On Abolitionism - Crime and Consequences
When: Thursday, October 22, 2026, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Where: Online or in-person at Room 313, Third Floor, School of Law Building, Queen Mary University of London, Mile End Road,London E1 4NS
Does the state have the legitimate authority to punish for crimes? It seems so obvious that it does, that this foundational question is relatively underexplored. But, on closer examination, I argue that none of the handful of existing defences of the state’s authority to punish convince. I therefore adapt the Razian argument on the state’s authority to issue peremptory legal guidance, to propose that the state’s ability to legitimately respond coercively to crime depends on its ability to convince enough of its individual subjects that, on the whole, it is better for them to treat the state as if it has the authority to coercively respond to crime, than to not do so. This depends on the state managing to convince enough of its subjects that, in general, they will be more successful at leading the flourishing lives they genuinely and enduringly desire, by accepting the state’s coercive responses to criminality, than by rejecting them. I briefly outline how I think it could do so. Drawing on recent criminological literature, I suggest that the state must eschew paradigmatic forms of punishment, and instead, (a) help offenders–coercively if necessary–take responsibility for and address their criminality without letting it define them, and (b) offer victims help with coming to terms with the trauma of having been victimised, such that each can go on to lead the most flourishing and socially productive life available to them.
Speakers
Mark Dsouza is an Associate Professor in Criminal Law at UCL. Dr Dsouza’s principal research interest is in the theory and philosophy of the criminal law. His doctoral thesis was converted into a monograph titled Rationale-Based Defences in Criminal Law, and published by Hart Publishing in May 2017. He won the 2020 award for the Best Paper awarded by the Society of Legal Scholars for his paper 'Beyond Acts and Omissions: Remark-able Criminal Conduct', on the theory of the act-omission distinction in the criminal law. Additionally, he has written case comments for the Cambridge Law Review and Archbold Review and his essays on the legitimacy of the death penalty and on artificial intelligence and substantive criminal law have appeared in collections of essays published in 2018 and 2020.
Alan Norrie is Professor of Law at the University of Warwick. Alan is interested in the critical and historical analysis of criminal law, in its ethical and doctrinal problems, and most recently, in ideas of violation, guilt and forgiveness. His background is in socio-legal theory and in critical realist and dialectical philosophy. His recent book, Rethinking Criminal Justice: Punishment, Abolition and Moral Psychology (Cambridge University Press, 2025) argues for a deep, tendential abolitionism in relation to violative relations and penal theory.