Not just deserts

the long version

The authors of this book attack currently favoured retributivist theories of punishment, arguing that the criminal justice system is so integrated that sentencing policy has to be considered in the system-wide context. They offer a comprehensive theory of criminal justice which draws on a philosophically nuanced view of the good and the right, and which points the way to practical intervention in the real world of incremental reform. They put the case for a criminal justice system which maximizes freedom in the old republican sense of that term, and which they call "dominion". John Braithwaite's previous book was "Crime, Shame and Reintegration" and Philip Pettit has previously written "Judging Justice: An Introduction to Contemporary Political Philosophy", "The Good Polity" and has edited "Subject, Thought and Context".