Gurnham, D. (2003) ‘The moral narrative of criminal responsibility and the principled
justification of tariffs for murder: Myra Hindley and Thompson and Venables’, Legal
Studies, 23 (4) pp.605-623
The cases
A uniquely evil woman: Myra Hindley (p608)
- Whole life tariff upheld in 1997
- Convicted in 1966 – sadistic child murders
- Shortly before Hindley’s death in 2002, the Court of Appeal directed that in cases
involving the sexual or sadistic murder of children, trial judges should recommend a
minimum prison term that offers little or no hope of the offenders eventual release,
or else decline to set a minimum term at all.
Two little animals: Thompson and Venables (p608-9)
- Released after 8 years
- Horrific due to their conviction in 1993 for the murder of 2 year old Jamie Bulger
when they were both 11 years old
- Following a ruling in the European Court of Human Rights that tariffs should be set
by an independent and impartial tribunal, Lord Woolf CJ decided that after having
served 8 years in a YOI, the prisoners should be released rather than transferred to a
adult prison.
- Reasons relate almost entirely to considerations of character reform: he accepted
psychiatric evidence that strongly indicated an impressive reform of character on the
part of both prisoners while in their separate secure units, praised them for having
done all that is open to them to redeem themselves
Retributivist justifications of punishment
The resurgence of retributivism
- Resurgence in recent years due at least in part to a growing perception that the CJS
is ineffective in deterring or reforming criminals.
- Liberal perspective: retributivism represents the only principled justification of
punishment as it is founded on the idea that punishment is in itself a rightful
response to an offender who we can regard as having been responsible for a crime.
- The resulting justification for punishment is simply that a criminal wrong has been
committed, and that the person responsible for it should suffer a proportional
degree of ‘pain’
- Retribution: polite word for base and barbarous revenge which, inflicting gratuitous
suffering, cannot be conceived as good in itself – Utilitarians
- For utilitarians, punishment is only justified if its consequences can be regarded as
good, for example offender is reformed or others are deterred.
justification of tariffs for murder: Myra Hindley and Thompson and Venables’, Legal
Studies, 23 (4) pp.605-623
The cases
A uniquely evil woman: Myra Hindley (p608)
- Whole life tariff upheld in 1997
- Convicted in 1966 – sadistic child murders
- Shortly before Hindley’s death in 2002, the Court of Appeal directed that in cases
involving the sexual or sadistic murder of children, trial judges should recommend a
minimum prison term that offers little or no hope of the offenders eventual release,
or else decline to set a minimum term at all.
Two little animals: Thompson and Venables (p608-9)
- Released after 8 years
- Horrific due to their conviction in 1993 for the murder of 2 year old Jamie Bulger
when they were both 11 years old
- Following a ruling in the European Court of Human Rights that tariffs should be set
by an independent and impartial tribunal, Lord Woolf CJ decided that after having
served 8 years in a YOI, the prisoners should be released rather than transferred to a
adult prison.
- Reasons relate almost entirely to considerations of character reform: he accepted
psychiatric evidence that strongly indicated an impressive reform of character on the
part of both prisoners while in their separate secure units, praised them for having
done all that is open to them to redeem themselves
Retributivist justifications of punishment
The resurgence of retributivism
- Resurgence in recent years due at least in part to a growing perception that the CJS
is ineffective in deterring or reforming criminals.
- Liberal perspective: retributivism represents the only principled justification of
punishment as it is founded on the idea that punishment is in itself a rightful
response to an offender who we can regard as having been responsible for a crime.
- The resulting justification for punishment is simply that a criminal wrong has been
committed, and that the person responsible for it should suffer a proportional
degree of ‘pain’
- Retribution: polite word for base and barbarous revenge which, inflicting gratuitous
suffering, cannot be conceived as good in itself – Utilitarians
- For utilitarians, punishment is only justified if its consequences can be regarded as
good, for example offender is reformed or others are deterred.
