Treatises and Practice Materials

In Crimes and Punishments: Entering the Mind of a Sentencing Judge, federal judge Frederic Block offers us insight into the complexities of the sentencing process and shares the thoughts, emotions, and burdens experienced by a judge during criminal sentencing. He shares his reasoning, recounts his own life experiences that may have subconsciously influenced his decisions, and reflects on whether the sentences, in retrospect, were indeed fair. Crimes and Punishments provides an engrossing narrative that illuminates the tremendous responsibility borne by every sentencing judge. Before the gavel comes down, before the final pronouncement is made, every judge must wrestle with a sometimes overwhelming array of issues to arrive at a sentence that is fair to the victim, society, and the guilty party. Book jacket.

There is an emerging consensus that we've been locking up too many people for too long, but with more than 2.2 million Americans behind bars right now, how do we go about bring people home? DECARCERATING AMERICA collects the thoughts of some of the leading thinkers in the criminal justice reform movement to strategise about how to cure America of its epidemic of mass punishment.

Judge Baer presided over the experimental re-entry court of the federal district court for the Southern District of New York. He brought to that court and brings to this book insight from his extraordinary experience in taking responsibility at every stage of the criminal law process, from federal prosecutor to defense attorney to judge presiding at trial and sentencing. Judge Baer recounts the moving lessons learned from his re-entry court experience. He argues that public safety and our sense of humanity require that we drastically improve prisoner sentencing and re-entry into society to reduce the high rate of recidivism.