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THE ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOK OF THE
PHILOSOPHY AND SCIENCE OF PUNISHMENT
Philosophers, legal scholars, criminologists, psychiatrists, and psychologists have long asked important questions
about punishment: What is its purpose? What theories help us better understand its nature? Is punishment just?
Are there effective alternatives to punishment? How can empirical data from the sciences help us better under-
stand punishment? What are the relationships between punishment and our biology, psychology, and social
environment? How is punishment understood and administered differently in different societies? The Routledge
Handbook of the Philosophy and Science of Punishment is the first major reference work to address these and other
important questions in detail, offering 31 chapters from an international and interdisciplinary team of experts
in a single, comprehensive volume. It covers the major theoretical approaches to punishment and its alternatives;
emerging research from biology, psychology, and social neuroscience; and important special issues like the side-
effects of punishment and solitary confinement, racism and stigmatization, the risk and protective factors for
antisocial behavior, and victims’ rights and needs.
The Handbook is conveniently organized into four sections:
A volume introduction and a comprehensive index help make The Routledge Handbook of the Philosophy and Science
of Punishment essential reading for upper-undergraduate and postgraduate students in disciplines such as phil-
osophy, law, criminology, psychology, and forensic psychiatry, and highly relevant to a variety of other disciplines
such as political and social sciences, behavioral and neurosciences, and global ethics. It is also an ideal resource for
anyone interested in current theories, research, and programs dealing with the problem of punishment.
Farah Focquaert is Professor of Philosophical Anthropology at Ghent University in Belgium. She is one of
the Directors of the international Justice Without Retribution Network and the Founder and Co-Chair of the
Ethics Committee at The Forensic Psychiatric Centers Ghent/Antwerp in Belgium.
Elizabeth Shaw is Senior Lecturer in the School of Law at the University of Aberdeen, UK. She is the Founder
and one of the Directors of the international Justice Without Retribution Network. Her research interests are
interdisciplinary, involving criminal law, philosophy, and neuroethics.
Bruce N. Waller is Professor of Philosophy at Youngstown State University, Ohio, USA. Among his recent
books are Against Moral Responsibility (2011), The Stubborn System of Moral Responsibility (2015), Restorative Free
Will (2015), and The Injustice of Punishment (2018).
ROUTLEDGE HANDBOOKS IN PHILOSOPHY
Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy are state-of-the-art surveys of emerging, newly refreshed, and
important fields in philosophy, providing accessible yet thorough assessments of key problems, themes,
thinkers, and recent developments in research.
All chapters for each volume are specially commissioned, and written by leading scholars in the
field. Carefully edited and organized, Routledge Handbooks in Philosophy provide indispensable refer-
ence tools for students and researchers seeking a comprehensive overview of new and exciting topics
in philosophy. They are also valuable teaching resources as accompaniments to textbooks, antholo-
gies, and research-orientated publications.
Also available:
List of contributors ix
Introduction 1
Farah Focquaert, Elizabeth Shaw, and Bruce N. Waller
PART I
Theories of Punishment and Contemporary Perspectives 3
1 Theories of Punishment 5
Robert Canton
2 Retribution 18
Thom Brooks
3 Offenders as Citizens 26
Antony Duff
v
Contents
PART II
Philosophical Perspectives on Punishment 87
8 Defamiliarizing Punishment 89
Tom Daems
PART III
Sciences, Prevention, and Punishment 173
vi
Contents
PART IV
Alternatives to Current Punishment Practices 331
vii
Contents
Index 404
viii
CONTRIBUTORS
Natalie Aga is Lecturer and Researcher at the Thomas More University College of Applied Sciences,
Antwerp, Belgium. Her research concerns the recovery process of people labeled “Not Criminally
Responsible.”
Eyal Aharoni is Assistant Professor of Psychology, Philosophy, and Neuroscience at Georgia State
University, USA.
Peter A. Alces is Rita Anne Rollins Professor of Law at The College of William & Mary School of
Law, USA. He is the author, most recently, of The Moral Conflict of Law and Neuroscience (2018) and
The Law and Neuroscience Dialectic (2022).
Corey H. Allen is a doctoral candidate in the Neuroscience Institute at Georgia State University,
USA, with a particular interest in neuroethics.
Mirko Bagaric is Dean of the Swinburne University Law School, Melbourne, Australia, and
Director of the Evidence-Based Sentencing and Criminal Justice Project. He is the author or co-
author of over 30 books and 150 articles which have been published in leading international journals.
While his main work is in the area of punishment and sentencing, he has also written extensively in
migration and refugee law and human rights law.
Ekaterina Bagreeva has been teaching criminology for more than 10 years at Plekhanov University,
Moscow, Russia. She has also worked at the National Research Institute of the Penal system of the
Russian Federation, and been a research fellow on several international projects at Euroacademia,
Council of Nordic Countries. She is a practicing graphologist.
Colleen M. Berryessa is Assistant Professor in the School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University,
Newark, USA. Her research examines discretion in the criminal justice system, focusing on social
ix
Contributors
contexts and societal attitudes toward mental disorders and biological research on behavior, and how
they may affect the legal process and justice system.
Eva Blomme is an academic assistant and doctoral researcher at the Institute for Research on Crime
and Criminal Policy at Ghent University, Belgium.
Thom Brooks is Dean of Durham Law School and Professor of Law and Government at Durham
University, UK. His books include Hegel’s Political Philosophy (2007), Punishment (2012) and, edited
with Martha C. Nussbaum, Rawls’s Political Liberalism (2015).
