Academic

Corrado on Slobogin on Dehumanization

By Lawrence Solum

Michael L. Corrado (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill - School of Law) has posted Slobogin on Dehumanization on SSRN. Here is the abstract:

The dehumanization objection to preventive detention is, in Slobogin's words, that "preventive detention shows insufficient respect for the individual because it signals either that the person detained does not possess the capacity to choose the good or that, having such capacity, the person will not do so." This is the proposition that criminals are entitled to be punished, which, as we know, sounds odd only until we understand the alternative: indefinite detention and treatment. Slobogin's solution to the impediment presented by the objection - an impediment to the imposition of preventive detention - is to make deterrability the criterion for application of the objection: No one is to be preventively detained unless he can't or won't respond to the threat of punishment. I raise two objections to the dehumanization objection.

Full post as published by Legal Theory Blog on February 16, 2009 (boomark / email).