Looking Beyond Risk in Paroling Denying Prisoners

Abstract

This paper offers an additional theoretical perspective to the "Catch-22" problem as discussed in Assy and Menashe's article, which appeared in the December 2014 issue of Criminal Justice and Behavior. It offers to look beyond risk in the discussion about parole of denying prisoners. By focusing on the retributive meaning of the problem, the paper offers an additional framework to discuss the magnitude of the problem (via proportionality analysis), and the overt and covert forces that influence a parole board's discretion in action (via character retributivism analysis).

Retributive Considerations in Parole Proceedings

“…The detailed discussion of the factors mentioned above cannot be easily dispensed with, nor can discussion of them be described categorically as a mask for retribution and moral condemnation. Indeed, Dagan (2015) is careful enough to stress that such considerations are not necessarily the only considerations in play and that risk remains the main issue.…”

“…Against this background, "Looking Beyond Risk in Paroling Denying Prisoners" provides a refreshing analysis that puts the topic in a new light (Dagan, 2015). Netanel Dagan suggests looking beyond the rhetoric of risk.…”

“…This line of thinking may be described as a form of legal realism, which is a legal scholarship whose basic idea is that the law in action differs from the law in the book, and that judges make decisions based on considerations other than those that they state in their decisions (Freeman, 2014). From this standpoint, Dagan (2015) argues that we cannot entirely understand what parole boards and courts really do merely by looking at the risk-assessment reasoning in which they explain their decisions. We must also look beneath the written word.…”