Buddhist Responses to Punishment and Offenders

The traditional story of Milarepa, an eleventh-century Tibetan Buddhist teacher, connects the causes of wrongdoing with the possibility of reformation. After his father died, Milarepa's aunt and uncle took the family's property instead of safeguarding his inheritance. They forced Milarepa, his mother and his sister to work as servants. When the family demanded their inheritance, they were met with intimidation and violence rather than justice.

Milarepa's mother urged him to seek revenge. According to the story, he learnt sorcery and caused the roof of his uncle's house to collapse during a wedding celebration, killing 35 people. He then caused a hailstorm that destroyed the community's crops. His actions show how deprivation, family pressure and anger can contribute to wrongdoing. They also show how revenge spreads suffering beyond the original dispute: understanding his motives does not justify the deaths he caused.

Milarepa became overwhelmed by remorse and feared the karmic consequences of his actions. He sought Buddhist teaching and eventually became a disciple of Marpa. Marpa required him to build, demolish and rebuild stone towers before giving him the teachings he sought. In this tradition, those hardships are understood as preparation for spiritual transformation and purification of negative karma, rather than revenge against Milarepa.

Milarepa went on to practise meditation in mountain retreats and became a revered teacher, understood within his tradition to have attained enlightenment. His transformation gives Buddhists a powerful reason to support reformation: even someone responsible for very serious harm can change. It does not suggest that change is easy or that wrongdoing has no consequences. Nor is Marpa's severe treatment a model for ordinary prison discipline; Marpa himself warned that it was not suitable for most students.

What should punishment achieve?

Justice means fair treatment and accountability. A response to crime must take victims seriously and protect others from harm. Compassion towards an offender is therefore not the same as letting them do whatever they want.

The different aims of punishment answer different questions:

• Retribution: what punishment does the offender deserve for what they have done?
• Deterrence: will the punishment discourage this person, or other people, from committing crimes?
• Reformation: will it help the offender change and avoid offending again?

These aims can overlap. Imprisonment can protect the public and discourage offending, while education and spiritual support can help someone reform.

Buddhist teachings give strong reasons to favour reformation. If crime is connected with greed, hatred and ignorance, helping someone weaken those states of mind addresses its underlying causes. Karuna, compassion, encourages concern for an offender's suffering as well as the suffering of victims. Metta, loving-kindness, supports wishing that an offender becomes a person who no longer harms others. Milarepa's story illustrates this possibility of profound change.

Retribution raises a particular ethical question: is punishment fair accountability, or is it driven by a desire to make someone suffer? These are not identical. A Buddhist can support firm restrictions on a dangerous offender while questioning cruelty or revenge. Likewise, deterrence must be judged by both its intended benefits and the harm caused by the punishment itself.

Reformation also has limitations: an offender may not change, and the public needs protection while that risk remains. A reasoned Buddhist judgement can therefore favour reformation as the long-term aim while supporting proportionate restrictions to protect others. Compassion need not mean choosing between victims and offenders.

Humane treatment and the work of prison reformers

A prison sentence removes liberty, but it does not remove the prisoner's need for care or their capacity to change. Applying ahimsa, non-harming, gives a reason to oppose violence and degrading treatment within prisons. Applying karuna gives a reason to support conditions that help people address suffering and develop better behaviour.

Prison reform concerns improving the treatment of prisoners and the ability of prisons to help them change. Reformers work on the system itself, not only with individual prisoners. Their activities can include investigating prison conditions, providing information about prisoners' treatment and pressing decision-makers to change policies.

The Prison Reform Trust, an independent UK charity founded in 1981, provides a concrete example. It investigates how the penal system works, informs prisoners, staff and the public, and seeks to influence Parliament, government and officials. Its objectives include improving conditions and treatment for prisoners and their families, promoting equality and human rights, and reducing unnecessary imprisonment through community solutions to crime. These are its aims and methods, not a claim that all these improvements have already been achieved.

The Trust is not a Buddhist organisation. However, Buddhists can support such reform because humane treatment expresses karuna and ahimsa, while a fairer and more effective system can support reformation. Protecting prisoners, staff and the wider public are connected goals: helping an offender change can also help prevent future victims.

The Angulimala Society and prison chaplains

Angulimala, the Buddhist Prison Chaplaincy, provides a concrete example of Buddhist support for people in prison. Its chaplains offer pastoral care to prisoners and staff, including people who are already Buddhist and those beginning to explore Buddhism.

Their work includes individual and group instruction in Buddhist teaching and practice, guidance with reading, and making literature available. They encourage the development of morality, meditation and wisdom. A chaplain is also expected to act as a kalyana mitta, a ‘good friend’, to registered Buddhist prisoners.

These activities connect belief with reformation. Moral guidance helps prisoners reflect on their conduct; meditation offers a way to develop their practice; and a supportive relationship helps make spiritual change more than an abstract possibility. Chaplains must also be willing to support different Buddhist schools, rather than promoting only their own tradition.

