The principle of parsimony is rooted in social contract theory under which society provides its residents the benefits, including safety, that enable people to thrive, in return for which residents agree to abide by society’s laws. “We would insist that every limitation on liberty meet a strict test: Is this exercise of state power reasonably necessary to achieve a legitimate purpose? The result would be a profound reduction in the reach of the criminal justice system.” “If we took the principle of parsimony seriously, we would place liberty at the center of every debate about justice policy,” said Jeremy Travis, executive vice president of criminal justice at Arnold Ventures and co-author of the paper. “As we continue to interrogate the proper role of the state, the parsimony principle offers a necessary restraint mechanism to ensure we never return to an era of excessive punitiveness.” Atkinson, co-director of Forward Justice and co-author of the paper. “The American criminal legal system must adopt new guiding principles, moving away from punishment and retribution, toward the primacy of parsimony and human dignity,” said Daryl V. Parsimony also critiques the criminalization of drug use, vagrancy, and sex work as an unwarranted extension of the criminal law. The principle of parsimony can also be used to analyze other aspects of the criminal justice system, including mass supervision, stop and frisk policing, and pretrial detention. In their paper, Atkinson and Travis apply the principle of parsimony to three specific practices - excessive prison sentences, collateral consequences of criminal convictions, and solitary confinement - to demonstrate how each is excessively punitive. This approach would result in punishments that are no greater than necessary, and define punishments that cross that line as unjust, illegitimate, and potentially even exercises of state violence. Atkinson and Jeremy Travis, applies the principle of parsimony - a historical legal concept that holds the state should exercise only the most limited intrusion into a person’s liberty to achieve a broader goal - to the realities of today’s criminal justice system. “ The Power of Parsimony ,” authored by Daryl V. As abolitionists, activists, legislators, and system stakeholders are bringing new energy and urgency to the challenge of transforming the country’s response to crime, a new report from the Columbia University’s Square One Project argues that the principle of parsimony can become a defining value of future justice policy.
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