For nearly fifteen years Practical Decision Making in Health Care Ethics has offered scholars and students a highly accessible and teachable alternative to the dominant principle-based theories in the field. Devettere’s approach is not based on an ethics of abstract obligations and duties, but, following Aristotle, on how to live a fulfilled and happy life—in short, an ethics of personal well-being grounded in prudence, the virtue of ethical decision making. This third edition is revised and updated and includes discussions of several landmark cases, including the tragic stories of Terri Schiavo and Jesse Gelsinger (the first death caused by genetic research). Devettere addresses new topics such as partial-birth abortion law, embryonic stem cell research, infant euthanasia in The Netherlands, recent Vatican statements on feeding tubes, organ donation after cardiac death, new developments in artificial hearts, clinical trials developed by pharmaceutical companies to market new drugs, ghostwritten scientific articles published in major medical journals, and controversial HIV/AIDS research in Africa. This edition also includes a new chapter on the latest social and political issues in American health care. Devettere’s engaging text relies on commonsense moral concepts and avoids academic jargon. It includes a glossary of legal, medical, and ethical terms; an index of cases; and thoroughly updated bibliographic essays at the end of each chapter that offer resources for further reading. It is a true classic, brilliantly conceived and executed, and is now even more valuable to undergraduates and graduate students, medical students, health care professionals, hospital ethics committees and institutional review boards, and general readers interested in philosophy, medicine, and the rapidly changing field of health care ethics.
Over the past four decades, the rate of incarceration in the United States has skyrocketed to unprecedented heights, both historically and in comparison to that of other developed nations. At far higher rates than the general population, those in or entering U.S. jails and prisons are prone to many health problems. This is a problem not just for them, but also for the communities from which they come and to which, in nearly all cases, they will return. Health and Incarceration is the summary of a workshop jointly sponsored by the National Academy of Sciences(NAS) Committee on Law and Justice and the Institute of Medicine(IOM) Board on Health and Select Populations in December 2012. Academics, practitioners, state officials, and nongovernmental organization representatives from the fields of healthcare, prisoner advocacy, and corrections reviewed what is known about these health issues and what appear to be the best opportunities to improve healthcare for those who are now or will be incarcerated. The workshop was designed as a roundtable with brief presentations from 16 experts and time for group discussion. Health and Incarceration reviews what is known about the health of incarcerated individuals, the healthcare they receive, and effects of incarceration on public health. This report identifies opportunities to improve healthcare for these populations and provides a platform for visions of how the world of incarceration health can be a better place.
“An unforgettable look at the peculiar horrors and humiliations involved in solitary confinement” from the prisoners who have survived it (New York Review of Books). On any given day, the United States holds more than eighty-thousand people in solitary confinement, a punishment that—beyond fifteen days—has been denounced as a form of cruel and degrading treatment by the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture. Now, in a book that will add a startling new dimension to the debates around human rights and prison reform, former and current prisoners describe the devastating effects of isolation on their minds and bodies, the solidarity expressed between individuals who live side by side for years without ever meeting one another face to face, the ever-present specters of madness and suicide, and the struggle to maintain hope and humanity. As Chelsea Manning wrote from her own solitary confinement cell, “The personal accounts by prisoners are some of the most disturbing that I have ever read.” These firsthand accounts are supplemented by the writing of noted experts, exploring the psychological, legal, ethical, and political dimensions of solitary confinement. “Do we really think it makes sense to lock so many people alone in tiny cells for twenty-three hours a day, for months, sometimes for years at a time? That is not going to make us safer. That’s not going to make us stronger.” —President Barack Obama “Elegant but harrowing.” —San Francisco Chronicle “A potent cry of anguish from men and women buried way down in the hole.” —Kirkus Reviews
The inspiring story of activist and poet Ian Manuel, who at the age of fourteen was sentenced to life in prison. He survived eighteen years in solitary confinement—through his own determination and dedication to art—until he was freed as part of an incredible crusade by the Equal Justice Initiative. “Ian is magic. His story is difficult and heartbreaking, but he takes us places we need to go to understand why we must do better. He survives by relying on a poetic spirit, an unrelenting desire to succeed, to recover, and to love. Ian’s story says something hopeful about our future.” —Bryan Stevenson, author of Just Mercy The United States is the only country in the world that sentences thirteen- and fourteen-year-old offenders, mostly youth of color, to life in prison without parole. In 1991, Ian Manuel, then fourteen, was sentenced to life without parole for a non-homicide crime. In a botched mugging attempt with some older boys, he shot a young white mother of two in the face. But as Bryan Stevenson, attorney and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative, has insisted, none of us should be judged by only the worst thing we have ever done. Capturing the fullness of his humanity, here is Manuel’s powerful testimony of growing up homeless in a neighborhood riddled with poverty, gang violence, and drug abuse—and of his efforts to rise above his circumstances, only to find himself, partly through his own actions, imprisoned for two-thirds of his life, eighteen years of which were spent in solitary confinement. Here is the story of how he endured the savagery of the United States prison system, and how his victim, an extraordinary woman, forgave him and bravely advocated for his freedom, which was achieved by an Equal Justice Initiative push to address the barbarism of our judicial system and bring about “just mercy.” Full of unexpected twists and turns as it describes a struggle for redemption, My Time Will Come is a paean to the capacity of the human will to transcend adversity through determination and art—in Ian Manuel’s case, through his dedication to writing poetry.
