ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses the need for a cultural defense in American criminal jurisprudence. The American legal system is now reasonably comfortable with psychological assessments of human behavior, but the relevance of culture as an influence upon human conduct suggests that legal actors might also want to become more comfortable with sociological assessments of human conduct. One of the primary reasons often advanced to defend the recognition of a cultural defense in American criminal law is that such a defense would aid in realizing the ideal of personalized justice—promoting the end of assuring that the punishment fits the crime. Culture is both relevant to and important for the pursuit of justice in the United States. Pluralist states are composed of a great variety of these cultural communities, and of course the fact of significant religious, cultural, and moral difference has historically been the source of great and dangerous conflict within these states.
