Retribution Legal Definition
Middle English retribucioun, from Anglo-French, from late Latin retribution-, retributio, from Latin retribuere to pay back, from re- + tribuere to pay â more at tribute A libertarian approach to this issue argues that full restitution (in the broadest rather than technical-legal sense) is compatible with both retributivism and a utilitarian degree of deterrence. [17] Restitution and economic reprisals are two different things. Restitution is the act of compensating a person for harm or loss resulting from the actions of another person. For example, if someone steals $7,000 from their employer, the court can order a payment of $7,000 as compensation and how to settle things. For this reason, restitution is also called “restorative justice” because it “restores” a person to their pre-incident position, or at least as close as possible. The punishment is based on the concept of lex talionis – the law of punishment. At its heart is the principle of equal and direct punishment, as expressed in Exodus 21:24 as “an eye for an eye.” Destroying the eye of a person of equal social rank meant that his own eye was annihilated. Some penalties for the culpable conduct of individuals were specifically related to prohibited acts. Branders who used their skills to remove slave tracks from runaway slaves, for example, had their hands amputated. Therefore, a court order for $7,000 in restitution combined with economic reprisal is a sentence more proportionate to the crime committed. In this case, the defendant`s sentence, with jail time and foreclosure, to repay every dollar of the money he stole.
His employer is recovered with a reimbursement of $7,000 to replace the money he lost as a result of the defendant`s actions. Economic retaliation, on the other hand, is different. Compensation for the same crime would most likely result in imprisonment for the perpetrator. However, without a remedy, a jail sentence is not quite enough, as the employer is always $7,000. If the defendant is in jail, he has no way of earning that money to reimburse his employer. Retributive justice is a theory of punishment according to which, when an offender breaks the law, justice requires that he suffer in return, and that the response to a crime be proportional to the crime. Unlike revenge, retaliation – and therefore retributive justice – is not personal, is aimed only at wrongdoing, has inherent limitations, does not involve pleasure in the suffering of others (i.e. schadenfreude, sadism) and use procedural norms.
[1] [2] Retributive justice contrasts with other punitive objectives such as deterrence (prevention of future crimes) and offender rehabilitation. No other philosophy of punishment attaches as much importance to actus reus (guilty act) and mens rea (guilty state of mind). In retaliation, both elements of the crime must be present before a sentence can be imposed. Moreover, perpetrators can only be punished for the guilt they have actually committed; Anyone who plans a murder but, for example, injures only one victim should not be punished as severely as those who actually commit the murder. Traditionally, philosophers have contrasted punishment with retaliation with utilitarianism. For utilitarians, punishment is premonitory and justified by the purported ability to obtain future social benefits such as crime reduction. For reprisals, the punishment is retrograde, justified by the crime already committed. Therefore, punishment is applied to atone for the damage already caused. [13] Transformative justice is a strategy, as the name suggests: it is a way of treating a crime as an educational and transformative opportunity for the perpetrator. Transformative justice focuses more on healing than on other forms of retribution. Transformative justice can be applied to many areas, including family law, corporate law and bankruptcy law. The problem with transformative justice is not so much whether the abuser can do something similar in the future, but whether the community is willing to support both the abuser and the victim.
If the penalty involves a fine, the theory does not allow for taking into account the financial situation of an offender, resulting in situations where a poor person and a millionaire could be forced to pay the same amount. Such a fine would be a punishment for the poor offender, while it would be insignificant for the millionaire. [14] Instead of outright retaliation, many jurisdictions use variants such as the European Union`s focus on criminal equality, which bases the amount of a fine not only on the crime, but also on the offender`s income, wages, and ability to pay. As a result, in 2002, a Finnish Nokia executive was fined €116,000 ($103,000) for a ticket issued for driving at 75 km/h (47 mph) in a 50 km/h (31 mph) zone,[15] based on his income of 14 million euros ($12.5 million) per year. Similarly, a Finnish businessman had to pay €54,000 based on his annual income of €6.5 million, which made the fine as punitive as a typical fine of €200 ($246) for the same offense if it had been imposed on a Finn with an average salary. [16] The fact that the theory of reprisal does not take into account the status of the offender and the victim has led many jurisdictions to turn away from it in a variety of ways, including criminal equality and consideration of an offender`s status and wealth or lack of status and wealth and consequent ability to pay fines and defend himself effectively in court. Of course, no theory of punishment is without its critics. Many of those who criticize retaliation argue that the philosophy is outdated. As societies become more civilized, they should move beyond the need or desire for revenge. Others point out that punishing criminals simply for acting inappropriately does not address the underlying problems that may have led to the crimes. Some offenders require treatment rather than punishment; Without treatment, the cycle of crime will continue unabated.
Over time, however, the definition of retributive justice has meant that the amount of punishment suffered by a person must be proportionate to the unfair advantage they have received by breaking the law. Moreover, those who oppose retaliatory justice have found alternatives to this idea, including sending offenders to a psychiatric hospital rather than prison if their psychiatric assessments support such an alternative. Other alternatives include restorative justice and transformative justice. An example of reprisal in Kennedy v. Louisiana was tried by the U.S. Supreme Court in June 2008. Here, a Louisiana court found Patrick Kennedy guilty of raping his eight-year-old stepdaughter. Under Louisiana law, the death penalty is an available sentence for those convicted of raping a child under the age of 12. The prosecution asked for this as punishment for Kennedy, and the jury granted it. With its prefix re-, which means “return,” retaliation literally means “refund.” And indeed, we usually use it when we talk about personal revenge, whether it`s retaliation for an insult in the hallway of a high school or retaliation for a guerrilla attack on a government building. But the punishment is not always so personal: God takes “divine vengeance” on man several times in the Old Testament, especially in the great flood that wiped out almost all mankind.
And retaliation for criminal acts, usually in the form of a prison sentence, is borne by the state, not the victims. In the context of retaliatory justice, it is also important that the perpetrators are actually guilty of the crime for which punishment was imposed. The true doctrine of deterrence, according to Jeremy Bentham`s utilitarian philosophy, allows innocent individuals to be punished if it fulfills a valuable social function (for example, creating and maintaining an image that crimes are detected and punished so that others are deterred from committing crimes). This idea is repugnant to retaliators who believe that punishments should only be imposed on those who have broken the law. The value of reprisals cannot be diminished by using them to compensate for shortcomings in the justice system. When offenders are believed to have gained an unfair advantage over others by breaking the law, justice systems attempt to move beyond punishment. Healing victims by fining them or ordering reparations are concepts aimed at making reprisals fairer for society as a whole. Unfortunately, these attempts do not always work as intended. The principle of retribution is the law of punishment, according to which punishment must take the form of benefits in kind.
Everyone should be punished in the same way in proportion to the seriousness of his offence or the extent to which he or she has caused others to suffer. For example, eye for eye or tooth for tooth and so on, but no more. In retaliation, it is inappropriate to let the perpetrators go unpunished. Because punishment must be earned and must follow culpable acts, it is inappropriate to deny individuals the consequences of their actions. In some ways, punishment is something that individuals “deserve” when they exercise their agency in an unacceptable way. Again, the doctrine of deterrence differs from retaliation because true deterrence allows criminals whose community needs capabilities to be exempted from sanctions.