Review by Choice Review
People in every society with an organized legal system maintain that the primary goal of the law must be justice. While no system can ensure perfect justice, practices that inherently promote deviations from justice undermine the integrity of the law itself. Criminal justice, as defined by Robinson and Cahill, focuses on desert, i.e., giving criminals what they deserve. Yet there are clear cases in which criminal justice practices serve to undermine the principle of desert. In a clearly written analysis of how the criminal justice system deviates, to its detriment, from desert, the authors not only identify policies and practices that undermine the principle of punishment as desert but also examine specific cases as a means to explain deviations from justice. The first two sections of the book discuss systemic problems that undermine the goal of justice as desert, while the third section offers preliminary recommendations on how some moral integrity can be restored to these counterproductive criminal justice tendencies. The endnotes and index prove particularly useful. Anyone concerned with criminal justice issues will profit from this book. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. General readers, lower-division undergraduates through practitioners. M. A. Foley Marywood University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
