Retributive Punishment and Revenge

Karsten J. Struhl

The move from cultures of revenge to societies with criminal justice systems and retributive punishment is undoubtedly a progressive historical development. However, it is by no means the case that revenge has disappeared. In this essay, I shall argue that revenge conceals itself precisely in legal retributive punishment. I also argue that legal retributive punishment is a substitution of public for pri- vate revenge and, therefore, a form of controlled revenge. I shall also explore the implications of these claims, implications that move in two very different politi- cal directions—as a reason to allow the victim more opportunity to express and exercise her emotions of revenge in the legal system; and as a reason to be suspi- cious of the retributive theory of punishment and the way in which it manifests itself in the criminal justice system.