Publisher's Synopsis
"Crime, Reason and History" introduces students to the nature and functions of criminal law, giving due weight to the contradictory developments and elements of irrationality in criminal law as well as to the areas of rationality and coherence.;After a theoretical examination of the nature of criminal law, the central chapters cover particular areas of the law, with an outline of the present state of the law, the problems and the attempts to deal with them. The final chapters look at the inevitable tensions in criminal law between individuals' rights and the state's interest in social control.
