In this short essay, I suggest a few specific ways in which criminal law exceptionalism has shaped the theory and practice of criminal law. First, criminal law exceptionalism isolates criminal theory from legal theory more generally, with the result that criminal theorists often miss insights from other legal fields. Relatedly but more broadly, criminal law exceptionalism can make sociology, psychology, history, and political theory invisible or seemingly irrelevant to criminal theory. Together, these two forms of scholarly insularity put criminal theory (or criminal theorists) into a silo in which the political, social, and historical contexts of actual criminal legal practices disappear from view. Ultimately, the siloed thinking of criminal law exceptionalism makes it difficult or impossible to contemplate a world without criminal law. Thus criminal law exceptionalism does its ideological work: it produces and reinforces the belief that criminal law is indispensable, a belief that in turn motivates policy choices and informs legal practices.

在这篇短文中，我提出了刑法例外论塑造刑法理论和实践的几种具体方式。首先，刑法例外论更普遍地将刑事理论与法律理论隔离开来，结果是犯罪理论家经常错过其他法律领域的见解。与此相关但更广泛的是，刑法例外论可以使社会学、心理学、历史和政治理论与犯罪理论不相关或看似无关。这两种学术孤立形式共同将犯罪理论（或犯罪理论家）置于一个孤岛中，实际刑事法律实践的政治、社会和历史背景从视野中消失了。归根结底，刑法例外论的孤立思维使得人们很难或不可能去思考一个没有刑法的世界。