Gregg D. Caruso is Professor of Philosophy at SUNY Corning, New York, USA, and Honorary
Professor of Philosophy at Macquarie University, Sydney, Australia. He is also Co-Director of the
Justice Without Retribution Network (JWRN) at the School of Law, University of Aberdeen, UK. His
books include Rejecting Retributivism: Free Will, Punishment, and Criminal Justice (forthcoming), Free
Will and Consciousness: A Determinist Account of the Illusion of Free Will (2012), Exploring the Illusion of
Free Will and Moral Responsibility (2013).
Shou-An Ariel Chang is a third year PhD student at Yale University, USA, examining how socio-
cognitive processing may differ in individuals from disadvantaged backgrounds, and how that, in turn,
may impact antisocial behaviors.
Charlotte Colman is Assistant Professor of Criminology at the Institute for Research on Crime and
Criminal Policy at Ghent University, Belgium.
Federica Coppola is Presidential Scholar in Society & Neuroscience and a lecturer in Criminal Law
& Neuroscience at Columbia University, USA. She studies the implications of social and affective
neuroscience for substantive criminal law and criminal justice. Her first book The Emotional Brain and
the Guilty Mind: A Novel Paradigm of Criminal Culpability is forthcoming.
Michael Louis Corrado is Arch Allen Distinguished Professor of Law, Emeritus, at the University of
North Carolina Law School, USA. He has published articles on criminal responsibility and free will
skepticism. His books include Presumed Dangerous: Punishment, Responsibility, and Preventive Detention
in American Jurisprudence (2013), and Comparative Constitutional Review: A Casebook (2004).
Michele Cotton is Associate Professor of Legal Studies at the University of Baltimore College of
Arts and Sciences in Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Her work includes publications in American law
journals on the law of criminal punishment and its philosophical and scientific context.
Tom Daems is Associate Professor of Criminology at the Leuven Institute of Criminology (LINC),
KU Leuven, Belgium. His recent publications include Electronic Monitoring: Tagging Offenders in a
Culture of Surveillance (2020), Privatising Punishment in Europe? (2018, with Tom Vander Beken) and
Europe in Prisons (2017, with Luc Robert).
x
Contributors
Antony Duff is Professor Emeritus in Philosophy at the University of Stirling, UK. He works in the
philosophy of criminal law. His books include Answering for Crime (2007) and The Realm of Criminal
Law (2018).
Seena Fazel is Professor of Forensic Psychiatry at the University of Oxford, UK, and holds a
Wellcome Trust Senior Research Fellowship in Clinical Science. He researches the relationship
between mental illness and violence and violence risk assessment, and is the co-editor of International
Perspectives in Violence Risk Assessment (2016).
Chad Flanders is Professor of Law at Saint Louis University School of Law in Saint Louis, Missouri,
USA. He writes primarily in the areas of criminal law and philosophy of law and is the editor (with
Zachary Hoskins) of The New Philosophy of Criminal Law (2015).
James Gilligan is a Clinical Professor of Psychiatry and Law at New York University, USA, after
teaching for 30 years at Harvard Medical School. He is the author of Violence (1996), Preventing
Violence (2001), and Why Some Politicians Are More Dangerous than Others (2011).
Dorothee Horstkötter is Assistant Professor in the Department of Health, Ethics and Society at
Maastricht University in the Netherlands. Her research covers ethical and conceptual questions in
neuroscience and mental health. Together with K. Hens and D. Cutas she is the co-editor of Parental
Responsibility in the Context of Neuroscience and Genetics (Springer, 2017) and has published in The
American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience, Bioethics, BioSocieties, International Journal of Law and Psychiatry,
Neuroethics, Theory and Psychology, and various national journals.
Gerry Johnstone is Professor of Law at the University of Hull, UK. He is the author of Restorative
Justice: Ideas, Values, Debates (2011) and Building Bridges: Prisoners, Crime Victims and Restorative Justice
(2018, with Iain Brennan).
Erin I. Kelly is Professor of Philosophy at Tufts University, USA. She is author of The Limits of
Blame: Rethinking Punishment and Responsibility (2018), which criticizes the role of blame in popular
theories of criminal justice.
William R. Kelly is Professor of Sociology at the University of Texas at Austin, USA. His research
focuses on criminology and criminal justice. He is the author of four recent books on criminal justice
reform.
Youngjae Lee is Professor of Law and Associate Dean for Research at Fordham University School
of Law, New York, USA. His recent publications include: “The Criminal Jury, Moral Judgments, and
Political Representation” (2018) in University of Illinois Law Review 1255 and “Multiple Offenders and
the Question of Desert,” in Sentencing Multiple Crimes (2017).
xi
Contributors
Mike C. Materni earned his doctorate from Harvard Law School, USA, where his research focused
on criminal and constitutional law. He works as a litigator in New York City.
Allan McCay teaches at the University of Sydney Foundation Program, and is Affiliate Member of
the Centre for Agency,Values, and Ethics at Macquarie University in Australia. His research interests
include neurolaw, free will and punishment, and the doctrinal and ethical challenges to law resulting
from emerging technologies. He co-edited Free Will and the Law: New Perspectives (2019).
Arne Kvernvik Nilsen spent 15 years (in Norway and the UK) in pastoral and social work, prison
chaplaincy, and developing and managing institutions, before joining the Norwegian Correctional
services. He worked as a Chief Probation officer and Governor at Bastøy human ecological prison, as
well as several years in the Department of Correctional Services, Ministry of Justice, in Norway. He
has also worked as an international expert in Georgia, as well as with project and dialogue cooper-
ation in a number of countries as a coach and adviser, including developing a human ecological
prison unit in Romania. He is a practicing Gestalt psychotherapist.
Justine Olderman is Executive Director of The Bronx Defenders, a public defender nonprofit in
New York, USA, where she has spent over 18 years as a skilled trial lawyer, representing clients in
criminal matters. She authored “Fixing New York’s Broken Bail System,” published in CUNY Law
Review. She has also taught courses at Fordham and Seton Hall Law School, and been a guest lecturer
at NYU School of Law, USA.
