Legal Question in Criminal Law in West Virginia

Re: Retribution and deterrence

That's more of a philosophical or "academic" question than a legal one. Not one your likely to encounter as an actual paralegal.

Essentially, retribution and deterrence are among the objectives of an organized legal system.

Persons who believe they have been wronged must believe they can seek and obtain adequate retribution from a wrongdoer in order for the them to maintain faith in the legal system and not feel compelled to "take the law into their own hands." If someone steals or wrongfully obtains property they are required to return or reimburse for the property and often face penal sanctions. From a "retribution" standpoint, the objective is making the particular wronged person feel satisfied that the wrongdoer has paid for his or her wrong.

"Deterrence" is an objective that pertains to the broader society. We want to deter people from doing wrong. A person considering a wrongful act must believe that he will be caught and punished if he does so. We seek to deter people who have already committed wrongs from doing so again, and we also want to "make an example" of the wrongdoer to deter others.

"Utilitarianism" is a philosophical school of thought whose most famous proponent was Jeremy Bentham. Basically, the idea is that decisions should be based upon the "utility" of the various choices. I suppose, in your text the idea is that a legal system must recognize the various choices for establishing laws, setting sanctions and applying them to particular conduct. Sometimes choices are in harmony (i.e. the same choice will maximize positive outcomes and minimize negative outcomes) and sometimes they are not (i.e. a choice might maximize one positive outcome but minimize another positive outcome or maximize a negative outcome). From a utilitarian perspective, one must determine which choice (or group of choices) will provide the most benefit and the least harm.

Of course, the hard part is reaching agreement on what constitutes benefit and what constitutes harm. Also, a choice that provides a great deal of benefit to one class of people might harm another.

I guess that the idea of your text is that the legal system is of greater worth when it maximizes orderly retribution and deterrence and that when assessing the strentgh of a particular system or component of the system one should determine what it believes the objectives of the system are or should be and how well the system or component aids in achieving those objectives.

This is of course, a gross over-simplification.