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A prison chaplain looks at punishment

Duce, Allan
June 4, 2015

Source: Draft prepared as a submission to the Guggenheim Foundation Project on Punishment.

In this paper, the Reverend Alan Duce, chaplain at a prison in England, seeks to bring Christian ideas and beliefs to bear on the complex and emotional issues of incarceration and punishment. The main topics of his essay are these: a discussion of the history and understanding of prison chaplaincy; the historical role of theology in relation to punishment, as well as contemporary theology and punishment; pertinent Biblical doctrines on human nature, guilt, punishment, repentance, forgiveness, and justice; and classic theories of punishment, especially retribution and utilitarianism.

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