Derk Pereboom is Susan Linn Sage Professor of Philosophy at the Sage School of Philosophy and
Senior Associate Dean for the Arts and Humanities, both at Cornell University, USA. His books
include Living Without Free Will (2001); Consciousness and Prospects of Physicalism (2011); Free Will,
Agency, and Meaning in Life (2014); and Free Will Skepticism in Law and Society (2019, co-edited with
Elizabeth Shaw and Gregg Caruso).
Howard Ryland is Forensic Psychiatrist and NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of
Oxford, UK. His research focuses on outcome measurement in forensic mental health services.
Ivana Sekol is Lecturer in the Department of Criminology and Social Sciences, University of
Derby, UK. Her main research and professional interests include the emergence and evidence-based
prevention of bullying and peer violence in secure settings, (children’s homes and correctional facil-
ities for young people); risk and protective factors relating to anti-social and delinquent behavior;
and early crime prevention. As a consultant she has been actively involved in the process of de-
institutionalization and improving the lives of young people in care in Croatia.
Christopher Slobogin is Milton Underwood Chair at the Vanderbilt University Law School in
Nashville, Tennessee, USA. He is the author of Advanced Introduction to Criminal Procedure (2020) and
a co-author of Juveniles at Risk: A Plea for Preventive Justice (2011).
Scott Tillem is a fifth year PhD candidate studying the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying
psychopathy at Yale University, USA. His most recent work titled “Psychopathy is associated with
shifts in the organization of neural networks in a large incarcerated male sample” explored how
psychopathy may fundamentally alter the organization of the brain.
Freya Vander Laenen is Associate Professor in the Department of Criminology at Ghent University,
Belgium. Her research focuses on people with mental illness who offend, drug policy, and recovery
and addiction.
xii
newgenprepdf
Contributors
Daniel Whiting is a Forensic Psychiatrist and NIHR Doctoral Research Fellow at the University of
Oxford, UK. His research focuses on violence risk assessment and intervention in psychosis.
Izabela Zych is Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology in the University of Cordoba,
Spain, member of the LAECOVI research team, and visiting scholar at the Institute of Criminology
at Cambridge University, UK.
xiii
INTRODUCTION
Farah Focquaert, Elizabeth Shaw, and Bruce N. Waller
Punishment is at a critical crossroads. In the first three-quarters of the 20th century there was broad
movement away from the retributive model of punishment, with many alternatives proposed and a
significant number implemented. Starting around 1974 the “nothing works” movement became dom-
inant in the United States, and it joined forces with retributivism, populist punitivism, and “selective
incapacitation” to promote mass incarceration. The “nothing works” movement involved a popular
meme claiming that no treatment program could ever be successful in rehabilitating offenders and
thereby reducing recidivism. It basically assumed that prisoners cannot be rehabilitated. Although the
criminological findings at the time suggested that many existing prison-based treatment programs
did not lead to any appreciable reductions in recidivism, a variety of community-based programs
had already demonstrated their effectiveness in reducing recidivism, and later programs have also
proved their worth. Unfortunately, the “nothing works” meme lead to the further delusion that the
more “hellish” one’s time spent in prison is, the more likely it will function as a deterrent. In 1974
the US prison population was approximately 200,000; by 2006, it exceeded 1,500,000. The “prison-
industrial complex” –including private for-profit prisons –had become a major growth industry,
and “supermax” prisons (relying heavily on solitary confinement) had proliferated. By the early 21st
century, the harms of mass incarceration had become obvious: enormous costs, high recidivism rates,
psychological damage to prisoners, disruption of social structure in communities from which inmates
were taken, hundreds of false convictions, and no evidence of reducing criminal behavior. In fact,
incarceration may be criminogenic rather than rehabilitative for many individuals. Incarceration often
causes and exacerbates physical and mental health problems in offenders, leads to significant post-
incarceration harms due to stigmatization and socio-economic isolation, and involves long-term, sec-
ondary harms to offenders’ family members and communities. Prisons pose a huge cost to society in
terms of buildings, staff, care, and consequential costs such as the risk of disease spread upon reentry
into society.The US system –with its high incarceration rate, harsh conditions, and high rate of recid-
ivism –was in stark contrast with the policies in most of Europe, where dramatically lower imprison-
ment rates were accompanied by much lower crime rates. Nevertheless, many European prisons and
forensic psychiatric institutions are similarly prone to human rights violations. At present, populist
demands for punitive approaches to criminal behavior are voiced in several European countries and
non-retributive proposals to crime reduction and prevention are often easily dismissed. In addition,
existing non-retributive alternative programs to address criminal behavior often lack the necessary
resources to be long-term effective.
1
Farah Focquaert et al.
At the same time that problems with retributivism and mass incarceration became increasingly
obvious, the scientific study of crime and criminology and corrections was taking an enormous
leap. Sociologists brought more rigorous methods of cultural investigation to the study of crime
and corrections; psychologists studied the social and environmental factors contributing to crime
and crime prevention; biologists and neuroscientists examined the complex biopsychosocial factors
related to crime. Decades of research on criminal behavior has shown that a multitude of environ-
mental factors contribute to criminal behavior. In addition, a growing body of research suggests that,
on average, individuals who engage in violent, antisocial behavior show differences in brain structure
and functioning, and hormone and neurotransmitter levels. Behavioral genetics studies also indicate
that about 40–60% of the variance in criminal behavior is due to genetic influences. The envir-
onmental and biological factors that increase an individual’s risk for criminal behavior are highly
connected. Biological risk and protective factors influence the ways in which individuals react to the
environment. In turn, environmental factors can affect gene expression, hormone and neurotrans-
mitter levels, and ultimately brain structure and functioning. It is important to keep in mind that
identifying neurobiological risk factors for criminal behavior does not imply that criminal behavior
is “hard-wired” in the brain or that some individuals are irreversibly destined for a life of crime.
