Could We Live Together Without Punishment? On the Exceptional Status of the Criminal Law.

The article focuses on ways in which the criminal law helps secure the state's monopoly over violence and individual rights suggests that the criminal law is not as necessary or unavoidable. It mentions ability to secure social peace and control violence, punishment has long appeared as a necessary price of renouncing retaliation, revenge or other forms of private justice. It also mentions persistent respect for the rule of law and for peaceful ways of pursuing justice.