The New Civil Death: Rethinking Punishment in the Era of Mass Conviction

Oct 17, 2025
1 min read

Collateral consequences have effectively resurrected the colonial era of 'civil death' (a state in which a person's legal status is diminished) and must be understood as punishment, in the same way that civil death was. The author argues that every person being charged with a crime should be informed of their impending civil death if convicted, and provides an a sample template for how to do so.

Chin, G. J. (2012). The New Civil Death: Rethinking Punishment in the Era of Mass Conviction. University of Pennsylvania Law Review, 160(6), 1789–1833. http://www.jstor.org.ezproxy.lib.utexas.edu/stable/41511317

Open Access Source: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2072736

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The New Civil Death: Rethinking Punishment in the Era of Mass Conviction

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