There is no one-to-one relationship among biological factors and crime. Many individuals with
biological risk factors will not go on to commit crimes and some individuals who do not exhibit
a specific risk factor may proceed to commit a crime. All complex human behavior, not just crim-
inal behavior, is caused by the interplay between our biology, psychology and environment. The
main focus of biopsychosocial studies on criminal behavior is to achieve new ways to prevent crime
through increased knowledge of the risk and protective factors that impact desistance. In addition to
the biopsychosocial studies investigating the multitude of risk and protective factors related to crime
and desistance, corrections officials (especially in Scandinavia, Canada and New Zealand) worked on
new methods of reducing the recidivism rate; and the courts (and legal scholars) explored new possi-
bilities for the criminal justice system. Retributivism remains popular, especially in the United States
and the UK; however, it no longer dominates to such an extent that it blocks serious consideration
of alternatives.
This Handbook presents research and theoretical analysis from a variety of disciplines and
perspectives. It is a resource for researchers and scholars who wish to become familiar with comple-
mentary research from other disciplines and cultures. The essays consider a wide range of empirical
studies, explore the challenges these pose for various theoretical models, and link theoretical views
with contemporary research.
The first section, “Theories of Punishment and Contemporary Perspectives,” explores major
contemporary theories of punishment, including retributivism, utilitarianism, hybrid theories, and
restorative justice.
The second section, “Philosophical Perspectives on Punishment,” examines a wide range of
important philosophical issues raised by the question of punishment, together with the implications
of contemporary psychological research for our theories and practices of criminal punishment.
The third section, “Sciences, Prevention, and Punishment,” looks at contemporary research in
psychology, neuroscience, biosocial studies, and biopsychosocial criminology and its importance in
restructuring our institutions and practices of criminal punishment.
The final section, “Alternatives to Current Punishment Practices,” proposes and examines radical
alternatives to current practices as well as critically important possibilities for modifications of the
present system (such as the elimination of the bail bond system).
2
PART I
5
Robert Canton
we shall see that there are important connections between the projects: most theories of punishment
include both empirical and normative claims, even though these are not always made explicit.
… and if any mischief follow, then thou shalt give life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth,
hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe.
(Exodus 21: 23–25, King James Version)
The principle is to be found in one of the earliest legal texts, the (Babylonian) Code of Hammurabi,
although there are aspects here to the idea of just punishment that are strikingly at odds with modern
conceptions of proportion. For example:
If a builder build a house for someone, and does not construct it properly, and the house
which he built fall in and kill its owner, then that builder shall be put to death. If it kill the
son of the owner, the son of that builder shall be put to death.
(Code of Hammurabi, 229–230)
Even if there is a sense in which we can recognise that the exact same pain (the death of a son) is
being imposed on the offender, that the son of the builder should be put to death for the mistakes of
his father is deeply offensive to modern sensibilities, including ideas of retributive justice. The Code
reveals something important not only about conceptions of justice, but also about status and power.
Throughout the Code there are examples of offences where the specified punishment depends on
the standing of the offender and the victim: social status, freeman or slave, age and gender may all
make a difference to the stipulated response.
Conceptions of proportion, then, may vary, even if insistence upon this as a principle of justice is
widespread. Reflecting on the ubiquity of retribution tied to proportion, Margaret Atwood remarks
that “... the older a recognisable pattern of behaviour is –the longer it’s demonstrably been with
us –the more integral it must be to our human-ness and the more cultural variations on it will be
in evidence” (2008: 11). Renteln argues that proportionate retribution limits violence: a cycle of
retaliation, vendetta or feud is otherwise probable. The state therefore seeks to establish a monopoly
in imposing punishment for the most serious wrongdoings. It is not that societies necessarily delib-
erate about this; rather, those societies that find regulated and orderly ways of responding to wrongs
can avoid the destructive effects of feuding and blood revenge and, to this extent, are more likely
to prosper. As Pinker has put it, “the disinterested justice of a decent Leviathan induces citizens to
curb their impulse for revenge before it spirals into a destructive cycle” (Pinker 2011: 541). It is to
6
Theories of Punishment
be noted, though, that the urge for retribution persists and people feel let down if the state does not
vindicate wrongs against them, even if this is now formalised and managed by an impartial authority.
The temptation to say that this effect of limiting violence is in some sense “the purpose” of
punishment should be resisted. Punishment does not and could not have a purpose over and above
the several (and often conflicting) purposes that people set for it. The term “function” can also mis-
lead, importing unwanted connotations of deliberate design or intention. Many penal practices and
institutions are not designed: rather they evolve and, like evolution in the natural world, are shaped
by their history and by the need to adapt to changing circumstances. “Function” is also associated
with a particular way of understanding society, where institutions and practices work harmoniously
to sustain the well-being of the whole, like the organs in a healthy body. But societies are marked by
relationships of power as well as cooperation, and may be riven by differences of interest and conflicts.
These tensions may be reflected in the practices of punishment. Punishment indeed has several effects
or consequences, but only some of them (and just to some extent) are part of anybody’s design or
intent. As we shall see, some ethical defences of punishment rest on assumptions about its effects, but
not only are these effects not always as supposed, but other consequences may be ignored.
Quite as ubiquitous as retributive responses are efforts to reconcile after wrongdoing, to repair
broken relationships, to extend and to accept apology, to explore ways in which amends can be made
or to bring about changes in the wrongdoer’s behaviour or attitudes (McCullough 2008). It seems
that both retribution and reconciliation –and indeed the tensions between them –are essential to
social cooperation (Fehr and Gächter 2002; McCullough 2008; Greene 2013). Often the institutions
and practices of punishment may manifest this ambivalence (Duncan 1996). Some penal practices can
represent both hard treatment and an attempt to change people for the better. The prison is the most
obvious example. Although there is room for scepticism about the possibility of improving people
in the oppressive and squalid conditions that characterise so many prisons, the ambition to design
regimes and programmes to facilitate personal change is a persistent aspiration throughout the history
of the prison (Morris and Rothman 1995).
