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"The Subjective Experience of Punishment" now in print

By Douglas A. Berman

About a year ago I highlighted here Adam Kolber has SSRN draft titled "The Subjective Experience of Punishment."  I am now pleased to report that this draft is now in print here at the Columbia Law Review.  It appears that the abstract has changed a bit, and here is how it now reads:  Suppose two people commit the same crime and are sentenced to equal terms in the same prison facility. I argue that they have identical punishments in name only. One may experience incarceration as challenging but tolerable while the other is thoroughly tormented by it. Even though people vary substantially in their experiences of punishment, our sentencing laws pay little attention to such differences. I make two central claims: First, a successful justification of punishment must take account of offenders? subjective experiences when assessing punishment severity...continue to full post

Full post as published by Sentencing Law and Policy on January 10, 2009 (boomark / email).