Sanction and Justice Properly Understood

• In Event: Looking Inward: A Structural Critique of How Justice Works

Abstract

The question: “Is the political/social order sufficiently just for the institutions and practices of criminal justice to be morally legitimate?” arises at two levels. (i) As a question about whether the values and principles of the actual political/legal order are in-principle just, even if there are ways they fail to be realized justly; (ii) As a question about whether the values and principles of the actual political/legal order are those of an in-principle just order. There are sufficient reasons for revising current practices of criminal sanction without first resolving debates about the relation between criminal justice and justice more comprehensively understood, or the respective responsibility of individuals and society for criminal conduct. The harms done to many detainees and prisoners are morally objectionable by any plausible measure and merit remedy regardless of how the larger debate about how to understand the relation between criminal justice and justice more comprehensively understood.

Author

• Jonathan Jacobs, John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY