Abstract:

Justice has always been reckoned as one of the fundamental political virtues. The ideal of justice enables people to cooperate and maintain peaceful coexistence in society. Justice is both a legal and moral concept—giving a person his or her dues through fair allocation of rewards or punishments. However, the idea of "fairness" itself remains deeply contested. This article critically examines whether theories of punishment can be regarded as theories of justice within contemporary criminal justice philosophy. Punishment has traditionally been treated as the principal mechanism through which justice is achieved. Drawing upon classical and contemporary debates on retributive, utilitarian, corrective, distributive, procedural, and restorative approaches, the article argues that theories of punishment constitute only a limited subset of justice rather than its complete expression. Whereas retributive theories justify punishment primarily based on deservedness and proportionality, restorative justice shifts attention toward repairing harm, restoring relationships, addressing victims' needs, and facilitating offender accountability through participatory processes. The article contributes to contemporary debates in criminal justice theory by challenging the conceptual equation of punishment with justice and by advancing restorative justice as a complementary normative framework capable of addressing important limitations of conventional retributive approaches. This analysis has implications for criminal justice policy, sentencing philosophy, and future theoretical discussions concerning the relationship between punishment, accountability, and social justice.

Keywords:

Criminal Justice, Punishment Theory, Retributive Justice, Restorative Justice, Justice Theory, Criminal Law, Philosophy of Punishment

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