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Punishment As Atonement, Stephen P. Garvey

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

How would punishment work in an ideal community, one in which the members of the community identify with one another? In this article, Professor Stephen Garvey argues that punishment in such a community would be understood as a form of secular penance and would form part of the process by which the wrongdoer atones for his wrongdoing. Compared to this account of punishment, which Garvey calls "punishment as atonement," other accounts fall short. The older and dominant approaches of utilitarianism and retributivism offer justifications for punishment that ignore the goal of atonement. Newer approaches, restorativism and libertarianism, recognize the importance …