Punishment Communication And Community

The question "What can justify criminal punishment ?" becomes especially insistent at times, like our own, of penal crisis, when serious doubts are raised not only about the justice or efficacy of particular modes of punishment, but about the very legitimacy of the whole penal system. Recent theorizing about punishment offers a variety of answers to that question-answers that try to make plausible sense of the idea that punishment is justified as being deserved for past crimes; answers that try to identify some beneficial consequences in terms of which punishment might be justified; as well as abolitionist answers telling us that we should seek to abolish, rather than to justify, criminal punishment. This book begins with a critical survey of recent trends in penal theory, but goes on to develop an original account (based on Duff's earlier Trials and Punishments) of criminal punishment as a mode of moral communication, aimed at inducing repentance, reform, and reconciliation through reparation-an account that undercuts the traditional controversies between consequentialist and retributivist penal theories, and that shows how abolitionist concerns can properly be met by a system of communicative punishments. In developing this account, Duff articulates the "liberal communitarian" conception of political society (and of the role of the 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 political community and its citizens; and he identifies the essential preconditions for the justice of punishment as thus conceived-preconditions whose non-satisfaction makes our own system of criminal punishment morally problematic. Punishment, Communication, and Community offers no easy answers, but provides a rich and ambitious ideal of what criminal punishment could be-an ideal of what criminal punishment cold be-and ideal that challenges existing penal theories as well as our existing penal theories as well as our existing penal practices.

This text examines the main trends in penal theorising over the past three decades. It asks what can justify criminal punishment and then explores the legitemacy of actual practices by examining what would count as adequate justification for them.

The question "What can justify criminal punishment ?" becomes especially insistent at times, like our own, of penal crisis, when serious doubts are raised not only about the justice or efficacy of particular modes of punishment, but about the very legitimacy of the whole penal system. Recent theorizing about punishment offers a variety of answers to that question-answers that try to make plausible sense of the idea that punishment is justified as being deserved for past crimes; answers that try to identify some beneficial consequences in terms of which punishment might be justified; as well as abolitionist answers telling us that we should seek to abolish, rather than to justify, criminal punishment. This book begins with a critical survey of recent trends in penal theory, but goes on to develop an original account (based on Duff's earlier Trials and Punishments) of criminal punishment as a mode of moral communication, aimed at inducing repentance, reform, and reconciliation through reparation-an account that undercuts the traditional controversies between consequentialist and retributivist penal theories, and that shows how abolitionist concerns can properly be met by a system of communicative punishments. In developing this account, Duff articulates the "liberal communitarian" conception of political society (and of the role of the 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 political community and its citizens; and he identifies the essential preconditions for the justice of punishment as thus conceived-preconditions whose non-satisfaction makes our own system of criminal punishment morally problematic. Punishment, Communication, and Community offers no easy answers, but provides a rich and ambitious ideal of what criminal punishment could be-an ideal of what criminal punishment cold be-and ideal that challenges existing penal theories as well as our existing penal theories as well as our existing penal practices.

Given widespread media attention to issues of crime and its prevention, police heroism, and new modes of police-community involvements, this international collection is timely. It is unique in examining ways in which police and citizens communicate across a range of contexts and problem areas. While much attention is afforded the critical roles of communication by police agencies, there has been little recourse to communication science and its theories. Likewise, the latter has not, until recently, concerned itself with analyzing police-citizen interactions. This volume examines the character of such encounters, forging new theoretical frameworks having implications for practice in many instances. Topics include media portrayals of law enforcement, communication and new technologies within police culture, domestic violence, hate crimes, stalking, sexual abuse, and hostage negotiations. This book should be relevant not only to a range of social sciences besides Communication scholars and students, but also to practitioners working in the field.

This is the text of the Rede Lecture, 1990, given by Her Royal Highness The Princess Royal (Princess Anne). Her Royal Highness considers the role of punishment in the community, as a lay citizen and as a parent, but also draws on her experience of working with voluntary agencies such as the Save the Children Fund and the Victim Support Group. Her Royal Highness relates the Law to the responsibility of the individual within the community, and weighs the merits of punishment as retribution and as deterrant. The importance is asserted of offender-victim contact and of the community at large taking a clear moral position on each category of crime.

This book discusses whether a system of criminal punishment can be justified within our legal system.

For many years, Antony Duff has been one of the world's foremost philosophers of criminal law. This volume collects essays by leading criminal law theorists to explore the principal themes in his work. In a response to the essays, Duff clarifies and develops his position on central problems in criminal law theory. Some of the essays concentrate on the topic of criminalization. That is, they examine what forms of conduct (including attempts, offensiveness, and negligence) can aptly qualify as criminal offences, and what principled limits, if any, should be placed on the reach of the criminal law. Several of the other essays assess the thesis that punishment is justifiable as a form of communication between offenders and their community. Those essays examine the presuppositions (about the nature and function of community, and about the moral structure of atonement) that must be embraced if communication is to be a primary role for punishment. The remaining essays examine the nature and limits of responsibility in the law, as they engage with philosophical debates over 'moral luck' by investigating the ways in which the law can legitimately hold people responsible for events that were not within their control. These chapters tie the first and third parts of the book together, as they explore the relationship between the principles that determine a person's responsibility and the principles that determine which types of actions can appropriately be criminalized. Finally, Duff responds with comments that seek to defend and clarify his views while also acknowledging the correctness of some of the critics' objections.