For the year ending 31 March 2025, Angulimala reported 50 active Buddhist chaplains, providing a Buddhist presence in 92 of 123 prisons in England and Wales, as well as two special high-security mental health hospitals. It distributed a weekly publication, Buddhist News and Musings, through prison chaplaincies and provided Buddhist calendars, laminated materials and leaflets for prisoners.

Staff shortages sometimes disrupted group practice. Chaplains nevertheless continued visiting prisoners, including speaking through cell doors or meeting people confined to their wing. This shows how pastoral support can continue when normal group activities are restricted; it does not establish that every prisoner receiving support will reform.

The Middle Path and proportionate punishment

The Middle Path, also called the Middle Way, originally concerns the way to enlightenment. In the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta (SN 56.11), the Buddha rejects two extremes: indulgence in sensual pleasure and self-mortification, meaning deliberately inflicting suffering on oneself. He identifies the Middle Path with the Noble Eightfold Path, which develops ethical conduct, meditation and wisdom.

Applied to punishment, this teaching can encourage a response that avoids both neglecting wrongdoing and inflicting excessive suffering. This is an ethical application of the teaching, not a statement that the original sermon sets out a sentencing policy. Punishment should be proportionate and help the offender make amends and reform, rather than treat suffering as valuable for its own sake.

In judging the death penalty, a Buddhist can ask whether secure imprisonment offers a firm but humane response: it protects the public without deliberately killing the offender and leaves an opportunity for change. The Middle Path is not simply choosing a halfway point between two policies; its connection with right action and compassion remains important.

Buddhist opposition to the death penalty

Capital punishment is execution by the state as punishment for a crime. The First of the Five Precepts is expressed as: ‘I undertake to abstain from taking life.’ Together with ahimsa, this provides a strong Buddhist argument against execution: the state deliberately kills a living person.

Karuna and metta strengthen this objection. Compassion can extend to someone who has committed a terrible crime without denying the victim's suffering. Loving-kindness supports wishing for the offender's moral improvement, whereas execution ends their opportunity to reform in this life. Milarepa's transformation challenges the assumption that a serious offender can never change. Karma also gives a reason to consider the consequences of killing for those who authorise or carry out an execution.

Interpreting the Middle Path as support for proportionate, reformatory punishment reinforces this opposition. A severe crime requires a serious response, but that need not mean execution. Secure imprisonment can combine public protection with a refusal to take life.

Contrasting responses and a justified judgement

There is no single policy on capital punishment shared by all Buddhist traditions and organisations. Despite the strong teaching-based case against it, the death penalty has been retained in several countries with substantial Buddhist populations. A BBC account published in 2009, for example, identified Thailand as a country that continued to use it.

This contrasting response puts weight on retribution, deterrence and maintaining social order. Supporters in such societies may regard execution as deserved punishment for the most serious crimes, believe that it discourages others from offending, or prioritise public security. Long-standing customs and concerns about political unrest can also influence these policies. Some governments therefore permit execution as a deterrent even though it conflicts with Buddhist teachings on non-killing and compassion.

This is a contrast between Buddhist ethical teachings and responses found within societies with many Buddhists; it does not show that every Buddhist there supports execution, or that the First Precept itself endorses it. Nor should a claimed deterrent effect be treated as proven simply because supporters assert it.

A justified conclusion weighs the aims against the means. Public protection is important, but opponents can argue that secure imprisonment achieves it without breaking the First Precept. They can also argue that execution is irreversible if an innocent person is convicted and removes the offender's opportunity for reformation. On this reasoning, rejecting execution combines concern for victims and public safety with ahimsa, karuna, metta and a proportionate application of the Middle Path.

• Family exploitation and his mother's pressure led to revenge: sorcery killed 35 people; a hailstorm destroyed crops.
• Remorse and concern about karma led him to seek Marpa, who required repeated tower-building before teaching him.
• His subsequent spiritual transformation supports reform, even after serious wrongdoing. Marpa's treatment is not a model for ordinary prison discipline.

Treatment of offenders

• Ahimsa: oppose violence and degrading treatment.
• Karuna and metta: care about suffering and the capacity to change.
• Prison Reform Trust: independent, non-Buddhist charity; investigates conditions, informs people and influences policymakers to improve treatment, rights and alternatives to unnecessary imprisonment.
• Angulimala chaplains: pastoral care, individual and group teaching, reading guidance, and support for morality, meditation and wisdom.
• Kalyana mitta: ‘good friend’.

Middle Path and death penalty

• SN 56.11: avoid sensual indulgence and self-mortification; follow the Noble Eightfold Path.
• Application: proportionate punishment rather than neglect of wrongdoing or excessive suffering; protection alongside reform.
• Against execution: First Precept, ahimsa, karuna, metta, karmic consequences and lost opportunity for reform.
• Contrasting response: some countries with substantial Buddhist populations retain execution, appealing to retribution, deterrence and social order. This is not a shared Buddhist policy.
• Key judgement: can secure imprisonment protect society without execution and preserve the possibility of reformation?