Not Just Deserts

A new approach to punishment

Arguing for a radical shift in the research agenda of criminology, this monograph offers a comprehensive theory of criminal justice which draws on a philosophical view of the good and the right, and which points the way to practical intervention in the real world of incremental reform.A new approach to sentencing Not Just Deserts inaugurates a radical shift in the research agenda of criminology. The authors attack currently fashionable retributivist theories of punishment, arguing that the criminal justice system is so integrated that sentencing policy has to be considered in the system-wide context. They offer a comprehensive theory of criminal justice which draws on a philosophical view of the good and the right, and which points the way to practical intervention in the real world of incremental reform. They put the case for a criminal justice system which maximizes freedom in the old republican sense of the term, and which they call `dominion'.