NCJ Number
204108
Journal
Punishment & Society Volume: 6 Issue: 1 Dated: January 2004 Pages: 87-98
Date Published
January 2004
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This article provides a comment on the article “Christianity and Criminal Punishment” by Jeffrie Murphy.
Abstract
Murphy asks whether criminal punishment, including the death penalty, is consistent with Jesus’ advice to love others. This exhortation appears in other religions, philosophies, and cultures. The golden rule is the sort of "public reason" that liberal and natural law philosophies can rally behind. Murphy resolves that criminal punishment is not necessarily inconsistent with Christian love in theory, but is an evil that Christians should be cautious about in practice. The central themes of Christianity -- love, mercy, forgiveness, and redemption -- seem opposed to the harsh, condemnatory, and stigmatizing nature of criminal punishment. Murphy concedes that some forms of punishment, such as torture or mutilation, are incompatible with Christian love, but not the death penalty. He assumes that Christians believe love is the primary value in all things and assumes that Christian support for criminal punishment is based on a "hard and demanding" understanding of Christian love. In response to this, it is doubted that the practice of punishment is consistent with Christian love. Saying otherwise gives criminal punishment a legitimacy it does not deserve. This does not mean that Christian love forbids governmental efforts to teach right from wrong or to protect the public from harm; just that those efforts would have to be part of an approach to promote justice and the common good differently from criminal punishment. Supporters of the restorative justice movement hope their vision of justice will one day replace what they call the "retributive" system of criminal punishment. Others say that this paradigm is unrealistic because this country’s harsh penological practices are the product of serious social problems and institutional arrangements that will not change. The articulation that Christians should take seriously the subject of criminal punishment offers hope of something in between, which is a faith-based critical approach to criminal punishment that inspires reform. 34 references