Picking on the Weak and Vulnerable: A Review of Zachary Hoskins, Beyond Punishment? A Normative Account of the Collateral Legal Consequences of Conviction (2019)

Abstract

This review of Hoskins’ book on the collateral legal consequences of a criminal conviction focuses on some of the consequences of his concept of collateral legal consequences for our understanding of justifications of criminalization, the theory of punishment and incapacitation upon which it rests, and the implications for the prosecutor’s role that goes beyond Hoskins’ suggestions in the last part of the book. The review particularly engages with Hoskins’ distinction between punishment and incapacitation, which forms the core of his defense of collateral sanctions as in principle capable of moral justification and his excellent discussion of contemptuous punishment, which he uses to sketch out the limits of both direct and indirect criminal sanctions.