main idea?This notion of communicative practice asserts that punishment communicates to the criminal a response appropriate to the crime committed (Duff 1999: 48). The element of communication requires that the person to whom the communication is directed must be an active participant in the process and must receive and respond publicly to the communication. Additionally, the communication should appeal to the person's rational understanding. The communication must be focused primarily on the offender being punished as a response to him or her and must be justified by his or her offenses (p. 50). The message communicated by punishment must focus on and be justified by the offender's past offense and must be appropriate to that offense. R. A. Duff argues that the message communicated should be the degree of censure or condemnation the crime deserves and that communicative punishment aims at reforming offenders