Retributive justice is necessary to the maintenance of standards of behavior and the internalization of values, insofar as it treats the perpetrator as a responsible party and makes sure that there is a serious response to transgression, rather than treating the person as incompetent or the transgression as trivial.
For serious offenses, the law provides fines, community service, and incarceration as possible penalties. It tries to establish a degree of proportionality, as a matter of justice, and to provide means of tempering justice with mercy, for a greater good, as with parole. However, proportionality is the primary consideration. The problem is that murder rates life with the possiblity of parole, and murder with some aggravating circumstances rates life without parole, but there are some murders that are so heinous that proportionality demands an even more severe penalty than life without parole, and for these, the death penalty is available.
People gave up seeking private justice on the premise that the state would be fairer in determining guilt, but also that it would have better resources to ensure that the perpetrator was brought to punishment. If people feel that the state will not bring people to justice, including executing the worst offenders, people will lose confidence in the system, making private revenge more likely.
I think this will do........ |
