NCJ Number
138996
Date Published
1990
Length
227 pages
Annotation
This book proposes a comprehensive theory of criminal justice that directs the system to the promotion of freedom in the old republican sense of that term, i.e., freedom in the sense of dominion.
Abstract
The intent of the proposed comprehensive theory of criminal justice is to replace the traditional focus on issues of sentencing and punishment to the neglect of other questions of criminal justice. The theory needs to be consequentialist and to set a target by which to judge the criminal justice system. Three desiderata for defining an appropriate target for a comprehensive consequentialist theory are developed: preventionism, utilitarianism, and target-retributivism, i.e., a theory which hails the satisfaction of retributivist constraints. Finally, the target of maximum dominion is proposed, a freedom that is holistically conceived. The promotion of dominion, the republican concept of full citizenship, emerges as a target which satisfies the relevant desiderata. Its promotion enjoins respect for the spheres the criminal justice system is expected to protect: persons, property, and province. 14 footnotes and 253 references