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"Happiness and Punishment"

By Douglas A. Berman

This title of this post is the title of this intriguing new article available via SSRN.  The piece comes from Professors John Bronsteen, Christopher Buccafusco and Jonathan Masur, and here is the abstract:This article continues our project to apply groundbreaking new literature on the behavioral psychology of human happiness to some of the most deeply analyzed questions in law. Here we explain that the new psychological understandings of happiness interact in startling ways with the leading theories of criminal punishment.  Punishment theorists, both retributivist and utilitarian, have failed to account for human beings' ability to adapt to changed circumstances, including fines and (surprisingly) imprisonment.  At the same time, these theorists have largely ignored the severe hedonic losses brought about by the post-prison social and economic deprivations (unemployment, divorce, and disease) caused by even short periods of incarceration...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on August 25, 2008 (boomark / email).