Brooks, Thom (2014) 'What is wrong about the "criminal mind"?', Northern Ireland legal quarterly., 65 (2). pp. 141-151.
Abstract
Retributivists argue for a strong link between a criminal’s mind-set at the time of an offence and our community’s response through punishment. This view claims that punishment can be justified depending on the possession of a criminal mind which can be affected by factors that may affect culpability, such as mitigating factors. Retributivism is a powerful influence on our sentencing practices reflected in policy. This article argues it is based on a mistake about what makes the criminal mind relevant for punishment. It will be argued that a currently popular view of retribution endorsed by Feinberg and Duff – ‘retributivist expressivism’ – incorrectly link punishment to a criminal’s possession of moral responsibility. This is a problem because its absence is no defence to strict liability offences, the largest subset of crimes. It is not a crime’s threat or harm to morals that is most salient, but instead its threat or harm to our rights.
Item Type: | Article |
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Full text: | (AM) Accepted Manuscript Download PDF (262Kb) |
Status: | Peer-reviewed |
Publisher Web site: | http://www.qub.ac.uk/schools/SchoolofLaw/Research/NorthernIrelandLegalQuarterly/ |
Date accepted: | No date available |
Date deposited: | 19 June 2014 |
Date of first online publication: | 16 July 2014 |
Date first made open access: | No date available |
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