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| Over the past several decades, American penal exceptionalism—the tendency for |
| U.S. penal policies and practices to proudly diverge from those of other Western |
| countries—has severely limited the development of comparative criminal justice |
| research from a U.S. perspective. However, in recent years, a growing consensus |
| that America’s criminal justice policies and practices are too expensive, ineffective, |
| excessively punitive, and often inhumane has laid the ground for a new phase of |
| soul-searching. |