Download This PaperThe Blunt Instrument
Lofquist, Cohen, & Rabe eds., Debating Corporate Crime, Chapter 4, (Anderson 1997)
35 Pages Posted: 29 Apr 2020
Date Written: 1997
Abstract
Punishment is an ugly, brutal thing. By definition, punishment involves the deliberate infliction of pain and suffering on another. It is the intentional creation of harm. Though we ordinarily think of punishment as a response to crime, we should be ever mindful of the fact that—by any known society's definition--punishment is crime, unless it is fully justified by some other and higher end. Worse yet, punishment is organized crime, and it is highly open and notorious crime, as it is usually associated with a regularized, state-sponsored public spectacle.
For these reasons, it has long been acknowledged that the wanton brutality that is punishment must be strictly and completely justified as serving some worthwhile aim--indeed, that ultimately the infliction of punishment does more good than its obvious and immediate harm, and that both the manner and the degree of punishment is in fact strictly necessary to the achievement of that good. Thus, the structure of the justification for punishment is precisely the same as the justification for the commission of an act that otherwise would be a crime: that the deliberately injurious act is the "lesser evil," as its commission is necessary to avoid an even greater harm.
Keywords: punishment, criminal punishment, criminal law, criminal procedure, corporate crime, white collar crime
JEL Classification: K14, K42
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation