ABSTRACT
Sociologists of punishment have long recognized that both crime and punishment serve important and useful social functions. Punishment of crime is always a passionate collective reaction to violations of this core, shared beliefs; its rituals are important as a means of allowing us to communicate, reaffirm and reinforce them. The notions of crime and punishment as, respectively, a stimulus for and crucible of moral communication suggest the possibility of positive framings of the challenges posed by crime. The lived experience of rehabilitation and reintegration is a social project as well as a personal one. However, even if justice is properly understood as a constitutive good of the good society, it is also a productive good for humanity. Perhaps the simplest way to sum this up is in the common slogan. Without justice there is no peace. Positive penal power can easily become decoupled from the constraints of the metaphor of balance.
