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"On Justifying Punishment: The Discrepancy between Words and Actions"

By Douglas A. Berman

The title of this post is the title of this interesting article from a social scientist that was recently posted on SSRN.  Here is the abstract:This article reveals a discrepancy between the actual and stated motives for punishment.  Two studies conducted with nationally representative samples reveal that people support laws designed on the utilitarian principle of deterrence in the abstract, yet reject the consequences of these same laws when they are applied.  Study 1 (N = 133) found that participants assigned punishment to criminals in a manner consistent with a retributive theory of justice rather than deterrence.  The verbal justifications for punishment given by these same respondents, however, failed to correlate with their actual retributive behavior...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on October 15, 2008 (boomark / email).