Quote Originally Posted by MMI View Post
Mirroring the crime is tit-for-tat behaviour which might be appropriate for school playgrounds, but not for an advanced legal system, such as we have in England. It reduces the offence to somethng that can be cancelled out by an equivalent action, which is patent nonsense in a crime like murder. It brings judicial punishment down to the level of personal revenge, and it could lead to counter-retaliations and blood feuds. Look what happened in Iceland in Norse times.

Some offences are crimes against society: murder is one such. It is the duty of society to its citizens to capture murderers and to deal with them in a way that will protect society in the future. In doing so, they will set an appropriate penalty, or a range of penalties, according to acceptable standards, and they will sentence a convicted killer accordingly. Judicial punishment must be certain, measured and proportionate. It must be imposed dispassionately. Therefore the victim's family should not be allowed to influence that sentence, no matter how badly they feel about it.

That's justice.
You could look at it as tit-for-tat, but like I said, it goes back to the 'eye for an eye' thing. As far as what happened in Iceland in Norse times I have no idea what you're talking about...I might look it up. You say "judicial punishment must be certain, measured, and proportionate..." which doesn't contradict my submitted idea. You go on to say that "it must be imposed dispassionately." I agree. Just because I feel it is justice in the truest sense for an offender to endure his own offense does not mean I believe that the punishment should be given out of passion, and I never mentioned anything about the family being able to influence the sentence. So it really seems like your definition of justice is not too much different than mine. You just disagree that an offender should endure his own offense.

Your arguments seem to be that if such a sentence were imparted, it would be a passionate rather than an objective one; that such a sentence would not cancel out the crime and therefore not a valid punishment; that such punishments could "lead to counter-retaliations and blood-fueds"; and that the victim or victim's family would have some influence in such a sentence.

-->I disagree that such a sentence would inherently be passionate. That argument would have to extend to the death penalty as well, saying that if the death penalty were to be imparted then the sentence would have been one of feelings and not merit.

-->No sentence cancels out a crime. The fact that this punishment wouldn't says nothing either way about the validity of the punishment...show me a punishment for which this argument doesn't apply.

-->I can't speak to your Icelandic example until I have some idea what you're talking about.

-->Lastly, why do you assume that the victim/victim's family would have influenced the punishment if one such punishment were to be imparted?