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Communicative Theory

Definition

Antony Duff's account of punishment as a message addressed to the offender, calling them to answer for the wrong and to reconcile with the community, rather than as pure censure or pure deterrence.

Related terms

General Justifying Aim
H.L.A. Hart's term for the reason a society is entitled to maintain a system of punishment at all, which Hart answered in...
Just Deserts
A retributivist sentencing principle, revived by Andrew von Hirsch in the 1970s, holding that the severity of a punishment should be set...
Proportionality
The legal principle, central to European human rights law and to many constitutional systems, that any interference with a fundamental right must...
Retributivism
The view that punishment is justified because the offender deserves it for the wrong done, independent of any future benefit the punishment...
Utilitarianism
The view that an act or a rule is justified by its consequences, so punishment is justified only insofar as it produces...

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