The discipline of difference: Ethnolinguistic heterogeneity and corporal punishment

The minority threat hypothesis contends that growth in the size of a given minority population along with the ensuing competition for social and political resources will threaten existing social power arrangements. Regarding punishment specifically, the hypothesis states that dominant groups will support coercive measures to keep minority populations sufficiently oppressed. Using the minority threat hypothesis as our theoretical foundation, we posit that the more heterogeneous a population, the more social control will be necessary to maintain societal equilibrium for those in power. In effect a more personal, physical, and visceral response to criminal behavior will be deemed necessary in countries with high levels of fractionalization. This more focused form of social discipline will manifest as corporal punishment. Comparing modalities of punishment against varying population characteristics, we find that countries with higher levels of ethnic, linguistic, and religious fractionalization are more likely to employ corporal punishment against criminal offenders.     

Sentence disparity in the federal courts and the adoption of sentencing guidelines

Pressure in the 1970's to reform the sentencing process can be attributed to a change in perceived public sentiment regarding the utility of treatment and to the belief that sentencing disparity was a severe problem in the sentencing process. Primary reform occurred in the federal judicial system with the development and implementation of rigorous sentencing guidelines. An evaluation of sentencing patterns for one federal judicial district indicates that sentencing disparity was not severe. Most federal offenders are relatively mild and consistently receive relatively mild sentences.     

Environmental crime prosecutions in Ireland, 2004–2014

Despite increased interest in environmental crime and green criminology, few studies address the use of criminal penalties in response to environmental crimes. A handful of published examples employ data from the United States or the Flanders court system, and little is known about how other nations punish environmental violations. Addressing this issue, the current study examined the use of criminal environmental penalties in Ireland from 2004 to 2014. Few criminal environmental cases (N = 147) and few environmental offenders (N = 154) were represented in these data over time. Consistent with the expectations of green/environmental crime researchers, mean penalties for environmental violations, which in Ireland only include fines and investigative cost recovery penalties, were rather small. Unlike in the US or Flanders, the majority of offenders were corporate offenders as opposed to individuals. Contextual factors related to Ireland’s economy, history and use of criminal sanctions should be used to interpret these factors, and prevent generalising from these data.     

American Criminal Justice Exposed

In The Ethics of Capital Punishment: A Philosophical Investigation of Evil and Its Consequences, Matthew Kramer argues that none of the standard rationales used to justify capital punishment successfully vindicates it and that a new justification, the purgative rationale, justifies capital punishment for defilingly evil offenders. In this article, it is argued, first, that a version of retributivism that adheres to the lex talionis as Kramer understands it does seem to call exclusively for the death penalty. Second, it is submitted that the purgative rationale is over-inclusive inasmuch as Kramer considers it applicable to certain offenders with abusive or deprived backgrounds, some offenders indoctrinated to adhere to pernicious ideologies that have impelled their crimes, and wrongdoers who have sincerely repented. Third, doubts are expressed about whether the purgative rationale justifies the execution of any offenders. Even if it is true that the continued existence of an extravagantly evil offender represents an affront to humanity, as Kramer suggests, a moral obligation to execute him does not follow. Since repentance is intrinsically valuable and since repentance would extinguish the affront to humanity, the community in which an unrepentant evil offender abides is duty-bound to foster repentance on the part of the offender by imposing banishment or life imprisonment, sanctions that afford the offender the most extensive opportunity for repentance. The community is therefore obligated to impose one of these sanctions instead of capital punishment.     

Self-Defense,Punishment and Forfeiture

Abstract

According to the self-defense view, the moral justification of punishment is derived from the moral justification of an earlier threat of punishment for an offense. According to the forfeiture view, criminals can justly be punished because they have forfeited certain rights in virtue of their crimes. The paper defends three theses about these two views. (1) The self-defense view is false because the right to threaten retaliation is not independent of the right to carry out that threat. (2) A more plausible account of the right to threaten says instead that the right to retaliate is primary to the right to threaten, and that the former right in turn arises because aggressors forfeit the right not to suffer retaliation. (3) The “fair warning thesis,” according to which just punishment must be preceded by a threat, is less plausible than first appearances suggest and is therefore no serious obstacle to the view of threats described above.     

刑法视野下的法律拟制新探——价值协调与机制缺失

法律拟制大致经历了从诉讼拟制到实体拟制、从司法拟制到立法拟制、从技术拟制到规范拟制的发展进程,它是工具价值与规范价值相融合的产物,从本质上讲,它是一种有意识的＂立法类推＂。刑法拟制本身并没有是否违反罪刑法定原则的问题,只有法律拟制的工具价值是否受到规范价值的制约并与之协调的问题,对于我国刑法中拟制条款的质疑与检讨就是看其设置是否符合刑法的目的。法律拟制除了规范价值的内在制约外,还需要合宪性审查机制的外在制约。     

Desperate equilibrium: on guilt,law and rationality

Abstract

This paper is about the role of guilt in relation to practical reason. It analyses guilt not as a passive emotion but as a particular kind of strategy at the level of subjective rationality. The concept of guilt occupies a complex and contested semantic space with other concepts, most notably shame. There have been many attempts – philosophical, psychological, sociological – to define these concepts in relation to each other. This paper suggests that whilst guilt is a moral concept that is oriented towards a certain kind of legalism, shame is a moralistic concept. As such, the relations between guilt and shame are discussed in relation to some literary examples, for instance Macbeth's guilt and Conrad's Lord Jim. The conclusion is that on the one hand our confusion over the concept of guilt comes down not least to what may be our confusion over the difficult concept of law and that on the other hand this has consequences that can ultimately be political.     

试论刑法司法解释的发展趋势简

刑法只有经过解释,才能适用于司法实践活动中.具有我国特色的刑法司法解释作为刑法解释中的一种,从其诞生起一直备受争议.现行刑法明确规定罪刑法定原则,刑法司法解释存在就缺乏法律依据,违背罪刑法定原则的精神,更违背罪刑法定原则的出罪功能,其应该退出司法实践活动,取而代之的应为司法刑法解释.     

身份犯的处罚根据论

身份犯的处罚根据问题是身份犯理论研究的基础性范畴,它直接决定了身份犯具体问题的展开。发端于大陆法系刑法中的"义务违反说"、"法益侵害说"以及建立在二者基础之上的"综合说"都不能圆满地说明身份犯的处罚根据;我国学者关于此问题的个别看法也不无纰漏。以"身份法益侵害说"作为身份犯的处罚根据,则是一种合理的选择。     

《吕刑》在中国法律史上的地位与影响

《吕刑》所反映的德刑并举治国思维及刑法制度与原则,直接或间接地影响着后世刑法的构建。在法律思想方面,后世社会的明刑弼教、乱世重典及贤人执法理念与《吕刑》有渊源关系,在法律制度,古老的五刑、五听与赎刑也是后世同类制度的嚆矢。《吕刑》中关于上下比罪、简孚有众、其刑上备等定罪量刑原则又分别成为后世的类推、据众证定罪及重罪吸收轻罪等制度的示范。