ABSTRACT
Expressive and retributive justifications of punishment, then, are of doubtful validity in them, and, in addition fit better with more overtly barbaric penalties than imprisonment. A system of enforced controlled reparation as a punishment for small property crimes might well be practicable and would make far more sense from everyone’s point of view, including the victim’s than the costly and frequently counter-productive imprisonment of petty thieves. One view of punishment that is quite fashionable is that the state or society has a right or even a duty to express its disapproval of law-breakers in a ritual or symbolic way causing them pain. Civilized society and the law itself since the time of the Orestia can be seen as an attempt to sublimate and redirect in a more positive way the feelings that fuelled the natural and fruitlessly repetitive cycles of revenge that characterize earlier societies.
