How (Not) to Think Like a Punisher

Authors

Alice G. Ristroph, Georgetown University Law LibraryFollow

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

10-2-2009

Abstract

This article examines the several and sometimes contradictory accounts of sentencing in proposed revisions to the Model Penal Code. At times, sentencing appears to be an art, dependent upon practical wisdom; in other instances, sentencing seems more of a science, dependent upon close analysis of empirical data. I argue that the new Code provisions are at their best when they acknowledge the legal and political complexities of sentencing, and at their worst when they invoke the rhetoric of desert. When the Code focuses on the sentencing process in political context, it offers opportunities to deploy both practical wisdom and empirical analysis that may actually make American sentencing less arbitrary and, importantly, less severe. When the Code retreats to retributive or desert theory, it appeals to indeterminate and unpredictable principles that threaten to undermine the new provisions’ more salutary proposals.

Publication Citation

61 Fla. L. Rev. 727 (2009)

Scholarly Commons Citation

Ristroph, Alice G., "How (Not) to Think Like a Punisher" (2009). Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works. 15.
https://scholarship.law.georgetown.edu/facpub/15