7
Robert Canton
Punishment … is only partly about program efficiency, inky statutes, or the armatures of
power for it is also a form of expressive, communicative, ritualistic activity whose reach and
grasp are shaped in decisive ways by meaning.
(Smith 2008: 169; my emphasis)
The normal child, the healthy body, the stable mind, the good citizen, the perfect wife and
the proper man –such concepts haunt our ideas about ourselves, and are reproduced and
legitimated through the practices of teachers, social workers, doctors, judges, policemen
and administrators.
(Philp 1985: 67)
At the same time, the area of deviance is demarcated and becomes a subject for “investigation, sur-
veillance and treatment” (ibid.). Indeed Foucault saw the penitentiary as a laboratory for developing
techniques to set and inculcate these standards of normality across wider society.
Cohen (1985), developing Foucault, writes of a “great transformation”. Punishment had been
shaming, public and local (think, perhaps, of the pillory or the stocks). In the nineteenth century,
increasing involvement of the state in deviancy control and the development of a centralised bur-
eaucratic apparatus transformed punishment from a local to a national enterprise; the segregation of
people in various places of confinement within walls (asylums, prisons) made punishment more pri-
vate than public; increased differentiation and classification by accredited experts made punishment
more of a technical than a moral undertaking –which is not to say that punishment’s moralising and
shaming effects have disappeared, or indeed ever could.
The “grand theories” we have been considering have enriched our understanding of why pun-
ishment takes the forms that it does. They are best understood less as rival accounts than as “recip-
rocal commentaries, mutually deepening” (Garland 1990: 279, borrowing this elegant expression
8
Theories of Punishment
from Clifford Geertz.) Culture, power relations and the economic order –none reducible to
another –all properly enter into a rounded understanding of punishment. At the same time, these
high-level theories have their limitations and their hazards. They are often vague (and may be
inaccurate) on historical detail –an allegation that has sometimes been levelled at Foucault. They
may overgeneralise, implicitly assuming that the experiences of some countries are somehow rep-
resentative if not typical of all and drawing more general conclusions than their limited study
sample would warrant. They are also rarely “couched in terms that respect the motivations and
actions of the actors and agencies involved” (Garland 2001: 104). They are incomplete to the
extent that they usually fail to explain how broad social characteristics and influences are specif-
ically “translated into the folkways of the [penal] field” (id. 2001: 24). Above all, perhaps, the error
made by many theorists is to discover a partial truth about the influences on punishment and then
to mistake it for the whole.
Other efforts to understand what shapes punishment have recourse not to historical accounts or to
the ideal-typical societies envisaged by Marx or Durkheim, but to international comparative studies,
inquiring what makes some countries so different from some others. Attempts have been made to
try to map penal institutions and practices against broader socio-economic, political and cultural
characteristics (see Cavadino and Dignan 2006; Tonry 2007). Such comparative investigations tends
to show that punishment practice is local (Tonry 2007) –strikingly different attitudes, policies and
practices can be found in countries in very similar social and economic situations.
Rather than looking for causal factors, an illuminating metaphor is that of an ecological niche (see
Hacking 1999). A diverse, interacting and often conflicting set of influences, shaped by a broad
range of social, economic, political and cultural factors, collectively constitute a milieu in which
institutions and practices emerge, operate and develop. These include the framework of law, political
agendas (well beyond penal policy), the political economy (emphasised by Cavadino and Dignan
2006), national wealth, criminal justice institutions and practices (whose momentum or inertia always
influence the pace and indeed direction of change), technology, commerce (notably when the private
sector becomes involved –see especially Christie 2000), borrowings from other countries through
policy transfer (Canton 2014) or impositions (for example, through colonialism), research findings,
public opinion (including anxieties about crime), media and pressure groups, the ethical environment
(for instance, a commitment to human rights) and a wide range of cultural constraints (on which
generally see Smith 2008). These vectors, which of course influence each other too, constitute the
“niche” and changes in them can mould the character of penal practice and institutions. The indef-
initely many ways in which these factors interact will account for local variation and idiosyncrasy,
as well as making the development of penal policy and practice inherently hard to predict (see also
Lacey, Soskice and Hope 2018).
A further consideration arises from the relationship between policy and practice, between what
Cohen (1985) called the “stories” that institutions tell about themselves and the lived realities of
practice. Policies are the principal source for the study of punishment, but these written accounts are
aspirational and stand for what the policymakers wish to accomplish and to present. The extent to
which these ambitions are achieved in practice is another matter. Practitioners (for example, prison
staff, probation officers) have to receive their instruction, but then must find ways of putting it into
practice –ways that are likely to include attempts to accommodate policy to their own values and
interests, the occupational culture and their own understanding of what it takes to get the job done.
This is Garland’s warning: our accounts of punishment must “respect the motivations and actions of
the actors and agencies involved” (Garland 2001: 104). Further, these “actors” include those subject
to punishment. The meanings with which the punishers and the punished invest their experiences
are hard to access and may not be assumed to align with the intentions of legislators, courts and
senior managers –intentions that are themselves complex. Yet these meanings are critical to a fuller
understanding of punishment.
