Hoover Tuesdays by Benjamin De Mesel (KU Leuven)

This paper is the work (in progress) of an interdisciplinary working group consisting of philosophers, theologians, criminologists, political scientists and legal scholars. It addresses not only academics, but also policymakers, legal practitioners and the broader educated public. Our objective is to open a discussion about retribution. We begin from a puzzle about punishment in Belgium. On the one hand, over the past three decades punishment has become increasingly severe. Belgian prisons are overcrowded, leading to repeated condemnations for inhumane detention conditions. On the other hand, many people seem to believe that offenders are not being punished harshly or appropriately enough. We argue that this tension reveals a conceptual lack in current penal discourse. In particular, the idea of retribution has largely disappeared from official discourse about punishment. We suggest, counterintuitively, that a careful re-introduction of the idea of retribution may help to solve the puzzle.