Legal Research

Recent Faculty Publications by Parisi and Tonry

Legal Institutions and Economic Development (Robert D. Cooter and Francesco Parisi, eds., Edward Elgar, c2009.
Call number: Law Library K3820 .L45x 2009

Publisher's description: This insightful collection of classic papers explores the effects of various legal institutions and policies on economic development. The editors include analysis of the historical, current, and future conditions of numerous legal traditions and strategies, both nationally and globally. The volume will enhance understanding of how legal policies influence economic growth. It will also contribute to the selection and advancement of those legal policies most likely to improve overall economic development and social welfare.

Michael Tonry, Thinking about Punishment: Penal Policy Across Space, Time and Discipline (Ashgate, 2009)
Call number: Law Library K5103 .T66x 2009

Publisher's description: Thinking about Punishment pulls together the key writings by Michael Tonry on penal policy trends in western countries, racial and ethnic disparities, and sentencing policies, practices, and theories. Recent research in the past few decades shows that these topics are inextricably interrelated.

Tonry argues that the distinct historical and cultural characteristics of a country offer the best explanation of national patterns of punishment at any one time, and over time. More general theories and models fall apart when applied to individual national experiences. In the United States, the key factors explaining both penal policy trends and sentencing patterns and policies include historical patterns of race relations, obsolete constitutional arrangements, moral attitudes related to the continental expansion of the United States and the country's fundamentalist Protestant religious origins. Comparable - but different - characteristics explain other countries' experiences.

Full post as published by LexLibris on February 15, 2010 (boomark / email).