The Proper Role of Community in Determining Criminal Liability and Punishment
in Popular Punishment: On the Normative Significance of Public Opinion (Jesper Ryberg and Julian A. Roberts eds., Oxford University Press 2014).
12 Pages Posted: 7 Dec 2012 Last revised: 6 Dec 2017
Date Written: 2014
Abstract
This essay argues that community views ought to have a central role in constructing criminal law and punishment rules, for both democratic and crime-control reasons, but ought not to have a role in the adjudication of individual cases. The differences in the American and Chinese debates on these issues are examined and discussed.
Keywords: Empirical desert, moral credibility, stigmatize, vigilantism, social norms, utility of desert, disutility of injustice, community views, retributivism, three-strikes, drug penalties, felony-murder rule, insanity defense, strict liability offenses, American and Chinese debates
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