Retributive theories of punishment
This seminar will explore the idea that state punishment can be justified only if it
is deserved by the offender, and the related proposition that punishment must
therefore be limited to whatever is proportionate to the wrongdoing of the
offender.
Core Reading
Hudson. B., Understanding Justice (Open University Press, 2003) pp38-55
Lacey, N., State Punishment (Routledge, 1988), pp. 16-27.
von Hirsch, A., Ashworth, A. and J. Roberts, Principled Sentencing: Readings on
Theory and Policy (Hart, 2009), Chapter 4,
Murphy, J., ‘Marxism and Retribution’, in Duff, A. and D. Garland (eds.) A Reader
on Punishment (OUP, 1994), pp. 44-70
Further Reading
Moral retributivism
von Hirsch, A. ‘Censure and Proportionality’, in Duff, A. and D. Garland (eds.) A
Reader on Punishment (OUP, 1994), pp. 112-133
von Hirsch, A. Deserved Criminal Sentences (Hart, 2017)
Braithwaite, J. and Pettit, P. Not Just Deserts (Clarendon Press 1990) Chapter 8
Norrie, A., Punishment, Responsibility and Justice (Clarendon Press 2000) Chapter
2
Morris, H., ‘A Paternalistic Theory of Punishment’ in Duff and Garland (eds.) p. 92
Legal retributivism
Brudner, A., Punishment and Freedom (OUP, 2009) Chapter 1
Ramsay P., ‘A Democratic Theory of Imprisonment’ in A Dzur, I Loader, R Sparks
(eds), Democratic Theory and Mass Incarceration (OUP, 2016)
Proportionality
Lacey N, and Pickard H., ‘The Chimera of Proportionality: Institutionalising
Limits on Punishment in Contemporary Social and Political Systems’ (2015) 78
Modern Law Review 225-227
Ashworth A., ‘Prisons, Proportionality and Recent Penal History’ (2017) 80(3)
Modern Law Review 473–488