Crime Guilt And Punishment

Considering both abstract arguments and factual evidence about the effects of punishing offenders, Ten links the moral justification of punishment by the state to more general issues about the nature of moral disagreements and our obligations to obey the law.

In Philip K. Dick’s short story Minority Report, the institution of Precrime punishes people with imprisonment for crimes they would have committed had they not been prevented. With Dick’s allegorical inspiration, the authors of Criminal Law and Precrime: Legal Studies in Canadian Punishment and Surveillance in Anticipation of Criminal Guilt posit that recent developments in Canadian law indicate a trend toward imposing punitive measures at increasingly earlier stages of the prosecutorial process. The result is a potentially new field of criminal management that could be characterized as "precrime"—particularly the use of the law as a technology of surveillance and prevention since "terror" became a justification for intervention. The authors note that as risk management logics (based in actuarial sciences) have shifted to precautionary ones (based in administrative sciences), the law has responded by developing techniques in the arena of criminal regulation in light of the "war on terror": the need to ensure security, the proliferation of digital data, and the development of drones, social networking, and cloud storage to gather personal data. The authors view shifts in criminal investigation; the substantive criminal law of sexual expression, conduct, and work; and civil forfeiture as emblematic of precrime populism. The unifying theme of these techniques is that they occur prior to state-identified crime, arise out of a precautionary philosophy, and seek to presume (or circumvent) criminality. The book is a provocative read for scholars and students in criminal law, policing, and surveillance, as well as for those interested in how areas of law, such as immigration, health, and anti-terrorism, are mobilizing the logics of risk and surveillance in new ways that emphasize precaution. The authors invite legal scholars to place the analytical lens of precrime on criminal and regulatory practices in Canada as well as other Western nations across the globe.

An examination of the legal system, including what constitutes a crime, why and how we punish people who commit crimes, how the government determines these rules, and how citizens react when they feel laws aren't fair.

In The Immorality of Punishment Michael Zimmerman argues forcefully that not only our current practice but indeed any practice of legal punishment is deeply morally repugnant, no matter how vile the behaviour that is its target. Despite the fact that it may be difficult to imagine a state functioning at all, let alone well, without having recourse to punishing those who break its laws, Zimmerman makes a timely and compelling case for the view that we must seek and put into practice alternative means of preventing crime and promoting social stability.

Selected essays originally published as a book in Danish in 1970. Three had been published before then in English, but the others are new. All deal with concepts common to law and morality. "They function in the same way in legal and moral discourse: guilt determines responsibility, and responsibility punishment. But the conditions under which a person incurs guilt differ according to whether the guilt is legal or moral, as do also the manner in which the responsibility takes effect and the penal reaction itself." Cf. Preface, page v.

'Based on lectures for the Robert Lindner Foundation in Baltimore, given November 13 and 14, 1956.'