Proportionate Punishment?

2013 ◽  
pp. 80-96
Keyword(s):  
Proportionate Punishment

scholarly journals Proportionality’s Lower Bound

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Manwaring
Keyword(s):  
Lower Bound ◽  
Average Cost ◽  
Full Theory ◽  
Costs Of Crime ◽  
Crime Seriousness ◽  
Proportionate Punishment

AbstractMany philosophers have raised difficulties for any attempt to proportion punishment severity to crime seriousness. One reason for this may be that offering a full theory of proportionality is simply too ambitious. I suggest a more modest project: setting a lower bound on proportionate punishment. That is, I suggest a metric to measure when punishment is not disproportionately severe. I claim that punishment is not disproportionately severe if it imposes costs on a criminal wrongdoer which are no greater than the costs which they intentionally caused to others. I flesh out the implications of this Lower bound by discussing how to measure the costs of crime. Methodologically, I claim that different costs should be compared by considering preferences. Substantively, I claim that many proportionality judgements undercount the costs of crime by focusing only on the marginal and not the average cost. I suggest that we may hold defendants causally responsible for their contribution to the costs of that type of crime.

Part V Fairness and Expeditiousness of ICC Proceedings, 37 Proportionate Sentencing at the ICC

2015 ◽  
Author(s):  
deGuzman Margaret M
Keyword(s):  
Restorative Justice ◽  
Crime Prevention ◽  
Sentencing Decisions ◽  
Proportionate Punishment

In sentencing decisions, the concept of proportionality is often understood in purely retributive terms-punishment should accord with the desert of the perpetrator. This contribution argues that the ICC should use retributive proportionality at most as a limiting principle. It begins with a brief critique of ICC sentencing approaches, including the Lubanga sentencing judgment. Next, it provides an overview of the dominant theories of proportionality and some of their implications for sentencing. Third, the chapter examines the sources of law available to the ICC in relation to proportionality analysis, demonstrating that they support a focus on crime prevention. Fourth, the chapter explains why retributive proportionality would be both impracticable and dangerous. Finally, it proposes a preventive theory of proportionate punishment, arguing that the ICC should focus primarily on appropriate norm expression and other aspects of prevention, such as deterrence, incapacitation, and restorative justice.

Complicity, Proportionality, and the Serious Crime Act

2011 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 403-426 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dennis J. Baker
Keyword(s):  
Mens Rea ◽  
Serious Crime ◽  
Proportionate Punishment

This paper evaluates proportionate punishment and fair labelling in the context of complicity liability. It is argued that only full intentional and extreme (subjective) reckless assistance or encouragement is sufficient for holding a secondary party equally responsible for the principal's primary wrongdoing. It is also submitted that lesser mens rea states such as mere knowledge or belief provide a justification for grading certain forms of complicity as independent and less serious forms of criminality. More specifically, I examine the new provisions found in the United Kingdom's Serious Crime Act 2007 and argue that those provisions could be used in place of the older provisions dealing with accessorial liability to ensure that those who are only subjectively reckless in contributing to the criminality of others are punished less than the principal. If a person is going to be sent to prison for life for merely supplying a gun to a principal, then justice and fair punishment require that the assistance be intentional or at least extremely reckless

Death and Retribution

2019 ◽  
pp. 32-72
Author(s):  
Benjamin S. Yost
Keyword(s):  
Capital Punishment ◽  
Human Dignity ◽  
Right To Life ◽  
The Right ◽  
Proportionate Punishment

Any retributivist defense of capital punishment must establish that execution is a morally permissible punishment for at least some first-degree murderers. This chapter makes a case for the permissibility of execution, suggesting that it is sometimes a proportionate punishment. The existence of reasons to execute is thus made plausible. After outlining objections to competing deterrence theories of sentencing, the chapter returns to retributivist considerations, illuminating the affinities of cardinal proportionality and the lex talionis, which states that offenders deserve whatever harm they impose on their victims. Although the talion has a suspect reputation, it can be understood as standing for the unobjectionable principle that punishments must reproduce the relevant wrong-making features of the offense. Accordingly, it can be used to establish the cardinal proportionality of murder and execution. Chapter 1 concludes by showing how the retentionist can repel abolitionist attacks based on the right to life and human dignity.

scholarly journals Do Offenders Deserve Proportionate Punishments?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Göran Duus-Otterström
Keyword(s):  
Local Theory ◽  
Moral Desert ◽  
Proportionate Punishment

AbstractThe aim of the paper is to investigate how retributivists should respond to the apparent tension between moral desert and proportionality in punishment. I argue that rather than attempting to show that the term ‘proportionate punishment’ refers to whatever penal treatment the offender morally deserves, retributivists should maintain two things: first, that a punishment is proportionate when it is commensurate to the seriousness of the crime; second, that offenders morally deserve proportionate punishments. This view requires adopting a local theory of desert as opposed to a holistic one. In the second part of the paper, I argue that there are indeed good reasons to adopt a local theory of desert. Once retributivism is seen through the lens of local desert, there is no obvious mistake in saying that offenders morally deserve punishments that are proportionate to the seriousness of their crimes.

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