Robert Blecker is a professor at New York Law School, he is an internationally known expert on the death penalty and the subject of the documentary Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead.

He formerly prosecuted corruption in New York’s criminal justice system as Special Assistant Attorney General.

Shockingly the book uncovers a strange reality that in today’s prisons, the worst criminals often live the best lives, it is not the job of guards to punish.

For twelve years, Blecker visited death rows and prisons around the US as well as Germany and delved into the life of locked up criminals.

The Death of Punishment documents his encounters with these criminals, and the on-going relationships he developed with some, such as child killer Daryl Holton, who in 2007 became the first person to be executed by electrocution in Tennessee in 47 years (Blecker and Holton subsequently became the subject of award-winning independent documentary Robert Blecker Wants Me Dead).

Blecker offers a blueprint for making punishment more closely fit the crime. He believes that European style prisons, such as in Norway, where mass killers like Anders Breivik do not supply the answer.

Blecker argues that if we fail to punish criminals properly, it will be at our peril. He is favour of restoring punishment for crimes, particularly serious ones, including the death penalty and believes that it is in some cases the only way to achieve justice.