9
Robert Canton
Punishment has been described as a “relatively autonomous” domain (Garland 2001) –autono-
mous because it has its own independent trajectories and dynamics, but only relatively so because
it is also and inevitably shaped and channelled by the social, legal, economic, political and cultural
influences just discussed. Reciprocally, the institutions and transactions of punishment not only reflect
a culture and socio-economic order, but lend authoritative endorsement to many social practices and
exercise an influence of their own. One implication of this is that a study of punishment can illu-
minate the character of a society, its values, relationships and structures of power, in instructive and
sometimes surprising ways. So it can be said that:
What appears on the surface to be merely a means of dealing with offenders so that the rest
of us can lead our lives untroubled by them, is in fact a social institution which helps define
the nature of society, the kinds of relationships which compose it, and the kinds of lives it is
possible and desirable to lead there.
(Garland 1990: 287)
• punishment, by one mechanism or another, reduces crime and so makes for a safer society;
• punishment gives the offender what they deserve;
• punishment expresses solidarity with victim(s) and compassion for the harms they have suffered.
These claims may enter into a justification, but as they stand they are more aptly characterised as aims
or purposes. Each claim sets out something that punishment should aim to do, with the implication
that punishment can indeed achieve these objectives. To justify something, however, is to show that
it is morally required or morally permissible or at least morally better than alternatives. And to set
a purpose is not of itself an assurance that either the purpose or the means by which it is pursued is
morally justifiable.
In this case, even so, the purposes seem morally unassailable: society should be made safer; wrong-
doing should be vindicated in proportion to desert with the responsibility of the wrongdoer suitably
respected; and victims should find support and compassion. Nevertheless other questions arise. There
may, for example, be moral considerations that have been insufficiently taken into account as the
justifications have been explored. Or perhaps there are other and better ways of accomplishing these
aims. For that matter, if “ought” implies “can”, it may not be simply assumed that these purposes can
be achieved by punishment. Again, there are questions about the forms that punishment should take –
for example, some forms of punishment may fail to respect the wrongdoer’s responsibility or neglect
the victim altogether.This chapter goes on to make some general remarks about these identified aims
10
Theories of Punishment
and the extent to which they do or could amount to a justification. Other chapters will scrutinise
these accounts in much more detail.
11
Robert Canton
reduction “work”, but there is a weight of evidence to show a much more complex state of affairs and
to invite a degree of scepticism about the capacity of punishment to reduce crimes, with troubling
implications for any ethical defence that rests on that foundation.
it is hard to see what punishment one should inflict on a blackmailer, a forger, a dope
peddler, a multiple murderer, a smuggler, or “a toothless fiend who has knocked somebody
else’s tooth out” (Kleinig 1973, p. 120).
(Ryberg and Peterson 2014: 4067)
The appeal to justice remains compelling. The first half of this chapter, however, drew attention
to those critiques that insist that both the criminal law and its enforcement are influenced by the
interests of the powerful: some harms are not criminalised in the first place and others are weakly
enforced. Can “justice” be hermetically sealed within the courtroom without regard to the processes
that have brought this person to punishment, while another who has offended more harmfully and
just as culpably gets away with it? These are not random processes, it is argued, but systematically
represent and reproduce the interests of the powerful (Reiman and Leighton 2013).
Ideas of culpability are no more straightforward. Some people’s life circumstances have been so
disadvantaged, their choices so limited, that they justly merit a “hardship defence” (Hudson 1999).
More fundamentally, some argue (see this volume, Chapter 12) that the very idea of culpability is
challenged by advances in our understanding of the neurophysiological influences on our develop-
ment and character. We do not choose our genetic inheritance nor the way in which our parents or
others bring us up in our formative years. Since our behaviour is, if not determined, at least power-
fully constrained by these influences, can we be held responsible for what we do?
Nor should the impact of the punishment be overlooked. Sentencing according to desert implies
that the same crime should meet the same punishment.Variations in harm and culpability complicate
the question of when crimes could be said to be the same, while “the same punishment” can have
very different effects on people. Michael Tonry makes the point sharply:
… two years’ imprisonment in a single setting will have very different meanings to different
offenders who have committed the same crime. Two years’ imprisonment in a maximum
12
Theories of Punishment
security prison may be a rite of passage for a Los Angeles gang member. For a … twenty-
year-old, it may mean the terror of repeated sexual victimization. For a forty-year-old head
of household, it may mean the loss of a job and a home and a family. For an unhealthy sev-
enty-five-year-old, it may be a death sentence.
(Tonry 1996: 19)
All these considerations make problematic the concept of proportionality which is at the heart of
retributive justifications. Here an initial distinction must be made between absolute or cardinal pro-
portionality (the punishment in some sense fitting the crime) and relative proportionality (worse
crimes should receive weightier punishments) (for an insightful discussion of this, see Matravers
2011). There is broad agreement about which crimes are most serious (Ashworth 2010: Chapter 4),
and (questions of impact notwithstanding) there is probably sufficient consensus about the weight
of punishments for a tariff of relative proportionality to be constructed. There remains, however, the
question of where to fix the “anchor points” of such a tariff. The worst crime should be awarded the
most serious punishment, but how much is that and what form should it take? In practice, this seems a
matter of custom and practice in different jurisdictions and few argue that there is a specific and exact
punishment that is uniquely suitable for a particular crime (although some supporters of the death
penalty might attempt that argument). While it will always be relevant to object that this punishment
is too severe (or too lenient) for this offence, a relative proportionality is probably the most that can
be achieved. For all its (almost universal) recognition, however, the concept of proportionality may
turn out to be unable to check penal excess to the extent that its proponents might hope (Lacey and
Pickard 2015).
