The Place of Repentance in Retributive Sentencing

itay E. Lipschits, Academic Center of Law & business
Rinat Kitai-Sangero, Academic Center of Law & business

Abstract

ABSTRACT Repentance touches many aspects of life. It is basic to human relations. The article sets forth the normative reasons for taking repentance into account in the frame of criminal sentencing. Change that takes place in people should be recognized as a relevant measure for society's attitude toward them. The web of social relations among offender, victim, and society needs to permeate the criminal justice system and the considerations of punishment that it includes. Whoever wants to disconnect between the prevailing social reality, which attributes great interpersonal importance to repentance and forgiveness, and the question of how a person is punished in individual-state relations, has the burden of proof to show that the social reality is not worthy. If a person has a right to be punished as a consequence from her being a rational moral agent she may also repent her offense as an autonomous person. The repentance may change not only one's future but also illuminate her past.