Background
Morris, Norval was born on October 1, 1923 in Auckland, New Zealand. Son of Louis and Vera (Burke) Morris.
(The mystery does not always end when the crime has been s...)
The mystery does not always end when the crime has been solved. Indeed, the most insolvable problems of crime and punishment are not so much who committed the crime, but how to see that justice is done. Now, in this illuminating volume, one of America's great legal thinkers, Norval Morris, addresses some of the most perplexing and controversial questions of justice in a highly singular fashion--by examining them in fictional form, in what he calls "parables of the law." The protagonist of these stories, the figure who must see that justice is done, is Eric Blair, a name familiar to most readers: it's the real name of George Orwell. In fact, Morris has set his tales in the time and place of Orwell's famous essay, "Shooting an Elephant," in Moulmein, Burma, in the 1920s. What might seem a curious strategy at first glance--borrowing Orwell's persona to narrate these tales--is actually a brilliant stroke. For in Eric Blair we have an ideal narrator to highlight the complexities of justice: an untrained police lieutenant and junior magistrate, uncertain of judgement--and all the more likely to anguish over judgement, and to examine every facet of a case before deciding. And in 1920s Moulmein we have a neutral time and space in which to consider--free of our own political, religious, or social prejudices--a set of contemporary legal and moral questions that rarely find so calm an arena. And these stories certainly address some highly charged issues--capital punishment, insanity as a murder defense, the "battered wife syndrome" as a murder defense, child custody, "parental neglect" due to religious conviction--to name a few. In each tale, Norval Morris excels at placing Blair at the center of a controversy that has no easy answer, and that he and he alone must decide. In the title story, for instance, a retarded boy, whose only understanding of sex comes from the brothel in which he works, accidentally murders a young girl while raping her, his only defense being "Please sir, I paid her." Blair can see that the boy doesn't realize that he has committed a crime, but both the Burmese and the European community of Moulmein demand the boy's execution. Does capital punishment make sense in such an instance? Does it ever make sense? To broaden our understanding of these intricate cases, Morris concludes each story with a perceptive and often provocative commentary on each issue. After "Brothel Boy," for instance, Morris points out that no reputable study has ever shown capital punishment to be an effective deterrent to future murders, and more surprisingly, that paroled murderers commit proportionately fewer homicides than paroled felons who used a firearm in the commission of their crime. Norval Morris is one of America's foremost experts on crime and punishment, and the stories collected here represent the culmination of a lifetime of thought on the major criminal law debates of our time. A reader of these tales will come away with a deeper understanding of these debates and with a profound respect for the intricacies of justice and the complexity of the law.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195093860/?tag=2022091-20
(Across the country prisons are jammed to capacity and, in...)
Across the country prisons are jammed to capacity and, in extreme cases, barges and mobile homes are used to stem the overflow. Probation officers in some cities have caseloads of 200 and more--hardly a manageable number of offenders to track and supervise. And with about one million people in prison and jail, and two and a half million on probation, it is clear we are experiencing a crisis in our penal system. In Between Prison and Probation, Norval Morris and Michael Tonry, two of the nation's leading criminologists, offer an important and timely strategy for alleviating these problems. They argue that our overwhelmed corrections system cannot cope with the flow of convicted offenders because the two extremes of punishment--imprisonment and probation--are both used excessively, with a near-vacuum of useful punishments in between. Morris and Tonry propose instead a comprehensive program that relies on a range of punishment including fines and other financial sanctions, community service, house arrest, intensive probation, closely supervised treatment programs for drugs, alcohol and mental illness, and electronic monitoring of movement. Used in rational combinations, these "intermediate" punishments would better serve the community than our present polarized choice. Serious consideration of these punishments has been hindered by the widespread perception that they are therapeutic rather than punitive. The reality, however, Morris and Tonry argue, "is that the American criminal justice system is both too severe and too lenient--almost randomly." Systematically implemented and rigorously enforced, intermediate punishments can "better and more economically serve the community, the victim, and the criminal than the prison terms and probation orders they supplant." Between Prison and Probation goes beyond mere advocacy of an increasing use of intermediate punishments; the book also addresses the difficult task of fitting these punishments into a comprehensive, fair and community-protective sentencing system.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0195071387/?tag=2022091-20
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JHXHC20/?tag=2022091-20
( Norval Morris and Gordon Hawkins's first premise is tha...)
Norval Morris and Gordon Hawkins's first premise is that our criminal justice system is a moral busybody, unwisely extended beyond its proper role of protecting persons and property. But they go further and systematically cover the amount, costs, causes, and victims of crime: the reduction of violence; the police; corrections; juvenile delinquency; the function of psychiatry in crime control; organized crime; and the uses of criminological research. On each topic precise recommendations are made and carefully defended.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226539024/?tag=2022091-20
Morris, Norval was born on October 1, 1923 in Auckland, New Zealand. Son of Louis and Vera (Burke) Morris.
Bachelor of Laws, University Melbourne, Australia, 1946. Master of Laws, University Melbourne, Australia, 1947. Doctor of Philosophy in Criminology (Hutchinson Silver medal 1950), London School of Economics, 1949.
Assistant lecturer, London School Economics, 1949-1950;
senior lecturer law, University Melbourne, 1950-1958;
professor criminology, U. Melbourne, 1955-1958;
Ezra Ripley Thayer teaching fellow, Harvard Law School, 1955-1956;
visiting professor, Harvard Law School, 1961-1962;
Boynthon professor, dean faculty law, University Adelaide, Australia, 1958-1962;
director, United Nations Institute Prevention Crime and Treatment of Offenders, Tokyo, Japan, 1962-1964;
Julius Kreeger professor of law and criminology, University of Chicago, since 1964;
dean Law School, University of Chicago, 1975-1979. Chairman Commission Inquiry Capital Punishment in Ceylon, 1958-1959. Member Social Science Research Council Australia, 1958-1959.
Australian delegate conferences division human rights and section social defense United Nations, 1955-1966. Member standing advising committee experts prevention crime and treatment offenders.
( Norval Morris and Gordon Hawkins's first premise is tha...)
(Across the country prisons are jammed to capacity and, in...)
(Across the country prisons are jammed to capacity, and in...)
(The mystery does not always end when the crime has been s...)
(Revised and expanded version of the Thomas M. Cooley lect...)
(Book by Morris, Norval)
Served with Australian Army, World World War II, PTO. Fellow American Academy Arts and Sciences.
Married Elaine Richardson, March 18, 1947. Children: Gareth, Malcolm, Christoper.