The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective by Roger Hood and Carolyn Hoyle is the Fourth Edition of a text that high­lights the lat­est devel­op­ments in the death penal­ty around the world. Roger Hood uti­lizes his expe­ri­ence as a con­sul­tant to the United Nations’ annu­al sur­vey of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment in com­pil­ing a wide range of infor­ma­tion from non-gov­ern­men­tal orga­ni­za­tions and aca­d­e­m­ic lit­er­a­ture. The book explores both the advances in legal chal­lenges to the death penal­ty and the reduc­tion in exe­cu­tions, while not­ing the con­tin­ued exis­tence of human rights abus­es. Problems include unfair trails, police abuse, painful forms of exe­cu­tion, and exces­sive peri­ods of time spent in inhu­mane con­di­tions on death row. The authors explore the lat­est issues relat­ed to cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment such as deter­rence, arbi­trari­ness, and what influ­ence vic­tims’ fam­i­lies should have in sen­tenc­ing.

A sam­ple of reviews of ear­li­er edi­tions of this book:

​“brings an inter­na­tion­al human rights per­spec­tive to the dis­cus­sion … its word­wide per­spec­tive brings anoth­er dimen­sion and greater depth to the argu­ments sur­round­ing the return of exe­cu­tions to America.” ‑Leigh B. Bienen, The Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology.

​“excel­lent study … is like­ly to remain for some time the schol­ar­ly author­i­ty that com­ple­ments the reg­u­lar and con­tin­u­ing pub­li­ca­tions of Amnesty International and oth­er cam­paign­ing orga­ni­za­tions.” ‑Andrew Rutherford, University of Southampton, British Journal of Criminology.

“offers the read­er com­pre­hen­sive insight into the cur­rent use of the death penal­ty through­out the world…This book is both com­pre­hen­sive and extreme­ly infor­ma­tive and will appeal to stu­dents, researchers, and any­one else seek­ing knowl­edge on the cur­rent state of the death penal­ty around the world.” Criminal Justice.

​“the most author­i­ta­tive account of the sta­tus of death penal­ty — its abo­li­tion and reten­tion — in the con­tem­po­rary world.” Journal of the Commonwealth Lawyers.

The Death Penalty: A Worldwide Perspective (Oxford University Press 2008) can be pur­chased here. See also Books and International.

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