Lex Talionis Essay

In the discipline of corrections, eight different punishment philosophies exist, many of which, if not all of them, are in use today. Lex Talionis is the basis for the punishment philosophy of retaliation (Mays &Winfree, 2009). What this means, in basic terms, is that the punishment for an offense must be of a nature which, allows the victim of an offense, the chance to retaliate against the offender. This does not mean that a victim can retaliate against an offender based on their own ideas, or on their own volition. Early rulers saw the need for the law of retaliation, but established guidelines for its use (newworldencyclopedia.org, 2014). The first recorded code, for the enforcement of rules and laws that a society must operate under,

Hammurabi, and later Moses in the Bible, used the principal of Lex Talionis, to establish the guidelines for punishment. (Mays & Winfree, 2009). They did not use the principle or philosophy to establish the boundaries, or offenses, where this type of punishment could be used, as well as establishing the rules for employing this form of justice. According to this code, if an offender were to steal a piece of property, then the victim could not call for them to be sentenced to death. Consequently, and with this in mind, I can see the prescriptive nature of this concept as well. The law of retaliation, as prescribed by Hammurabi, also established the appropriate punishment for certain crimes (Mays & Winfree, 2009). The example, which I used earlier, of being put to death for stealing property, would explain the prescriptive nature of Lex Talionis. Even though I can see the philosophy of retaliation from both sides, I still feel that this law establishes the boundaries for its use, more so than defining the appropriate punishment. In this way, I would have to say that I am more of a