Individualisation of Punishment: Challenging the Deterrence and Just Deserts Penal Theories in Handling Terrorist

ABSTRACT:This paper aims to critique the tendency of some Indonesian law enforcement which uses deterrence and just deserts theories to justify the punishments towards terrorists as a form of crime control. Though multiple existing literatures have explained the lack of impact of using deterrence and just deserts theories in controlling crime. Deterrence theory is not applicable due to its „blind‟ nature and how punitive it is, whereas just deserts theory, though it has brought the element of proportionality still hasn‟t answered the need to handle how terrorists as a criminal. This paper proposes individualized punishing in response to terrorists. Individualised punishment aims to solve the root problem on why a person got involved with terrorism through correctional process. Thus, individualized punishment is the way to „fix‟ terrorists as criminals.

KEYWORDS -terrorism, deterrence, just deserts, individualized punishment