{"product_id":"the-guilt-project-isbn-9781590517505","title":"The Guilt Project","description":"An  English court in 1736 described rape as an accusation “easily to be made  and hard to be proved, and harder to be defended by the party accused,  though never so innocent.  ”To prove the crime, the law required a woman  to physically resist, to put up a “hue and cry,” as evidence of her  unwillingness. Beginning in the 1970s, however, feminist and  victim-advocacy groups began changing attitudes toward rape so the crime  is now seen as violent in itself: the legal definition of rape now  includes everything from the sadistic serial rapist to the  eighteen-year-old who has consensual sex with a fourteen-year-old.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis  inclusiveness means there are now more rapists among us. And more of  rape’s camp followers: the prison-makers, the community watchdogs,  law-and-order politicians, and the real-crime\/real-time entertainment  industry.  Vanessa Place examines the ambiguity of rape law by  presenting cases where guilt lies, but lies uneasily, and leads into  larger ethical questions of what defines guilt, what is justice, and  what is considered just punishment. Assuming a society can and must be  judged by the way it treats its most despicable members, \u003ci\u003eThe Guilt Project \u003c\/i\u003elooks at the way the American legal system defines, prosecutes, and punishes sex offenders, how this \u003ci\u003eDateline NBC \u003c\/i\u003ejustice  has transformed our conception of who is guilty and how they ought to  be treated, and how this has come to undo our deeper humanity“A California appellate attorney looks at crime and punishment under our sex laws… Place expands the notion of guilt, examining its other dimensions—factual, ethical, moral—and asks whether we’ve allowed dubious science, conflicting cultural messages and out-of-control political passions to distort our sex laws...Place detects something desperate in all this, and in richly allusive, frequently witty prose, she asks important questions about what it is exactly we want from our criminal laws. A sophisticated, brave look at a topic that too often provokes merely panic, prejudice and posturing.”—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"A brilliant criminal defense attorney, Vanessa Place has produced a deeply personal yet meticulously researched argument that demands serious consideration by policy makers, journalists, social scientists, and informed citizens. For some, her book will inspire a thorough rethinking of how they understand rapists and their places in the criminal justice system. For others, the candid accounts and bold proposals in \u003ci\u003eThe Guilt Project\u003c\/i\u003e will inspire mainly frustration or even anger. But no honest reader can deny the special insights she provides from her years of experience and careful reflection.\"—Barry Glassner, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Culture of Fear\u003c\/i\u003e and Professor of Sociology, University of Southern California\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\"Judging by \u003ci\u003eThe Guilt Project\u003c\/i\u003e, Vanessa Place is one tough defense attorney, though her wicked prose implies at times the soul of an angry poet. Her thesis that injustice is routinely perpetrated on sex criminals will not be popular—which is why her book should be read by anyone interested in criminology, specifically including legislators, judges, attorneys and prosecutors.\" —Robert Mayer, author of \u003ci\u003eThe Dreams of Ada: A True Story of Murder, Obsession, and a Small Town\u003c\/i\u003e\u003cb\u003eVanessa Place \u003c\/b\u003eis  a writer and criminal appellate attorney practicing in Los Angeles.   She has worked on the appeals of more than a thousand indigent felons,  specializing  in sex offenders and sexually violent predators. She is  the author of \u003ci\u003eDies: A Sentence\u003c\/i\u003e,  a fifty-thousand-word, one-sentence prose poem; the post-conceptual novel \u003ci\u003eLa Medusa\u003c\/i\u003e;  and, in collaboration with appropriation poet Robert Fitterman, \u003ci\u003eNotes on Conceptualisms\u003c\/i\u003e.    Place is co-founder of Les Figues Press, described by critic Terry  Castle as “an  elegant vessel for experimental American writing of an  extraordinarily\u003cbr\u003e assured and  ingenious sort.”I am a criminal defense appellate attorney. I represent indigent sex offenders and  sexually violent predators, all on appeal from felony convictions in the State of  California. I have also supervised or otherwise assisted a number of other attorneys  representing indigent appellate defendants. All told, I’ve been involved in about  a thousand felony cases. Most of my clients are factually guilty by virtue of their  acts; all are legally guilty by virtue of their convictions.  They are the very bad  men, those who trigger the question, “How can you defend people like that, knowing  that they’re guilty?” It’s an inevitable question, though the delay between meeting  me and asking the question varies according to the questioner’s profile. The rich  ask it sooner than the poor, the educated quicker than the unschooled. Other criminals  usually don’t ask it at all. Fellow cons will be the first to volunteer to crack  a baby-raper’s skull, but will never question the scumbag’s right to a defense.","brand":"Other Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304367837413,"sku":"NP9781590517505","price":16.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9781590517505.jpg?v=1767739688","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/the-guilt-project-isbn-9781590517505","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}