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Does it matter whether convicted offenders understand why they are being punished? In the death penalty context, the Supreme Court has said yes; a prisoner who cannot understand the state's reasons for imposing a death sentence may not be executed. Outside of capital punishment, the answer is still open. This Article begins to fill that gap, focusing on why and how states should help all offenders make sense of their sanctions, whether imposed for retribution, for deterrence, for incapacitation, or for rehabilitation. Judges today sometimes try to explain sentences to criminal offenders so that they know the purposes of their suffering. But judges are busy, defendants are not always interested, and the law often treats such explanations as unimportant or even unwise. Legislatures, moreover, rarely convey the purposes of statutory penalties, and plea bargaining can further obscure the reasons for punishment. Scholars and critics of American criminal justice tend to pay little attention to these deficits. Perhaps explaining individual sentences seems unimportant compared to the larger effort to humanize and rationalize penal policy. In fact, however, the two are intertwined: communicating the purposes of punishment publicly affirms the dignity and humanity of offenders as reasoning moral beings whose suffering requires justification. While humanizing offenders, such explanation also opens a path to larger reforms. Furthermore, sentencing explanation may mitigate the risk of error, bias, or excess by focusing judges on legitimate considerations. Current sentencing rules and policies undervalue punishment explanation, often in favor of efficiency. New norms and practices must be created to ensure that the reasons for punishment are clearly and publicly articulated to offenders. Judges, legislatures, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and corrections officials each have a part to play in making that a reality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Courts and commentators give scant attention to the incapacitation rationale for capital punishment, focusing instead on retribution and deterrence. The idea that execution may be justified to prevent further violence by dangerous prisoners is often ignored in death penalty commentary. The view on the ground could not be more different. Hundreds of executions have been premised on the need to protect society from dangerous offenders. Two states require a finding of future dangerousness for any death sentence, and over a dozen others treat it as an aggravating factor that turns murder into a capital crime. How can courts and commentators pay so little heed to this driving force behind executions? The answer lies in two assumptions: first, that solitary confinement and life without parole also incapacitate, and second, that prediction error makes executions based on future risk inherently arbitrary. Yet solitary confinement and life without parole entail new harms--either torturous isolation or inadequate restraint. Meanwhile, the problem of prediction error, while significant, can be greatly reduced by reevaluating future dangerousness over time. This Article illuminates the remarkable history, influence, and normative import of the incapacitation rationale, and shows how serious engagement with the incapacitation rationale can lead to practical reforms that would make the death penalty more fair. It concludes by highlighting several of the most promising reforms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]