Coercion to Compromise

This book examines the origins of the controversial practice of plea bargaining, a procedure that appears to reward the guilty. Contrary to popular perception of plea bargaining as an innovation or corruption of the post-World War II years, this study shows that the practice emerged early in the American Republic. It argues that plea bargaining should be seen as part of a larger repertoire of techniques in the Anglo-American legal tradition through which law might be used as a vehicle of rule.

ISBN	019510174X	Pages	432
ISBN13	9780195101744 (What's this?)	Volumes	1
Publisher	Oxford University Press Inc	Weight (grammes)	752
Imprint	Oxford University Press Inc	Published in	New York
Format	Hardback	Series title	Oxford Socio-legal Studies
Publication date	31 May 2001	Height (mm)	241
Library of Congress	KF9654.V64	Width (mm)	162
DEWEY	345.73072	Spine width (mm)	24
DEWEY edition	DC21	Academic level	Professional / Scholarly

1	Plea Bargaining: A Distinctively American Practice	3
2	Liberty and the Republican Citizen: Rise of the Rule of Law	37
3	Law, Social Order, and the State in Social Theory	53
4	Contours of Early Plea Bargaining: Patterns of Plea and Concessions	91
5	Episodic Leniency in Britain and America	131
6	The Emergence of Plea Bargaining: Improvization in Law	147
7	Reconsolidating Political Power in an Age of Popular Politics: Whig Reform and Social Reproduction	189
8	The Transformation of Plea Bargaining: Control through Middle Level Institutions and Social Welfare	247
9	The Making of Post-Revolutionary Political Authority	285

"A magnificent achievement. Coercion to Compromise is a comprehensive, yet subtle and theoretically rich history of the origins of plea bargaining in the nineteenth-century Massachusetts courts. An important book, [it] will reward its readers tenfold."--Susan Silbey, author of The Common Place ofLaw

"Plea bargaining has long been a controversial practice, symbolizing either unwarranted leniency for offenders and the deliberate subversion of formal legal authority, or an emphasis on efficiency at the expense of justice. Mary Vogel explores its distinctively American origins in the context of social and political change in early nineteenth-century America in a book which raises the analysis of the criminal process to a new level of theoretical sophistication."--Dr. Keith Hawkins, author of Law as Last Resort

"Coercion to Compromise is a powerful, important book. [Vogel] not only enlarges our understanding of the foundations of American criminal justice, but also illuminat

Be the first to write a customer review

Plea Bargaining, the Courts, and the Making of Political Authority

Buying options