Mapping American Criminal Law

Book excerpt: Containing 40 visually coded maps of the fifty states, this book offers an unprecedented look at America's diverse legal landscape. This first-of-its-kind volume sketches the diversity implicit in United States criminal law doctrine through its examination of a range of criminal laws pertaining to murder, sexual assault, drug offenses, the insanity defense, and more and the way in which different states deal with those issues. In addition to providing insights into the most widely invoked standards in criminal law, it raises awareness of the enormous discrepancies among the criminal laws of states, documenting them using dozens of visually coded maps that showcase geographic, political, and socioeconomic differences to explain patterns of agreement and disagreement. Mapping American Criminal Law: Variations Across the 50 States is for political scientists, criminologists, sociologists, legal scholars, policy advisors, legislators, lawyers, judges, and scholars and students of these fields. In addition, each chapter is highly accessible to laypersons and includes an explanation of the subject matter as well as explanations of the various approaches to criminal law taken by states.