Book Review: (The History of) Criminal Justice as a Morality Play

Published in Drake Law Review Discourse Article Co-author: F. Italia Patti The diverse coalition of activists trying to cut the prison population has thus far failed to articulate a coherent moral foundation for criminal justice reform. Since the various constituents of this coalition support reform for different reasons, it may seem savvy to avoid conversation about moral questions. We argue, however, that failing to work toward developing a moral basis for reform puts the coalition at risk of repeating the failures of the sentencing reform movement of the 1970s and 1980s. This initially promising movement culminated in the passage of the widely disliked and deeply flawed United States Sentencing Guidelines. We lay out and analyze the downsides of avoiding moral discourse in criminal justice reform movements and argue for more collaboration and dialogue between moral thinkers and activists.

2015

In A. Dzur, I. Loader and R. Sparks (Eds.) Democratic theory and mass incarceration, 2016

International Journal of Constitutional Law, 2008

2017

He has published numerous book chapters, articles and monographs on constitutional law, criminal law and criminal justice policy. "policy artist. " It's not a term to be found in any dictionary, or in fact in any school of government or public policy. It's more of a calling, an orientation, than a discipline; its members can be found in government, in law, in communities, in nonprofits, in advocacy organizations, in education and scholarship. (Susan herself coined the term while fundamentally resetting federal gun crime policy, with the help of Travis and a few others, from her position in the Clinton Treasury Department.) What joins such together is a burning need to address critical issues in our public life; a recognition that any such real work requires respect for, and the tools of, government, law, communities, advocacy, scholarship, and all the rest; a deftness and flexibility with those worlds and those tools; a feel for strategy; and an adamantine relentlessness about producing real results in the world. The speeches in this volume are the record of a consummate policy artist operating from the remarkable platform that John Jay College of Criminal Justice was, and that he evolved it to be, during his tenure. "If you agree with me that the time for reform is now, " Travis put to a conference hosted by the Ford Foundation in the context of bringing college education to prisons, "then the question is how to make the convincing argument, how to mobilize the political forces that will make this dream a reality. " 1 It is, I think, the defining passage in this volume: because it is the question that Jeremy Travis asked himself, over and over, during his tenure as president of John Jay. These speeches represent his answers to that question. Taken together, they show a remarkable, creative, and consistent way of thinking both about the contours of that artistry. Those contours begin with patriotism. These are American essays, the papers of a committed and engaged citizen-"you cannot do this in our name, " he says 2 -grappling with his recognition that the nation he loves and honors has gone seriously astray. "As Americans, we should be deeply troubled by the current state of affairs, " he says at the celebration of the 25th Anniversary of The Sentencing Project. "In fact, I think we should consider our current level of imprisonment a stain on our national conscience. " These have not been easy years for anybody committed to criminal justice in America, with respect to incarceration and many other matters. For Travis, the recognition is explicitly of a failure of democracy, that "we are a better nation than this. " 3 1

1997

Ethics, 2001

Thomas Sowell, prolific' and provocative author, and senior fellow of the Hoover Institute at Stanford University, has again raised many important and disturbing questions in his most recent book, Civil Rights: Rhetoric Or Reality? Controversy is certain to surround this book; it will not be met with academic nonchalance. Professor Sowell's observations are always incisive, and his works on issues of race, politics, and economics are greeted with acclaim by his admirers and denounced by his critics. There has been regrettably little balanced middle ground in response to his scholarship. Professor Sowell often seems to deliberately exaggerate his points in order to make them with more force, although perhaps thus with less theoretical cogency. Detractors wax apoplectic, and devotees naively accept his work at face value. Either reaction is an unwarranted extreme. Sowell takes pains to predict the former response to Civil Rights: Rhetoric Or Reality? Many contemporary civil rights issues are permeated with rhetoric on all sides. Perhaps it is impossible and ultimately undesirable to advocate an intellectually abstract, purist position on any significant civil rights issue. Civil rights have historically been forged in the furnace of pragmatic politics and economics. In turn, each of these is composed in large measure of rhetoric and manipulation, and are susceptible to obfuscation by special interests and control