Heffernan, William C.: Social Justice/Criminal Justice

This book builds on Heffernan's last book Rights and Wrongs: Rethinking the Foundations of Criminal Justice by examining the class and racial disparities at the heart of current law - disparities that, according to many, generate a system of criminal injustice. It argues that these disparities run throughout the legal system; they're present in policing, corrections, and sentencing. It discusses the relationship between the two kinds of justice - social justice and criminal justice and how to ensure fairness in state-imposed punishment. It theorises the extent to which criminal law must address considerations of social justice to ensure a fair system. It proposes a framework for analyzing disparities, provides an overview of contemporary research concerning them, and offers reform proposals for addressing them. Written in an accessible way, it introduces readers to philosophical theory and doctrines in constitutional law and thus it speaks to a wide audience concerned about racial and class disparities in the criminal justice system. It responds to a half-century's worth of public concern about the legitimacy of the state's exercise of its penal power while explaining the pertinence of social justice principles to the criminal justice system. 

William Heffernan is Professor of Criminal Justice at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, USA, where he has taught John Jay for more than 30 years. His work as an editor of Criminal Justice Ethics, a journal he co-founded 39 years ago, shaped his interdisciplinary interest in the topics covered in this book. He published Privacy and the American Constitution: New Rights through Interpretation of an Old Text (2016) with Palgrave Macmillan.