Justice as Retribution: Revenge, Just Deserts, and Punishment

Introduction

Over the past decade, there has been a paradigm shift in the legal system, one that has seen the adoption of punitive punishment across the globe. The shift toward "punitive populism" has resulted in an increase in imprisonment rates and, consequently, an increase in the number of offenders in prison. The prison population is worrying, with current statistics suggesting a twofold rise. If the witnessed trends are maintained, the number of prisoners could double within a short period, leading to adverse effects — most notably a significant burden of cost and maintenance that taxpayers will have to bear (Allen 41–42).

It is difficult to determine precisely why people call for harsh punishment for criminal offenders, but speculation suggests that the guiding motivation appears to be the pursuit of retribution. Retribution — also known as inter alia — is defined as the advocacy of penalty to restore justice and equilibrium in society. It also qualifies as a preference for retaliation and an expression of vindictiveness. Overall, there is a lack of adequate research on retribution, which has resulted in insufficient and varied definitions of the term. Notably, there are two main approaches to retribution.

On one hand, retribution is associated with restoring a sense of justice by obtaining or demanding compensation proportional to the damages suffered by the victim (retribution as just deserts). On the other hand, it is the less constructive use of punishment to take revenge on the offender and make them suffer (retribution as a form of revenge). These two dimensions do not show clear empirical differences. Although some studies suggest a variation between them, it remains difficult to understand how justice can take the form of purely punitive punishment (Barton 12–80).

Social justice, which is most applicable in community justice settings, is defined as the attempt to restore society through a partnership between local government, the private sector, and the community. This approach collectively addresses crime prevention and justice, but offers new ways of thinking that move away from retribution. In most cases, community justice draws heavily from the concepts of restorative justice. Many studies have provided empirical evidence suggesting that restorative justice is the focal point of community justice, which aims at developing community safety and establishing desired justice outcomes beyond retribution (Clear and John 3–4).

Community justice also borrows from a wide range of ideas, including community crime prevention, community policing, restorative justice sanctioning approaches, and others. In order to clarify the meaning of retribution and further assess whether the approach constitutes a genuine form of justice, this paper evaluates the goals of punishment that arise from the practice of sentencing. Retribution as revenge, however, arises from divergent ideological views evident in group-based dominance as outlined by Social Dominance Orientation (SDO), and collective security as outlined by Right Wing Authoritarianism (RWA). Notably, harsh punishments given to offenders show a positive correlation with and support for the concept of retribution as revenge (Pratto et al. 741–763).

Background: Goals of Punishment and Retributive Objectives

The goals of any justice system are to deliver justice to the victim, which makes it apparent that the purpose of justice is to punish wrongdoers or offenders. In doing so, the justice system fulfills its role of delivering justice to victims. However, people's perceptions of the purpose of punishment fall into two broad categories: instrumental objectives and retributive objectives. Instrumental objectives provide justification in the context of future benefits — namely, the possibility of reduced crime. While there is some likelihood of achieving this objective (Carlsmith, Darley, and Robinson 284–299), research suggests that this approach tends to lead to retaliation rather than the prevention of future wrongdoing.

Retributive objectives, by contrast, are central to the idea that criminal offenders deserve punishment because they have violated society's rules, and that such punishment must be proportional to the crimes committed. Additionally, the intensity of a punishment should reflect the perceived seriousness of the offense, the offender's intent, and their degree of accountability. While retribution appears to correlate with the repayment of harmful acts, this approach also encompasses numerous non-instrumental elements of punishment, such as concerns about justice, proportionality, morality, social cohesion, and retaliation for the offense.

These elements offer a path to measuring retribution and have prompted numerous studies in this field. Research argues for retribution as both just deserts and as revenge. In the first case, the offender repays the harm inflicted on victims, thereby achieving justice. This restoration of justice is accomplished through proportionality and a fair process (Barton 12–80). By clearing the moral debt, there is a redistribution of negative and positive experiences, and social equilibrium is restored. However, a fair process is required, one that calibrates the severity of punishment to the seriousness of the offense.

In the case of retribution as revenge, people seek punishment not only as a means to achieve equilibrium but also as outright retaliation. Here, it is the society that evens the score with the offender, rather than the offender simply compensating for committed crimes. The concept of revenge always involves the emotional satisfaction of witnessing the offender suffer. Two important lessons emerge from this perspective: the severity of the offense does not necessarily set an upper boundary on the harshness of punishment, and equilibrium is considered achieved even if the suffering imposed by punishment exceeds the seriousness of the crime.

Importance of the Study and Research Questions

There is a general consensus that the justice system is fair in administering justice to both the offender and the victim. Additionally, it is widely accepted that someone must answer for crimes committed and the suffering inflicted on innocent people, as a means of reducing or eliminating criminal activity. In doing so, there is a sense that justice has been achieved for both parties. What many people overlook is that justice can function as a form of revenge — a proposition that most tend to resist. The topic is highly debatable, and studying it closely will provide insight into judicial sentencing. Such research will also yield substantial information on the conceptual arguments of sociology, philosophy, politics, and economics and their relationship to the administration of justice.

The following research questions guide the investigation for this paper:

1) Is retribution based on the concept of the victim getting back at the offender in order to make them suffer (retribution as revenge)?

