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- Title
Retributivism and Over-Punishment.
- Authors
Husak, Douglas
- Abstract
Lately it has become a commonplace to complain about the injustice of mass incarceration. I share the sentiment that this phenomenon has been an injustice. But it also has become orthodoxy to allege that the acceptance of a retributive penal philosophy has been one of the chief factors that has brought about mass incarceration in the first place. As a self-proclaimed retributivist, I find these allegations to be troubling and unwarranted. The point of this paper is to take steps to rebut them. I begin by making four conceptual points about retributivism. If I am correct, retributivism comes in countless flavors, and the particular variety to which I am most attracted can be applied to show why some punishments should be less severe than those presently imposed. Next I argue that many persons deserve less punishment than our legal system currently inflicts. Reflection about whether perpetrators should be afforded a complete or partial defense reveals retributivism to be less punitive than conventional wisdom would suggest.
- Subjects
MASS incarceration; RADICAL orthodoxy (Theology); JUSTICE administration; 21ST century theology; POSTMODERN theology
- Publication
Law & Philosophy, 2022, Vol 41, Issue 2/3, p169
- ISSN
0167-5249
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1007/s10982-021-09422-w