Censure theory has become influential in many contemporary accounts of punishment (du Bois-
Pedain and Bottoms 2019; see Chapter 3 this volume). A punishment should make a communication;
it should be declaratory.Yet there are several “audiences” –the offender, the victim, everybody else –
and it may not be assumed that all will understand the message in the same way or that all (or indeed
any) of them will receive the message as intended, even if there is a straightforward and single message
to be conveyed. With regard to the offender in particular, it is not only the pronouncement of the
punishment (in the sentence of the court), but the manner of its implementation that will “send the
message”.Walgrave (2003: 65) has referred to the “communicative aridity” of retributive punishment,
arguing that restorative processes are much more fertile ground for effective communication. Again,
censure is more than self-righteous scolding. It attempts to enhance awareness of the wrong and
indeed to induce remorse, including the sincere wish not to offend again (one component of sincere
remorse) (Maslen 2015). Some forms of punishment may instead provoke defiance or resentment and
inhibit the purposes of fitting censure. If censure is at the heart of any ethical defence of retribution,
then, the shortcomings of retributive punishment as communication represent a substantial critique.
13
Robert Canton
she argues, brings a sense of control against the overwhelming helplessness induced by grief, but this
sense is illusory and blocks the grieving that needs to take place in the gravest cases whatever pun-
ishment befalls the offender. It should also be remarked that, in political debate, some self-proclaimed
champions of victims have urged severe punishment and then turned their back on the needs, rights
and indeed the wishes of victims. Even if victims are entitled to weighty punishment of those who
have committed a crime against them, this is by no means all that they need, especially in the most
serious cases.
Even to raise the question about what victims need is to expose the probability that their needs
will be diverse, depending on the nature of the crime, the support that they can receive from families
and friends, and other considerations. Sometimes material compensation is the least and the most
required to make good the harm that has been done; in other circumstances, the offer of (usually) a
financial payment can be interpreted as further insult (see Moon 2013).This is because, as Duff (2001)
insists, victims have not only been harmed but wronged. Harms can be compensated, but how can the
wrong be made good? Restorative justice (see Chapter 7, this volume) holds out this prospect.
In political (and indeed sometimes in scholarly) debate, the interests of offenders and victims are
presented in stark opposition. Restorative justice tries to go beyond the assumption that the interests
of victims and offenders are inherently opposed and looks for resolutions that meet the legitimate
interests of both. It rejects any notion that a vindication of the victim’s experience is best achieved
by the imposition of hard treatment, coercion, exclusion or denunciation of the offender, as opposed
to the proper and proportionate censure of their conduct in committing the offence. There is an
increasing weight of evidence to show that well-managed restorative meetings are much more likely
than a conventional criminal justice process with a retributive focus to lead to a resolution that brings
a degree of satisfaction to the victim and indeed to the offender (Sherman and Strang 2011; Shapland,
Robinson and Sorsby 2011).
Yet while some commentators draw a sharp distinction between punishment and restorative
justice, regarding them as different and indeed incompatible conceptions of justice (for references
and discussion, see Roche 2013; Zedner 1994), Duff argues that restorative and retributive justice are
better understood as two sides of a coin. He concludes that we should “recognise criminal mediation
and reparation as punitive, indeed as a paradigm of retributive punishment” (Duff 2003: 53). Once
again, however, the form of the punishment has to be taken into account. For while some punishments
may succeed in achieving actual or symbolic redress as part of a reparative process, others may fail
completely in that respect. Imprisonment of the offender, notably, brings nothing to a victim beyond
the doubtful satisfaction of contemplating the hardships visited on the wrongdoer and perhaps the
(sometimes specious) assurance that they are no longer in a position to cause harm.
Punishment may bring some benefit to victims, then, but with much less value than has sometimes
been supposed. As Nussbaum has argued in detail (2016, 2017), the passion for punishment can divert
attention not only from the crucial matter of crime reduction, but also from the needs and legitimate
interests of victims. Nor must we overlook those many victims whose offenders are not brought to
justice (for example because never identified). Their need for compassion and vindication is no less,
but cannot be met by the sentence of the court.
It has been argued that none of the main accounts that set out to justify punishment is compel-
ling. Reductive accounts are exposed not only to ethical criticism, but rest on a wholly exaggerated
confidence in the capacity of punishment to reduce offending. Arguments that invoke justice typic-
ally fail to offer much guidance about the form and weight of punishments. They must also address
the challenge of whether retributive justice can be achieved in any society that is scarred by social
injustice. Our zeal for punishment in the name of the victim rarely brings the anticipated satisfaction
or sense of closure and indeed distracts from important questions about victims’ true interests and
rights. Even so, each account seems to capture something about the character of punishment which
eludes the others and some have been encouraged accordingly to think about using these theories
14
Another random document with
no related content on Scribd:
An Automatic Window Closer
The window closer consists of a weight, A, attached to one end of
a cord, B, which runs through several pulleys and has its other end
attached to a hook in the center of the window sash, as shown in
Fig. 1. The weight A is held in an elevated position by a small trigger
which is operated with an electromagnet.
The arrangement of the weight and its control is shown in Fig. 2.
The latch C is held in a horizontal position by an extension on the
arm D, which in turn is held by a latch, E. The latch C is mounted on
the same supporting shaft as the arm D, and they are connected
with a coil spring having the tension in such a direction that it holds
the latch C down on the extension of the arm D. When the weight
moves up through the box the latch C will rise and allow it to pass
down beside it. The latch holding the lower end of the arm D may be
released by means of an ordinary vibrating bell arranged so that its
clapper will strike the extension F on the latch and thus cause its
upper end to move from the engagement with the arm D. A small coil
spring is attached to the arm D so that it will be returned to its
vertical position when the weight has passed C and thus make it
ready for the next operation without any adjustment except raising
the weight and setting the clock.
Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
¶When a pencil becomes too short for the hand, apply paste to
about 1 in. of the rubber end, roll on a sheet of paper about 6 in.
long, and almost all of the pencil can be used.
