About | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline Law Journal Library | HeinOnline
LOG IN
LOG IN

32 Crim. Just. Ethics 1 (2013)
Punishment, Contempt, and the Prospect of Moral Reform

handle is hein.journals/crimjeth32 and id is 5 raw text is: Criminal Justice Ethics, 2013 Vol. 32, No. 1, 1- 18, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0731129X.2013.777250 I Routledge Taylor &rancis Group ARTICLE Punishment, Contempt, and the Prospect of Moral Reform ZACHARY HOSKINS* This paper objects to certain forms of punishments, such as supermax confinement, on grounds that they are inappropriately contemptuous. Building on discussions in Kant and elsewhere, I flesh out what I take to be salient features of contempt,features that make contempt especially troubling as a form of moral regard and treatment. As problematic as contempt may be in the interpersonal context, I contend that it is especially troubling when a person is treated contemptuously by her political community's institutions-such as by certain forms of punishment. Punishment is contemptuous if it fails to respect offenders as moral persons, who as such are always capable of moral reform. Respect for offenders therefore requires, at least, that punishment not tend to undermine the prospect of offenders' reform. I flesh out this constraint by considering various ways in which punishments may tend to undermine offenders' reform. In particular, Idiscuss ways in which supermax confinement tends to violate the reform-based constraint. Finally, I address several potential objections to my account. Keywords: Punishment, contempt, moral reform It's pretty much like not living. You're locked in a cell twenty-three hours a day... That's it. Sit in the house, watch TV, listen to the radio if you have those ... It's boredom, a real intense boredom. No outside air ... you can't see out the windows. They don't treat you bad, but it's just that everything is so impersonal. It's like dealing with automatons. (Anonymous supermax inmate, Washington State') 1. Supermaximum-security units, or supermaxes, are prison facilities de- signed to house inmates considered *Zachary Hoskins is a Research Fellow at the Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice, University of Minnesota, USA. Email: zhoskins@umn.edu especially dangerous apart from the general prison population. Prisoners in supermaxes typically spend all but one or two hours each day alone in their cells, many of which have frosted windows, or no windows at all, to prevent prisoners from seeing out. Fluorescent lights that never () 2013 John Jay College of Criminal Justice of The City University of New York

What Is HeinOnline?

HeinOnline is a subscription-based resource containing thousands of academic and legal journals from inception; complete coverage of government documents such as U.S. Statutes at Large, U.S. Code, Federal Register, Code of Federal Regulations, U.S. Reports, and much more. Documents are image-based, fully searchable PDFs with the authority of print combined with the accessibility of a user-friendly and powerful database. For more information, request a quote or trial for your organization below.



Short-term subscription options include 24 hours, 48 hours, or 1 week to HeinOnline.

Purchase Access

Contact us for annual subscription options:

Contact Us

Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?

Log In

profiles profiles most