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New article from James Jacobs now available

Last post 07-29-2009 11:15 AM by Brad Bogue. 1 replies.
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  • New article from James Jacobs now available
    07-23-2009 8:38 AM
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    Fellow member, James Jacobs, of the Norval Morris Project and member of the Workforce Transformation Team has written a short article, recently published in the Federal Sentencing Reporter, about Norval Morris.  A copy of this article has been made available for download in the shared files library.  Follow this link to download the article.

    Excerpt:

    "Norval Morris, Julius Kreeger Professor of Law and Criminology at the University of Chicago Law School for four decades (and a former dean), was the exception who proves the rule. More than any other sentencing theorist of his generation, Norval Morris understood that an incarcerative sentence involves both duration of confinement and conditions of confinement. He argued that the actual penal sanction, as it was experienced by convicted offenders, should not be left to arbitrary decision making, budgetary contingencies, or bureaucratic competencies. Rather, it should be a matter of policy and of jurisprudence. The guiding principle should be to treat the imprisoned inmate as a citizen behind bars, to respect his or her dignity and humanity, and to encourage (not coerce) self-change."

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    Joshua Stengel
    Justice System Assessment & Training (J-SAT)
    Justice System Assessment & Training (J-SAT)
  • Re: New article from James Jacobs now available
    07-29-2009 11:15 AM
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     "Norval Morris as Penologist: An Exception Who Proved the Rule" is a thoughtful piece about a very thoughtful guy; who is thinking this vastly about the dilemmas and challenges of corrections today?  There were two take-aways in this article that stuck for me: 1) Morris's opposition to linking treatment participation to early release; and, 2) the need to carry on the tradition he started of deliberately creating forums to discuss criminal justice research and ideas. I'm wondering if discussing the ethics of coerced treatment is even possible in today's policy climate?

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