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Criminalizing Dangerousness: How to Preventively Detain Dangerous Offenders

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Abstract

I defend a form of preventive detention through the creation of an offence of ‘being a persistent violent dangerous offender’ (PVDO). This differs from alternative proposals and actual habitual offender laws that impose extra periods of incarceration on offenders after they have completed the sentence for their most recent crime(s) or as a result of a certain number of prior convictions (as in three strikes laws). I, instead, would make ‘being a persistent violent dangerous offender’ an offence itself. Persons to be preventively detained (imprisoned) would be tried and convicted of this offence (on the usual standards of proof and after a criminal trial in which they enjoyed all the normal protections of due process and just criminal procedure). My approach would then have one significant advantage: provided the elements of being a PVDO could be rendered sufficiently determinate, punishing persons under such an offence would comport with central rule of law values, most importantly legality and fair notice, as well as principles of proportionality in sentencing.

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Notes

  1. Duff (1998).

  2. Duff (1998, p. 161).

  3. Tonry (2006, p. 2).

  4. Tonry (2006, p. 11).

  5. Tonry (2006, p. 13).

  6. Tonry (2006, p. 31).

  7. Tonry (2006, p. 31).

  8. Tonry (2006, pp. 31–32).

  9. Floud and Young (1981).

  10. Walker (1982, pp. 282–283).

  11. Halliday et al. (2011, p. 538).

  12. Though increased use of compensatory awards paid to victims as part of criminal punishments could (partially) mitigate the impact of, at least, many crimes.

  13. Feeley and Simon (1992, p. 452).

  14. Feeley and Simon (1992, p. 455).

  15. Feeley and Simon (1992, p. 457).

  16. Feeley and Simon (1992, p. 458).

  17. Feeley and Simon (1992, p. 458). One might quibble with the claim that judgments about offenders’ character play no role in selective incapacitation when that strategy proceeds from assessments of ‘dangerousness’. And one might have hoped that the flip side Feeley and Simon identified—which would see lighter sentences imposed on lower-risk offenders—would have been followed more fully, rather than the steady escalation of all sentences, including those imposed on low-risk offenders, that we have seen.

  18. Zedner (2007, p. 261).

  19. Zedner (2007, p. 262).

  20. Zedner (2007, p. 262).

  21. Zedner (2007, p. 263).

  22. Zedner (2007, p. 264).

  23. Zedner (2007, p. 265).

  24. How violence is understood in criminal law has been explored by Alice Ristroph in an excellent article: Ristroph (2011).

  25. The distinction between attacks and endangerments is Duff’s: Duff (2007, Chap. 7).

  26. Though, as Stephen Morse points out, the U.S. Supreme Court has refused to make violence a constitutional requirement for civil commitment after an insanity plea: Morse (2004, fn. 36).

  27. O’Hear (2011).

  28. Husak (1998).

  29. Husak (1998).

  30. Duff (2007, pp. 106–107).

  31. Dimock (2012).

  32. Dimock (2012).

  33. Ashworth (2011).

  34. Duff (1998, p. 141).

  35. Duff (1998, p. 141).

  36. On the need to confine the dangerous offender laws to only seriously violent offenders, rather than just habitual offenders or recidivists, see Katkin (1972).

  37. Duff (1998, p. 152), quoting Morris (1992).

  38. Duff (1998, p. 153).

  39. Duff (1998, p. 155).

  40. Duff (1998, p. 155).

  41. On age as predictor of future violence: Gottfredson and Gottfredson (1994, p. 457); Robinson (1988, p. 23, fn. 17; Robinson (2001, p. 1451); and Robinson (2010, p. 1102).

