In the classic abolitionist text, Prison on Trial, Thomas Mathieson argues that
imprisonment cannot be justified by appeal to any standard punitive aim: rehabilitation,
deterrence, incapacitation, or retribution. The aim of this paper is to give prison an ‘appeal
hearing’: to examine whether it can be justified by a set of punitive aims not considered by
Mathieson. In particular, it asks whether imprisonment can be justified by the ‘communicative’
theory of punishment proposed by Antony Duff. Duff sees imprisonment as
having an important role in a properly ‘communicative’ system of criminal justice: to serve
as the ultimate sanction for offenders who fail to comply with other forms of punishment;
to shock offenders into repentance for their crimes; and to communicate to offenders in a
symbolically appropriate way the seriousness of their offence. This paper argues that each
of Duff’s rationales fails: using prison as an ultimate sanction violates the communicative
principle of treating offenders as responsible moral agents; the evidence suggests that
prison will impede rather than facilitate repentant understanding; and while prison might
be able to express censure, it is not rationally connected to enabling a meaningful moral
dialogue. As such, it concludes that this particular appeal hearing for imprisonment fails.

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• Prison on Appeal: The Idea of Communicative Incarceration