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Encyclopedia of Law and Economics pp 1–6Cite as

Retributivism

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Definition

A theory of punishment that maintains that wrongdoers deserve to be punished, in proportion to their crimes, as a matter of justice or right.

Retributivism is a theory or philosophy of criminal punishment that maintains that wrongdoers deserve punishment as a matter of justice or right. It is often contrasted with deterrence, which justifies punishment on the basis on the future harms it prevents. (On theories of punishment, see the papers in Acton (1969), Duff and Garland (1994), and Simmons et al. (1995); for concise syntheses, see Tunick (1992) and Brooks (2012).)

Drawing on the terminology of moral philosophy, retributivism is often characterized as deontological in nature, being based on qualitative concepts of justice and the right, while deterrence is consequentialist, focused on minimizing the negative outcomes from crime. This is, admittedly, an overgeneralization: for instance, Moore (1993), Cahill (2011), and Berman (2013) have suggested that retributivism can be...

Keywords

  • Criminal Justice System
  • Fellow Citizen
  • Hybrid Theory
  • Enforcement Cost
  • Public Justice

These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, College of Staten Island/CUNY, 2800 Victory Blvd, Staten Island, NY, 10314, USA

    Mark D. White

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  1. Mark D. White
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Correspondence to Mark D. White .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Lehrst. Finanzwissenschaft/ Finanzsoziologie, University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Thüringen, Germany

    Jürgen Backhaus

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White, M.D. (2014). Retributivism. In: Backhaus, J. (eds) Encyclopedia of Law and Economics. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_524-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-7883-6_524-1

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  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4614-7883-6

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