This volume examines scholarly and lay thinking about punishment of people convicted of crimes with particular emphasis on "making the punishment fit the crime." The contributors challenge the most prevalent current theories and emphasize the need for a shift away from the politicized emotionalism of recent decades. They argue that theories that coincided with mass incarceration and rampant injustice to countless individuals are evolving in ways that better countenance moving toward more humane and thoughtful approaches.

• Preface


• Michael Tonry


• 1. Is Proportionality in Punishment Possible, and Achievable?


• Michael Tonry


• 2. Weighing Relative and Absolute Proportionality in Punishment


• Göran Duus-Otterström


• 3. Proportionality and the Seriousness of Crimes


• Jesper Ryberg


• 4. The Place of Proportionality in Penal Theory: Or Re-thinking Thinking about Punishment


• Matt Matravers


• 5. The Metric of Punishment Severity: A Puzzle about the Principle of Proportionality


• Douglas Husak


• 6. Penal Severity and the Modern State


• Richard L. Lippke


• 7. The Time of Punishment: Proportionality and the Sentencing of Historic Crimes


• Julian V. Roberts


• 8. The Time Frame Challenge to Retributivism


• Adam J. Kolber


• 9. Humane Neoclassicism: Proportionality and Other Values in Nordic Sentencing


• Tapio Lappi-Seppälä

Michael Tonry is McKnight Presidential Professor of Law and Public Policy at the University of Minnesota. He has published a number of books and articles in the US and Europe and taught at the Universities of Cambridge, Lausanne, and Minnesota.