Model Penal Code

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The Model Penal Code: Bringing Order to Chaos Abstract The American Model Penal Code (MPC) is a seminal document in the codification of criminal law. It is both heralded as a monument to civil humanity and widely reviled for its encapsulation of retributive violence. It revolutionized legal thought and practice in the United States, as well as Western Europe and Asia. Today, the MPC continues to evolve with the society it supports, while spreading its influence to emerging democratic nations, nations developing secular legal systems, and impacting International Governmental Organizations (IGO), like the International Criminal Court (ICC). The Model Penal Code: Bringing Order to Chaos The purpose of the MPC was to bring about order to the chaos that was American criminal law. It was not the first attempt to codify American criminal law, nor the most ambitious. It was, however, the most successful. To truly appreciate the scope of the MPC, you must understand its historical context. Criminal law arrived in the US in the form of common law, brought by the colonists from their native European, African, and Asian homelands (Robinson, 2007). This miasma wrought political havoc, as differing ideologies sought to deal with the matter of crime and punishment. Add to this, the problem of managing a federalist system, with centralized and local authority or sovereignty, requiring two systems of courts: Federal and State (Ryan, 2009). As early as 1776, Thomas Jefferson proposed legislation in the newly declared State of Virginia, hoping to enact reforms based upon the theory of prevention outlined in the works of Cesare Beccaria, developed by Jeremy Bentham, and made usable by John Stuart Mill (Robinson 2007). These efforts were to no avail. Alexis De Tocqueville (1835) noted in his journeys across what was then the United States: Difficulty of determining
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