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Full-Text Articles in Law
Do We Know How To Punish?, Benjamin L. Apt
Do We Know How To Punish?, Benjamin L. Apt
Benjamin L. Apt
A number of current theories attempt to explain the purpose and need for criminal punishment. All of them depend on some sort of normative basis in justifying why the state may penalize people found guilty of crimes. Yet each of these theories lacks an epistemological foundation; none of them explains how we can know what form punishments should take. The article analyses the epistemological gaps in the predominant theories of punishment: retributivism, including limited-retributivism; and consequentialism in its various versions, ranging from deterrence to the reparative theories such as restorative justice and rehabilitation. It demonstrates that the common putative epistemological …
Lessons Of Disloyalty In The World Of Criminal Informants, Michael L. Rich
Lessons Of Disloyalty In The World Of Criminal Informants, Michael L. Rich
Michael L Rich
Without informants, policing would grind to a halt. The majority of drug and organized crime prosecutions hinge on the assistance of confidential informants, and white collar prosecutions and anti-terrorism investigations increasingly depend on them. Yet society by and large hates informants. The epithets used to describe them – “snitch,” “rat,” and “weasel,” among others – suggest the reason: the informant, by assisting the police, is guilty of betrayal. And betrayal is, in the words of George Fletcher, “one of the basic sins of our civilization.” But identifying disloyalty as the reason for society’s disdain raises more questions than it answers. …