Citizenship and Fragmentation in Criminal Law

What role does the relationship between the state and its citizens play for criminal law theory? A number of in­flu­en­tial scholars assume that criminal law must be founded on a bond of citizenship between the offender and the state that reinforces the legitimacy of criminal punishment. If this is the case, how does this assumption affect the state’s standing when it punishes non-citizens or “semi-citizens”? Also, given that many societies are experiencing a growth in fragmentation – that is, they are becoming more diverse in their values – should legal theorists change their view on frameworks that assume shared values for the legitimacy of criminal law?
This project, which started with a workshop held at the Max Planck Institute in February 2023, discusses the role that citizenship should play in criminal law theory and the extent to which the increasing fragmentation in many societies could change our views on criminal law and the scope of criminalization.
The talks presented at the conference together with additional articles on the topic of citizenship and fragmen­ta­tion will be published in an edited volume. My chapter specifically analyzes the question of whether fragmented societies pose a problem to reparative and restorative theories of justice. As some research suggests that people are more hesitant to accept restorative procedures such as mediation when the stakeholders of the wrongdoing have different values, there is reason to suspect that restorative and reparative justice will not be accepted in frag­mented societies.