The one, sure way that imprisonment prevents crime is by restraining offenders from committing crimes while they are locked up. Called "incapacitation" by experts in criminology, this effect has become the dominant justification for imprisonment in the United States, where well over a million persons are currently in jails and prisons and public figures who want to appear tough on crime periodically urge that we throw away the key. How useful is the modern prison in restraining crime, and at what cost? How much do we really know about incapacitation and its effectiveness? This book is the first comprehensive assessment of incapacitation. Zimring and Hawkins show the increasing reliance on restraint to justify imprisonment, analyze the existing theories on incapacitation's effects, assess the current empirical research, report a new study, and explore the links between what is known about incapacitation and what it tells us about our criminal justice policy. An insightful evaluation of a pressing policy issue, Incapacitation is a vital contribution to the current debates on our criminal justice system.
Based on a comprehensive study of three counties in Texas, this work examines the idea of differential handling of minority youth offenders. Traditional wisdom indicates that minorities are over-represented in the juvenile justice system due to racism and discrimination within the system itself. The author refutes this logic by challenging current studies and examining the results of the Texas study. The findings suggest that minorities are represented in the juvenile justice system in greater numbers than their majority offender counterparts due to their greater involvement in criminal activity, not to any differential treatment they may receive at crucial decision points within the system. Allegations of racial bias against the juvenile justice system are often supported by the federal government, which suggests that minorities continue to be targeted more frequently for arrest, prosecution, conviction, and imprisonment merely because they are persons of color. Drawing on new research, the author addresses racial disparity in the juvenile justice system and contends that previous research suffers methodological and statistical analysis problems, resulting in the mischaracterization of the issue of racial bias. The present study argues that most minority juveniles receive different case outcomes because of the severity of their current offense, and both the length and severity of their prior delinquency careers. Tracy's research ultimately indicates that rather than being discriminatory, the juvenile system is, instead, reacting to a particular type of delinquent using legally permissible guidelines.
In three parts, this volume in the AP-LS series explores the phenomena of captivity and risk management, guided and informed by the theory, method, and policy of psychological jurisprudence. The authors present a controversial thesis that demonstrates how the forces of captivity and risk management are sustained by several interdependent "conditions of control." These conditions impose barriers to justice and set limits on citizenship for one and all. Situated at the nexus of political/social theory, mental health law and jurisprudential ethics, the book examines and critiques constructs such as offenders and victims; self and society; therapeutic and restorative; health; harm; and community. So, too, are three "total confinement" case law data sets on which this analysis is based.The volume stands alone in its efforts to systematically "diagnose" the moral reasoning lodged within prevailing judicial opinions that sustain captivity and risk management practices impacting: (1) the rights of juveniles found competent to stand criminal trial, the mentally ill placed in long-term disciplinary isolation, and sex offenders subjected to civil detention and community re-entry monitoring; (2) the often unmet needs of victims; and (3) the demands of an ordered society. Carefully balancing sophisticated insights with concrete and cutting-edge applications, the book concludes with a series of provocative, yet practical, recommendations for future research and meaningful reform within institutional practice, programming, and policy. The Ethics of Total Confinement is a thought-provoking and timely must-read for anyone interested in the ethical and legal issues regarding madness, citizenship, and social justice."It has become clear that there is no criminological exit from embrace of degrading punishments and practices to which our increasingly distorted risk perception commits us. Instead, the path forward must run through a return to the ethical and psychological roots of security and justice. The Ethics of Total Confinement is a quantum step forward in defining and advancing that path."--Jonathan Simon , Adrian A. Kragen Professor of Law, Jurisprudence and Social Policy Program, UC Berkeley School of Law"This book boldly calls for a total transformation in the way the law deals with people who are confined because of their perceived depravity or dangerousness. It focuses on three outcast groups--juveniles tried as adults, people with mental illness subjected to hospitalization, and sex offenders committed as dangerous--and, based on an innovative analysis of the relevant caselaw and empirics, shows why current practices not only visit substantial harm on these people but also brutalize those who deprive them of liberty and damage the rest of us by feeding our basest, most uninformed fears. Relying on Aristotelian philosophy, therapeutic and restorative principles, and commonsense justice, the book persuasively argues that we must reorient the training and thinking of all major players in the system if our goal is to promote the maximum amount of human flourishing."--Christopher Slobogin, Milton Underwood Professor of Law, Vanderbilt University Law School"The Ethics of Total Confinement: A Critique of Madness, Citizenship, and Social Justice deepens our understanding of how our legal system justifies its treatment of those it confines. By bridging gaps among relevant disciplines, the book clarifies to an interdisciplinary audience just how inadequate those justifications turn out to be when measured by psychological, ethical, or justice-based standards. The book's provocative conclusions and recommendations offer much food for thought and suggest potential directions for action."--Dennis Fox, Emeritus Associate Professor of Legal Studies and Psychology, University of Illinois at Springfield"The Ethics of Total Confinement shows how captivity diminishes the keepers and the kept. It is a book that synthesises in creative new ways reformist visions of justice, virtue and the cultivation of habits of character. This is profound work that opens new paths to dignity, healing and social justice."--John Braithwaite, Australian Research Council Federation Fellow, Australian National University"The Ethics of Total Confinement offers a useful and wide-ranging perspective grounded in psychological jurisprudence. With its emphasis on the harm done to those most vulnerable to extremes of risk-management, this volume makes a welcome addition to the literature on confinement."--Lorna Rhodes, Professor, Department of Anthropology, University of Washington"The provocative thesis of this book develops psychological jurisprudence to conceptualize the ethics of existing total confinement practices, aspiring to greater justice and human flourishing for all. A timely intervention of this kind is most welcome."--George Pavlich, Associate Vice-President (Research), Professor of Law and Sociology, University of Alberta
