NCJ Number
185655
Date Published
2001
Length
265 pages
Annotation
The question of what justifies punishment becomes especially relevant in times of penal crisis when serious doubts are raised about the justice or efficacy of particular modes of punishment and about the very legitimacy of the penal system.
Abstract
Recent theoretical discussions about punishment offer a variety of answers to this question: answers that try to make sense of the idea that punishment is justified because it is deserved for past crimes, answers that try to identify some beneficial consequences of punishment, and answers that advocate abolishing rather than justifying punishment. The book begins with a critical survey of recent trends in penal theory and goes on to develop an original account of punishment as a mode of moral communication aimed at producing repentance, reform, and reconciliation. In developing this account, the author describes a liberal communitarian concept of political society and the role of criminal law on which it depends. He discusses the meaning and role of different modes of punishment, showing how they can constitute appropriate modes of moral communication between a political community and its citizens, and he identifies the essential pre-conditions for the justice of punishment. Book chapters specifically focus on consequentialism, retribution, abolitionism, punishment and communication, and communicative sentencing. References and notes