Mark D. White

Writer, editor, teacher

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about

I’m a professor in the Department of Philosophy at the College of Staten Island/CUNY, where I teach courses in philosophy, economics, and law, and the author/editor/co-editor of several books.

Category: Punishment

  • The End of Cost-Benefit Analysis?

    Mark D. White Today, the editors of The Wall Street Journal commented on the fine print of President Obama's recent executive order requiring all regulatory agencies to submit their rules to cost-benefit analysis in an effort to streamline government and reduce regulatory burden on business. They note that the order requires that agencies include in…

  • Debating the Insanity Defense

    Mark D. White In the most recent "Room for Debate" feature in The New York Times, five scholars involved in law, psychiatry, and criminal justice discuss the current state of the insanity defense in light of the Tucson shootings. A nice range of viewpoints is presented, from Alan Dershowitz's argument that the insanity defense has…

  • The Implications of Human Fallibility for the Future of Capital Punishment

    Mark D. White In a recent op-ed piece in The Wall Street Journal, Barry C. Sheck of the Innocence Project detailed the wrongful execution in Texas of convicted murderer Claude Jones after then-Governor George W. Bush was not informed of Jones' request for a last-minute DNA test on the one piece of physical evidence tying him to his alleged…

  • Justice Does (Unfortunately) Have a Price in a World of Scarcity

    Mark D. White Recently, it was reported that the state of Missouri started providing cost estimates of various punishments to judges during the sentencing phase of criminal trials. Of course, this set off a firestorm of controversy regarding the appropriate role (if any) that the financial cost of punishment—particularly imprisonment—does or should play in a…