Tough on Punishment: Criminal Justice, Deliberation, and Legal Alienation

Abstract

Abstract The literature on criminal justice in the last few years has been enriched by different studies connecting a concern with deliberative democracy with republican and egalitarian intuitions. This chapter takes that regulative ideal into account in order to reflect on certain real-life situations related to the application of criminal law in radically unequal societies, which suffer from high rates of criminality and ‘tough’ public responses to crime. The chapter is organized as follows. First, it describes the normative view, making some connections between criminal justice, a republican political philosophy, and a specific democratic theory, namely deliberative democracy. Second, it contrasts this normative theory with other alternative views, which also emphasize the importance of connecting (or re-connecting, or strengthening the connection between) criminal justice and democracy. Finally, this normative theory is used to reflect upon situations where the democratic legitimacy of the norms is heavily contested.