A criminal law for citizens

Abstract

Rather than appealing to penal parsimony as a constraint on the otherwise insatiable demands of the criminal justice system, we should develop a positive account of the proper aims of criminal law which shows parsimony, or moderation, to be integral to those aims. We can do this by developing a republican conception of criminal law as a law that citizens impose on themselves: such a law will be modest in its scope, and will provide a criminal process of trial and punishment that addresses those subjected to it with the respect due to them as citizens.