking about their field. They are introduced, through the use of thought experiments, to moral reasoning. And they will encounter the ideas of leading philosophers―among them, Plato, Augustine, Locke, and Rawls―who have decisively influenced reflections on justice. In short, Dimensions of Justice provides students with an overview of the key principles that run through debates about major issues in criminal justice.