Coproduced Prosecution

Máximo Langer and David Sklansky recently gathered some accomplished legal scholars to discuss a topic that would have made no sense a generation ago; these days, that same topic sits at the center of criminal justice reform in the United States. The topic? The variety of ways in which legal systems allow popular input into the work of prosecutors. The final product of that scholarly conversation is a rich collection of ten chapters, framed by an introduction and epilogue by the editors.1 This book expands our imagination about the democratic side of prosecution, an issue that was grim and static not so long ago. For many years, the relationship between prosecution and democracy in the United States was predictable. There was a strong popular consensus in favor of severe criminal penalties and heavy use of criminal charges in response to public disorder. Prosecutors shared those public priorities.2 Although the precise effects differed from state to state, the alignment of prosecutor and public sentiment held true virtually everywhere, across urban and rural districts.

Conversation · Criminal justice · Democracy · Economic Justice · Political science · Product (mathematics) · Public defender · Sociology · State (computer science) · Variety (cybernetics) · American Constitutional Law and Politics · Criminal Law and Evidence · Law