  42. Walker (1982, p. 276).

  43. Gordon (1982, p. 300).

  44. Gordon (1982, p. 300).

  45. Walker (1982, p. 277).

  46. Morris and Miller (1985, p. 6).

  47. Morris and Miller (1985, p. 11).

  48. Morris and Miller (1985, p. 16).

  49. Morris and Miller (1985, p. 17).

  50. Morris and Miller (1985, p. 18) internal notes omitted.

  51. Morris and Miller (1985, p. 21).

  52. Morris and Miller (1985, p. 18).

  53. Modifying Morris and Miller (1985, p. 27).

  54. Robinson (1993).

  55. Robinson (2001).

  56. Robinson (2001, p. 1432), references to Webster’s New College Dictionary omitted.

  57. Robinson (2001, p. 1438).

  58. Robinson (2001, p. 1446).

  59. Robinson (2001, p. 1446).

  60. Robinson (2001, p. 1447). I’m not sure that something like ‘the least intrusive restraint adequate for protection’ and the entitlement to treatment where possible are not requirements even within deserved punishments for more standard crimes, however, so I’m not sure that this is quite the right position to take on these two issues. My contractarian inclinations might justify both a ‘minimum-restraint principle’ and an entitlement to services that would conduce to law-abidingness, but here I grant Robinson his assumptions to the contrary arguendo.

  61. Robinson (2001, p. 1450).

  62. Robinson (2001, p. 1452).

  63. On the need for clear communication with offenders to achieve the deterrent ambitions of the law, see Robinson and Darley (2003).

  64. Conrad (1982).

  65. Morris and Miller (1985, p. 21); Floud and Young (1981, p. xvii).

  66. Morris and Miller (1985, pp. 23-24) internal notes omitted.

  67. Floud and Young (1981, p. 55).

  68. Honderich (1982, p. 274).

  69. Montague (1999, p. 177).

  70. Montague (1999, p. 178).

  71. Finkelstein (2003) and (2013).

  72. Duff call such harms “secondary harms”: Duff (2005, p. 51).

  73. As, for example, Alexander and Ferzan (2008) would require.

  74. Victor Tadros defended something like this view at a workshop, and I think he was right to do so.

  75. Sorell (2011, p. 6). His topic is the more limited case of terrorism, rather than crimes of violence generally.

  76. Thus I largely agree with Ferzan’s treatment of self-defence in (2008).

  77. Morse (2004, p. 69).

  78. Morse (2004, p. 56).

  79. See Dimock (1997).

  80. Ashworth (2011, p. 242).

  81. Morris and Miller (1985, p. 14).

  82. Duff (1998); Bottoms and Brownsword (1982).

  83. Von Hirsch and Wasik (1997, p. 607).

  84. Gottfredson and Gottfredson (1994, p. 443).

  85. Robinson (2010, p. 1101).

  86. Morris and Miller (1985, p. 14 fn. 12).

  87. Morse (1994, 1996, 2002, 2004, 2011).

  88. Gottfredson and Gottfredson (1994, p. 462).

  89. Tonry (2006, pp. 32–34).

  90. Robinson (1997, p. 218), § 51 of his Draft Code of Conduct. He would require at least recklessness with respect to the risk: p. 225, § 200 of his Draft Code of Adjudication. Referenced in Duff (2005, p. 57, fn. 59).

  91. Morse (1994, 1996, 2002, 2004, 2011); Lippke (2008); objections to the blurring of retributive and preventive functions within criminal law have also been raised by Robinson (op. cit.).

  92. Lippke (2008, pp. 404–405).

  93. Hudson (1998) remains one of the best treatments of the issue.

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Acknowledgments

Thanks to Antony Duff, Andrew Ashworth and Lucia Zedner for inviting me to participate in that thought-provoking event, to the many participants from whose insights I learned so much, and special thanks to my official commentator—Patrick Tomlin—whose comments forced me to rethink a number of fundamental issues in the paper and whose generosity has made the paper better than it would otherwise have been. Thanks are also due to participants of the CS-IVR meeting, June 1, 2013, especially Marc Ramsay.

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  1. York University, Toronto, Canada

    Susan Dimock

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  1. Susan Dimock
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Correspondence to Susan Dimock.

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This paper was originally prepared for the Robina Workshop on Preventive Justice, University of Minnesota Law School, September 21–22, 2012.

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Dimock, S. Criminalizing Dangerousness: How to Preventively Detain Dangerous Offenders. Criminal Law, Philosophy 9, 537–560 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11572-013-9270-5

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