ABSTRACT
If every crime represents a failure in moral learning – on the part of the offender, his/her community, and possibly the surrounding society – then every crime also presents an opportunity for moral learning. Just as the child accepting a treat is caught before running away and admonished to say ‘thank you,’the offender is caught in the act of turning away from moral and legal norms and punished. The analogy holds over a broad range of aims in criminal justice: correcting the offender, restoring social order and security, repairing harm to the victim, re-affirming moral values or rectifying a moral imbalance, and reminding all observers of the public will. All these aims are moral, for morality includes both person and society, intention and act, correcting and healing, and values and goods.
