ABSTRACT
We are arguing that in exceptional conditions it may be legitimate to inflict suffering as a technique of social control or policy, without relation to offences under rules, just as we detain lunatics or enemy aliens. Such suffering is not, however, in the primary sense of the word, 'punishment', and is not therefore objectionable as 'punishment of the innocent' (though it may be on other grounds). It is only when it is deliberately inflicted on the pretext of guilt that it is open to the retributivist objections. The short answer to the critics of utilitarian theories of punishment, is that they are theories of 'punishment', not of any sort of technique involving suffering.
