ABSTRACT
RECENT YEARS HAVE SEEN a rise in public awareness of the problems surrounding the crim-
inal justice system. There have been debates on many aspects of the system such as sen-
tencing policy, the release of individuals deemed to be dangerous, the efficacy of custodial
sentences, alternatives to custody and the role of the police. Not entirely coincidentally, there
has also been an active philosophical debate which has attempted to find, in H.L.A. Hart’s
terms, a ‘general justifying aim’ of judicial punishment (Hart 1959). A few philosophers have
concluded that there is no such justification and that state punishment is unjust and should
be abolished (Bianchi 1986). Fewer still, however, claim that state punishment is justified in
its current form. This is a philosophical debate with urgent practical consequences, and there
are few areas in which philosophy has such a direct effect on public policy.
