Sunday, February 13, 2011

Retributive Theory 2

I've been talking to my friends about retributive, proportionate sentencing, and I have changed my mind about what kind of proportionality I favor. It is EPro, but it is not equal to the offence. EPro punishment ought to be equal to the seriousness of the offence, which is composed of the nature of the offence and the culpability of the offender. The nature of the offence would include the harm done by the crime and the intended harm caused by the crime. The culpability has to do with the offender's mindset at the time of the offence, i.e. whether the criminal intended to harm the victim, the reason it was done, etc.