2) Is justice genuinely achieved through retribution?

Literature Review

Retribution is central to the desire that criminal offenders experience their "just deserts" — receiving what is rightfully owed as a consequence of their actions. This desire for "just deserts" is apparent in the concept of "an eye for an eye," which is core to the lex talionis, from which the principle of "retaliation" derives. In the biblical context, the law books provide a series of rules specifying punishments for different offenses. The law of retaliation holds that a criminal offender should suffer the same injury they inflicted on the victim. The desire for just deserts also appears as a requirement for moral equilibrium, since offenders must pay a moral debt (Jacoby 115).

Prior studies further suggest a correlation between vengeance and justice, because both aim at making the world a fairer place by achieving moral balance. There is a significant relationship between revenge and punishment: revenge is inclined toward returning harm equal in measure to the harm suffered. This is the objective of the lex talionis, which aims to ensure the balance of the moral world using proportional harms — an eye for an eye, not two eyes for an eye. As one aspect of justice, vengeance is therefore instrumental in realizing a balance of harms. The key distinction between retributive punishment in the administration of justice and simple revenge is that retributive punishment operates through structured institutions (Heather and Strang 55–76).

These institutions separate the moral balancing act from the emotional perspective of the individual victim. It is this notion of balancing harms as a means to restore equilibrium that many theorists reject, leading them also to reject the punitive and retributive justice described in the biblical law books. Some scholars have criticized the criminal justice system for two main reasons: first, they argue that it has failed because it relies on traditional court-based responses that are fundamentally retributive; and second, they contend that the criminal justice system therefore aims primarily at achieving retaliation and punishment — that is, retributive justice (McKee and Feather 138–163).

Within the framework of restorative justice, a number of prior studies argue that punishment, retribution, and retributive justice are incompatible with restoration. In the proper sense of these critiques, both "retribution" and "retributive" refer to punishment imposed on a wrongdoer as a form of just deserts — meaning the wrongdoer deserves the punishment because they brought it upon themselves. The concept of just deserts in retribution thus refers to the rationale behind punishment: arising from the offense, the justice system opts for repayment as a way to restore balance by punishing the offender (Barton 41–53).

Contemporary philosophers have largely patronized retributive punishment. Some suggest that retributive justice is the infliction of physical punishment as a deserved response to a moral evil. Many Christian thinkers have absorbed much of the Old Testament framework while attempting to avoid the pursuit of personal vengeance — a tension rooted in the lex talionis paradigm (Jacoby 115). Some scholars therefore argue that Christians should lead campaigns against retribution and advocate instead for community or social justice. They maintain that social justice does not support revenge, and numerous studies have supported this position. Offenders participating in community service programs have demonstrated significant capacity for positive change in community settings.

Empirical data have shown that community programs instill values that reduce reconviction rates. Offenders who have experienced community justice report it as a worthwhile approach, characterized by high levels of engagement with opportunities to learn new skills and to contribute work of genuine value. Studies further suggest that requiring criminal offenders to work within a given community — even where they are separated from volunteers and identified through conspicuous uniforms — effectively communicates that they can offer something meaningful to society (Antony 38–41).

Community or social justice as an alternative to retribution therefore appears likely to offer better outcomes. Some studies suggest that retribution functions as a form of shaming, and that the visibility of community service as punishment can restore that sense of accountability without purely punitive effects. Based on the available data, however, re-conviction figures for community sentences and custody show outcomes that many scholars predict in advance. In practical terms, community sentences as currently structured lack strong empirical proof of superiority, meaning that prison remains the most commonly relied-upon option (Pease 7). Nevertheless, more robust community sentence regimes may eventually surpass imprisonment as the preferred strategy for reducing re-conviction rates.

Conclusion

For this paper, it is apparent that a connection exists between retribution as a form of justice and retribution as a form of revenge. On one hand, retribution as revenge refers to the desire to get even with a criminal offender by making them endure the same harm they inflicted, or any comparable suffering. On the other hand, retribution as just deserts refers to the desire to restore justice by giving the criminal offender the opportunity to compensate proportionally for the harm inflicted. The two approaches differ in how they prefer to treat criminal offenders. This study also provides information on people who are high in SDO and RWA (Wenzel and Thielmann 457–459).

Both SDO and RWA differ in how their adherents perceive retribution; however, a significant commonality is that both orientations support punitive policies. Arguing from the content of this research paper, various studies have offered critiques of the retributive model. It is apparent that retribution is, in essence, another form of revenge — even if the justice system frames it otherwise. The ultimate goal of the justice system is to reduce crime rates and criminal offending. Viewed from this angle, the mechanism employed is retribution, a form of revenge intended to achieve justice for both the victim and the offender.

The offender receives a jail term, a fine, or both, and through this process the victim experiences a sense of justice. However, this is a purely punitive method that yields limited positive results for the future, given that imprisonment does not reliably deter or reduce criminal behavior. A number of prior studies have proposed community justice as a more appropriate alternative to retribution. In contrast to purely punitive approaches, community justice allows the offender to feel that they can contribute something positive to society. Community justice has the capacity to instill positive values in offenders, reducing re-offending and enabling former offenders to participate constructively in community development. Although empirical evidence remains limited, existing studies advocate for community justice as a meaningful and promising alternative to retribution.

Works Cited

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