How to Make Hammocks
By CHARLES M. MILLER
The Shuttle is First Wound and the Long Loops at One End Formed over the
Gauge Stick
After the Completion of the Long Meshes, the Ring is Anchored and the
Mesh Stick Brought into Use
After completing these meshes anchor the ring by its short cord to
a hook or other stationary object. The anchorage should be a little
above the level for tying the knots of the net. Tie the cord of the
shuttle to the left outside loop and always work from the left to the
right; and the first time across see that the long meshes do not cross
over each other, but are kept in the order in which they are attached
to the ring.
After tying the cord to the mesh 1, Fig. 6, bring the mesh stick into
use. Pass the cord down over the mesh stick, drawing the lower end
of the loop down until it comes against the upper side of the mesh
stick and put the thumb down upon it in this position to prevent
slipping. Pass the shuttle up through the loop 2 and draw that down
to the mesh stick. Shift the thumb from the first position to the
second. Throw the cord to the left over the thumb and about the loop
2, as shown in Fig. 7, and bring the shuttle under both of the cords of
mesh 2 and up between the large backward loop and the cords of
the mesh 2. Without removing the thumb draw up the knot very tight.
This makes the first netting knot. Continue the cord around the mesh
stick, pass it up through mesh 3, throw the backward loop, put the
shuttle under and up to the left of the mesh 3 and draw very tight,
and do not allow a mesh to be drawn down below the upper side of
the mesh stick. Some of these cautions are practically repeated, but
if a mesh is allowed to get irregular, it will give trouble in future
operations.
Fig. 9 Fig. 10
A Square Knot is Used to Join the Ends of the Cord When Rewinding the
Shuttle
Continue across the series until all of the long loops have been
used and this will bring the work to the right side. Flip the whole thing
over, and the cord will be at the left, ready to begin again. Slip all the
meshes off the mesh stick. It makes no difference when the meshes
are taken off the stick but they must all come off before a new row is
begun. Having the ring attached to the anchorage by a cord makes it
easy to flip the work over. Be sure to flip to the right and then to the
left alternately to prevent the twisting, which would result if turned
one way all the time.
Fig. 11
Fig. 12
The Gauge Board is Again Used for the Long Loops at the Finishing End,
Then the Cords are Wound
The first mesh each time across is just a little different problem
from all the others, which may be better understood by reference to
Fig. 8. The knots Q, R, and S are of the next previous series. The
cord is brought down over the mesh stick and up through mesh 1,
and when the loop is brought down it may not draw to the mesh stick
at its center; it is apt to do otherwise and a sideway pull is necessary,
which is pulled so that the knots Q and R are side by side, then the
knot at T may be tied. When the mesh 2 is drawn down it should pull
to place without shifting, and also all the others of that row.
Continue the use of the mesh stick until a net 8 ft. long is made.
When the cord gives out rewind the shuttle and tie with a small knot
that will not slip. The weaver’s knot is good if known, or the simple
square knot shown in Fig. 9 is very good. It is too easy to make to
need direction, but unless it is thrown over just right it will slip. Let U,
Fig. 8, represent the short cord and V the new piece to be added.
Place the cord V back of U and give U a complete turn around V, Fig.
9, and bring them together at a point above U, then to the front.
Repeat the complete turn of U about V, shown by the dotted line,
and pull tightly. If analyzed, it consists of two loops that are just alike
and linked together as shown in Fig. 10.
When the 8 ft. of netting has been completed, proceed to make
the long loops as at the beginning. The same gauge board can be
used, but the tying occurs at both ends, and since the pairs cannot
be knotted in the center, two or three twists can be given by the
second about the first of each pair. The long loops and the net are
attached together as shown in Fig. 11. Slip one of the meshes of the
last run over the nail N, and when the cord comes down from the
ring, the shuttle passes through the same mesh, and when drawn
up, the farthest point of the mesh comes against the nail. After this
long loop has been secured at the ring, the first mesh is slipped off
and the next put on. All of the long loops at this end will be about
three inches shorter than at the other end, unless the finishing nail N
is moved down. This will not be necessary.
With a piece of cord about six feet long, start quite close to the ring
and wind all the cords of the long loops together. The winding should
be made very tight, and it is best to loop under with each coil. This is
shown in Fig. 12.
The hammock is now ready for use. Some like a soft, small rope
run through the outside edges lengthwise, others prefer a fringe, and
either can be added. The fringe can be attached about six meshes
down from the upper edge of the sides. The hammock should have a
stretcher at each end of the netted portion, but not as long as those
required for web hammocks.
Gourd Float for a Fishline
A unique as well as practical fishing-line float can be made of a
small gourd. After the gourd has dried sufficiently, wire loops, to hold
the line, are inserted, or rather, a single wire is run through and
looped at both ends. The contents of the gourd need not be
removed. Dip the float in a can of varnish, or apply the varnish with a
brush.
Homemade Arc Light
Those who wish to produce an arc light for experimental purposes,
or for the brief periods required by photography, will find the method
of construction shown in the sketch very simple and inexpensive.
Using the short lengths of carbons discarded by moving-picture
operators, there is no difficulty in maintaining a good arc for 15
minutes, or more, without once manipulating the adjusting screw at
the top.
An Efficient Arc Light for Purposes Where a Light is Required for a Short
Time
Only three pieces of wood are necessary besides the base, and in
the preparation of these no particular care is necessary except to
have the top arm swing freely up and down without any appreciable
side movement. The carbon holders are merely strips of heavy tin,
which need only be screwed up sufficiently tight to hold the carbons
in place and yet permit their being pushed up when the top adjusting
screw will no longer operate. This adjustment may be readily taken
care of by means of a long, slender wood screw with the point filed
off and a metal disk soldered to the top. Connections are made to
the carbon holders either under a screw head or by soldering the
wires to the metal.
In operating any arc light on the commercial 110-volt current some
resistance must be placed in the circuit. An earthen jar of water with
two strips of tin or lead for electrodes, will answer every purpose.