Fairness, Equality, Proportionality, and Parsimony: Towards a Comprehensive Jurisprudence of Just Punishment

Penal Censure (Anthony E. Bottoms & Antje Bois-Pedain, eds., Oxford: Hart, Forthcoming)

Minnesota Legal Studies Research Paper No. 17-04

18 Pages Posted: 7 Feb 2017

See all articles by Michael Tonry

Michael Tonry

Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law

Date Written: January 29, 2017

Abstract

The retributive conception of punishment as a process for censuring blameworthy conduct is an important component of a complete theory of punitive justice, but by itself is not enough. Nor are ‘mixed’ theories that incorporate traditional retributive ideas as constraints on pursuit of consequentialist crime prevention goals. If punishment were unidimensional, involved only first offenders convicted of a single offence, and based solely on censuring blameworthy behaviour, theorizing would be easier: offenders should be censured, and punished, precisely as much as they deserve relative to the censure and punishment of others convicted of the same and different offences. In mixed theories, punishments of individuals should never exceed what is deserved relative to the punishments of others. All that would be needed is a sufficiently discriminant ordinal scale of offence seriousness tied to proportionate punishments. Theories of punitive justice, however, cannot be unidimensional. Nor can they be premised on the situations of first offenders, on single offences, or on a single overriding value such as censure. More is at stake. A complete theory of punitive justice must also satisfy the requirements of independently important principles of fairness, equal treatment, and human dignity.

Keywords: Censure, Retributivism, Monist Theories, Multiple Offense Paradox

Suggested Citation

Tonry, Michael, Fairness, Equality, Proportionality, and Parsimony: Towards a Comprehensive Jurisprudence of Just Punishment (January 29, 2017). Penal Censure (Anthony E. Bottoms & Antje Bois-Pedain, eds., Oxford: Hart, Forthcoming), Minnesota Legal Studies Research Paper No. 17-04, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=2912344

Michael Tonry (Contact Author)

Max Planck Institute for the Study of Crime, Security and Law

Guenterstalstr. 73
Freiburg, 79100
Germany

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