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Reflecting on community intuitions about justice and punishment

By Douglas A. Berman

As spotlighted in this paper and in lots of other thoughtful work, Paul Robinson has pioneered and championed a concept he calls "empirical desert" that is focused on having community intuitions of justice as the backbone of a criminal justice system.  As I have recently figured out, I think the label  "empirical desert" is a less-than-ideal way to describe Robinson's very valuable insight that shared intuitions of justice ought to play a more central role in the design of punishment systems. Valuably, lots of thoughtful folks are starting to assess and debate Robinson's concept of "empirical desert," as evidenced by this new paper on SSRN, titled "How to Improve Empirical Desert," by Adam Kolber.  Here is the abstract: According to advocates of "empirical desert," laypeople intuitively support a retributive approach to punishment, and policymakers can increase compliance with criminal justice policies by punishing in accord with lay intuitions...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on September 07, 2009 (boomark / email).