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Legal Traditions
Legal traditions play an important role in the development of international law and
justice. Comparativists for criminal justice study these traditions with the intent of
finding a way to combine the views of different traditions towards a single view that
allows for the successful development of international law.[3] Many comparativists
believe that the more states with similar legal views the more likely it is to be able to
create international laws that please all. Reichel (2005) identifies four major legal
traditions that each have their own respective body of laws:
Civil law countries include most of continental Europe and various states in
South America and Africa.
Socialist law is essentially civil law with major modifications from MarxistLeninist ideology. It is currently only used in China and a few other
contemporary Communist states, but has had enormous influence on Russia and
the former USSR.
Punishment
People who study comparative criminal justice study different forms and use of
punishment across societies, including capital punishment. Fifty-nine countries retain
the death penalty as reported in 2007.[4] Comparativists study the different ways in
which execution is carried out across the world including hanging, shooting, beheading,
injection, electrocution, and even stoning.[4] Comparativists find that in many developing
countries such as Iran, Indonesia, Belarus, and many others, that violent methods of
execution such as hanging beheading, shooting, and stoning are much more common
ways of carrying out the death penalty, and in many cases the only ways. However in
western culture as well as developed countries such as the United States less brutal
execution such as lethal injection is utilized.[4] Even prison sentences can come harshly.
In many countries such as Burma a person can be sentenced to prison for merely
disagreeing with the government.[5] Presumably ridiculous sentences such as multiple
life sentences or sentences of hundreds, even thousands of years are meant to prohibit
the chance of parole in the future.[5] Although it may seem preposterous, western
cultures carry out the same type of sentencing. Even though similar sentences are used
across the globe leniency is varied widely between societies. Many governments such as
the one mentioned above in Burma provide swift and heavy punishment to assert their
roles of power.[5]