TY - CHAP
T1 - Purposes and functions of sentencing
AU - Tonry, Michael
PY - 2006
Y1 - 2006
N2 - American sentencing systems have fragmented since the modern sentencing reform movement began in the 1970s and predominant retributive theories of punishment have become obsolete. Indeterminate sentencing was ubiquitous, but when it lost credibility, no single approach it. replaced it. Every American jurisdiction has a crazy quilt of diverse and, in principle if not practice, irreconcilable elements. Influential retributive theories of punishment were a 1970s response to 1970s problems that no longer galvanize opinion or reform. They are incompatible with the recent growth of restorative and community justice, therapeutic jurisprudence, prisoner reentry programs, and knowledge about the effectiveness of treatment programs. Theories of punishment can provide normative criteria by which policies and practices can be measured, but to be used in that way they must speak to their own times. New sentencing systems more effective and more just than current fragmented systems can be developed, and they will be better if new normative theories germane to them develop in tandem.
AB - American sentencing systems have fragmented since the modern sentencing reform movement began in the 1970s and predominant retributive theories of punishment have become obsolete. Indeterminate sentencing was ubiquitous, but when it lost credibility, no single approach it. replaced it. Every American jurisdiction has a crazy quilt of diverse and, in principle if not practice, irreconcilable elements. Influential retributive theories of punishment were a 1970s response to 1970s problems that no longer galvanize opinion or reform. They are incompatible with the recent growth of restorative and community justice, therapeutic jurisprudence, prisoner reentry programs, and knowledge about the effectiveness of treatment programs. Theories of punishment can provide normative criteria by which policies and practices can be measured, but to be used in that way they must speak to their own times. New sentencing systems more effective and more just than current fragmented systems can be developed, and they will be better if new normative theories germane to them develop in tandem.
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U2 - 10.1086/503374
DO - 10.1086/503374
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:33751015475
SN - 0226808599
SN - 9780226808598
T3 - Crime and Justice
SP - 1
EP - 53
BT - Crime and Justice A Review of Research
PB - University of Chicago Press
ER -