ABSTRACT
This chapter identifies the central ethical issues and suggests contrasting sentencing views, and assert that each of the positions can be clarified and better assessed by needed attention to measurement. At least three types of retributive principles may be defined, with different consequences for the implementation of both retributive and utilitarian perspectives and for “hybrid” orientations. These are: negative retributivism, positive retributivism, and permissive retributivism. Positive retributivism may be more controversial when correlative principles are added, as in desert theory. For the panel on deterrence, Nagin reviewed more than twenty analyses directed at testing the deterrence hypothesis for non-capital sanctions. Policymakers in the criminal justice system are done a disservice if they are left with the impression that the empirical evidence, which they themselves are frequently unable to evaluate, strongly supports the deterrent hypothesis. Criminal codes often group offenses into categories that are ranked in presumed seriousness.
