Now, I don't think this follows. A strict retributivist like Kant,w ho think that the only reason for punishment is imposing the harms they deserve on those who deserve them in the exact amount they deserve, will not agree. He will want to avoid punishing the innocent or even punishing the guilty more than they deserve. The complications arise when we see that any procedures we have will be imperfect--missing some of the deserving, overpunishing some, and underpunishing others. Matters get even more complicated when we factor in other goals such as deterrence. True: but nothing in this commits us to saying that it is better that ten innocents are punished than one guilty person goes free.
Carrol might think that logically speaking this is true, but psychologically or sociologically, overpunishment will follow from a commitment to retributivism. I agree that we Americans are retributivist and that overpunishment is currently politically popular. But I don't see any necessity to this. I think it is a feature of a number of peculiar things about American society--our Puritan heritage, economic uncertainty, racism, etc. I note that retributivism is a virtual human universal, and other societies have retributive goals in their criminal justice systems without being as savage as we; and that in living memory we were not as savage as we are. In the 60's it seemed that the tendency was away from overpunishment.
So if one thinks, as I do, that retributivism will be hard to eradicate, and may be correct if not the only legitimate goal of criminal justice, then we will look at ways to discourage overpunishment _in part for retributive reasons_, because retributivism discourages the punishment of the innocent and overpunishing the guilty. I find some encouragement in the growing horror over the realization that we are executing people who are innocent of the crimes of which they have been convicted.
--jks
>
>
>Justin Schwartz wrote:
> > [clip]
> > criminal justice serves other goals and needs--partly retribution,
> > and partly even less justifiable needs, such as suppressing the parts of
>the
> > population that are its main object--the poor and minorities. --jks
> >
>
>I'm not sure how to develop this point, but it seems to me that at the
>present time the principle need (of the ruling class) that criminal
>justice serves is the need to have the population feel a need for the
>criminal justice system.
>
>....
>Retributive justice (or, more accurately, a public belief in retributive
>justice) corrupts the public realm. It is a major barrier to
>working-class unity and intertwines importantly with racism. It is
>better that a thousand disabled people receive no benefits than that one
>fake should receive any. Et cetera. You have to watch "those people."
>
>Carrol
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