Abstract Retributive justice is the preferred penal theory in many countries, especially for serious offences, and is a predominant justification for imprisonment. Retributivists, however, have ...little to say regarding the state’s role towards returning citizens after release from prison. In reality, paroled individuals struggle with continuing surveillance, poverty, stigma and other significant barriers to housing, employment and health. Thus, rates of recidivism are high. Re-entry services can help, but they are few. Without a proper understanding of the implications of the retributive model, advocates for re-entry services struggle to gain public support or the attention of policy-makers. Recognising that retributivism is not a monolithic theory, and with a focus on the parole period, we argue that key sub-streams of retributivism offer a valuable support for understanding public responsibility for re-entry services. To that end, we offer a conceptual understanding of the core retributive principles that call upon governments to actively assist parolees. We do so by connecting re-entry to the retributive notions of unfair advantage, penal communication and moral reform. Finally, we emphasise two, often neglected, re-entry programmes that fit the core retributive principles and highlight implications for the parole process.
In this paper we explore whether or not the use of risk assessment tools in criminal sentencing can be made compatible with a retributivist justification of punishment. While there has been ...considerable discussion of the accuracy and fairness of these tools, such discussion assumes that one's recidivism risk is relevant to the severity of punishment that one should receive. But this assumption only holds on certain accounts of punishment, and seems to conflict with retributivist justifications of punishment. Drawing on the broader desert literature, we explain the source of this conflict, and suggest that a retributivist approach on which the severity of punishment partly depends on one's character in addition to their acts offers some hope of reconciling retributivism with the use of risk assessment tools in considerations of sentencing reduction in particular. Ultimately, however, even this limited attempt at reconciliation fails, so long as risk assessment tools fail to distinguish between risk that one is responsible for, and risk that one is not responsible for.
Chad Flanders has argued that retributivism is inconsistent with John Rawls's core notion of public reason, which sets out those considerations on which legitimate exercises of state power can be ...based. Flanders asserts that retributivism is grounded in claims about which people can reasonably disagree and are thus not suitable grounds for public policy. This essay contends that Rawls's notion of public reason does not provide a basis for rejecting retributivist justifications of punishment. I argue that Flanders's interpretation of public reason is too exclusionary: on it, public reason would rule out any prominent rationale for punishment. On what I contend is a better interpretation of public reason, whether retributivism would be ruled out as a rationale for punishment depends on whether a retributivist account can be constructed from shared political commitments in a liberal democracy. Some prominent versions of retributivism meet this requirement and so are consistent with public reason.
Death penalty is disputed retribution between the chain of retributions with different execution styles has accompanied humans throughout history with numerous followers and opponents. In the last ...decades disputes between the followers and opponents between the followers and opponents of this retribution has continued more extensively. The result of these fundamental disputes of the opponents and elimination of this retribution from the criminal law or in some cases, despite keeping it in texts. The execution is eliminated. This article focuses on the death penalty while looking for attaining the philosophy of death penalty by utilizing the two major views of retributivism and utilitarianism in philosophy of retribution and it’s reconciliation with each of the two views mentioned before. The results indicate the although death penalty is mostly accordant to the objectives of utilitarianism like incapacitation and relative compatibility with preventing through intimidation, it is corresponding more with the opponent view that is retributivism. Revocation or undermining the routine futuristic justifications of life deprivation punishment, can help legislator remove or at least limit the punishment.
Death penalty is disputed retribution between the chain of retributions with different execution styles has accompanied humans throughout history with numerous followers and opponents. In the last ...decades disputes between the followers and opponents between the followers and opponents of this retribution has continued more extensively. The result of these fundamental disputes of the opponents and elimination of this retribution from the criminal law or in some cases, despite keeping it in texts. The execution is eliminated. This article focuses on the death penalty while looking for attaining the philosophy of death penalty by utilizing the two major views of retributivism and utilitarianism in philosophy of retribution and it’s reconciliation with each of the two views mentioned before. The results indicate the although death penalty is mostly accordant to the objectives of utilitarianism like incapacitation and relative compatibility with preventing through intimidation, it is corresponding more with the opponent view that is retributivism. Revocation or undermining the routine futuristic justifications of life deprivation punishment, can help legislator remove or at least limit the punishment.
A traditional assumption in retributivist thinking is the view that an offender's desert is determined exclusively on the basis of the gravity of the crime committed. However, this assumption has ...recently been challenged. Netanel Dagan and Julian Roberts have advocated a dynamic theory of desert, or what they refer to as "the dynamic censure model." According to this model, certain post-sentencing reactions in the offender should be taken into account in the determination of the offender's desert and the severity of appropriate punishment. The purpose of this article is to assess this dynamic concept of desert. I argue that despite the fact that the model offers a new and interesting approach to desert and sentencing, it also faces a range of theoretical challenges that are not easily answered.
Ostracism is a contradicted social action because it has been widely adopted as a legal sanction but is also considered to be excessive enforcement. In the present study, we conducted a ...scenario-based experiment to examine the psychological process underlying the endorsement of ostracism in school settings. We focused on three general rationales to justify the sanction: a general prevention to protect public welfare (utilitarianism); a counter to deviance from social norms (retributivism); and a type of education to rehabilitate a perpetrator (moral education). The results showed that utilitarianism was more effective in justifying ostracism than retributivism or moral education. Further, preferences towards ostracism based in utilitarianism were less susceptible to influence from others. These findings indicate people’s general preference for the protection of public welfare over the segregation of wrongdoers.
Ostracism is a contradicted social action because it has been widely adopted as a legal sanction but is also considered to be excessive enforcement. In the present study, we conducted a ...scenario-based experiment to examine the psychological process underlying the endorsement of ostracism in school settings. We focused on three general rationales to justify the sanction: a general prevention to protect public welfare (utilitarianism); a counter to deviance from social norms (retributivism); and a type of education to rehabilitate a perpetrator (moral education). The results showed that utilitarianism was more effective in justifying ostracism than retributivism or moral education. Further, preferences towards ostracism based in utilitarianism were less susceptible to influence from others. These findings indicate people’s general preference for the protection of public welfare over the segregation of wrongdoers.
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