NCJ Number
182328
Journal
Journal of Criminal Law and Criminology Volume: 90 Issue: 1 Dated: Fall 1999 Pages: 49-108
Date Published
1999
Length
60 pages
Annotation
This article develops a new code-based, comparative, and comprehensive for penal law as a means of enabling penal law to have a role in the inevitable reconsideration of the penal legislation that has not necessarily been based on rational considerations and that has accumulated during the war on crime of the last two decades.
Abstract
The basis for law reform is already developing in that the American Law Institute is considering a revision of its Model Penal Code. Scholars who focus on penal law must prepare for the task by integrating the discipline of penal law both internally and externally. The first step is to eliminate the artificial distinctions between the three sub-areas of substantive penal law (criminal law), procedural penal law (criminal procedure), and prison law, and place this reconstructed penal law within the larger context of law. The reform of all aspects of the discipline of penal law would cover teaching, scholarship, and public service. The new code-based, comparative, and comprehensive approach to penal law may well require the creation of a new, more powerful resource that can capture and communicate the potential for internal and external integration of modern penal law. A web of penal law would be such a resource and would be publicly accessible. The penal law web could facilitate the continuous integration of penal law through all who contribute to its development, analysis, and application. Footnotes