Penal Desert and the Passage of Time

In this chapter, I address the question how – if at all – the mere passage of time affects how much punishment an offender deserves. I focus, in particular, on how the two main determinants of desert – wrongful harm, and culpability – are affected over time. I argue that subsequent events can affect both of these components in either direction. A wrongful harm is not on a unidirectional slide towards ‘historicisation’ but can experience ‘diachronic spikes’ in its significance. The agent’s culpability is importantly influenced by how he/she incorporates the crime into his/her personal history. Most importantly, the fact that penal desert-claims are made in respect of spatially-temporally extended beings that qualify as agents means that it matters for the question of desert when – and with how much delay – punishment for crime is imposed in the life-course of an offender

Archaeology · Geography · Political science · Colonialism, slavery, and trade · History · Law · Race, History, and American Society

• Overcoming Penal Boundaries

  Open Access•Netanel Dagan•The British Journal of Criminology•2022

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