 Punishment and Precious Emotions: A Hope Standard for PunishmentKimberley Brownlee Oxford Journal of Legal Studies, 2021, vol. 41, issue 3, 589-611 Abstract: —Each year, hundreds of people in high-income countries take their own lives while they are in prison. Thousands engage in self-harm and thousands abuse other prisoners. Such behaviours often correlate with mental health problems, but they are also often pleas for help and for hope. Some courts have invoked the ideas of hope and the right to hope in the context of life imprisonment, but they have neither subjected the concept of hope to sustained analysis nor specified the role that hope should play in our practices of lawful punishment overall. This article offers a preliminary investigation of the role for hope in lawful punishment. It argues that one standard that both individual modes of punishment and overall systems of punishment must meet to be morally justifiable is that they be compatible with a reasonable person retaining hope both in the present and for his future after punishment. Such a hope standard narrows the scope of legitimate modes of punishment. Keywords: emotions; hope; life imprisonment; prison; punishment; self-harm; suicide (search for similar items in EconPapers) Downloads: (external link) Related works: Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:oup:oxjlsj:v:41:y:2021:i:3:p:589-611. Access Statistics for this article Oxford Journal of Legal Studies is currently edited by Liz Fisher, Stefan Enchelmaier, Andreas Televantos, Liora Lazarus and Jennifer Payne More articles in Oxford Journal of Legal Studies from Oxford University Press |
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