The Importance Of Punishment

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Critically evaluating the accuracy of this statement 'Punishment should be commensurate with the seriousness of the offence. The fundamental principle of desert in punishing convicted persons is that the severity of the punishment should be commensurate with the seriousness of the offender's criminal conduct. The focus of the commensurate deserts principle is on the gravity of past conduct, not on the possibility of impending behaviour this retrospective orientation distinguishes desert from the crime-control goals of dissuasion, incapacitation, and therapy. The criterion for judging if a penalty is deserved is whether it honestly reflects the severity of the criminal conduct of which the offender has been convicted, rather than its success in preventing impending crimes by the defendant or other potential offenders. The rationale of the principle may be stated as follows. Punishment involves blame; it is a defining characteristic of punishment that is not merely unpleasant (so are many other kinds of state intervention) but also characterizes the person punished as an offender who is being censured or reproved for his or her criminal act. The sternness of the punishment brings the amount of blame: the sterner the punishment, the greater the implicit censure. The amount of punishment therefore should comport, as a matter of justice, with the degree of blameworthiness of the offender's criminal conduct. The principle of commensurate deserts addresses the question of al- location of punishments that is, how much to punish convicted offenders. This allocation question is distinct from the issue of the general justification of punishment-namely, why the legal organisation of punishment should exist at all. In arguing that the commensu...

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...system, for example, these are the type of crime of which the offender is convicted and certain "enhancements" Based on violence or property loss in commission of the present crime and on the prior criminal record. Once one identifies the determinative factors, one can examine whether and to what degree they relate to the seriousness of the criminal conduct (or to the extent and severity of the person’s past criminal record). To the extent those factors are not so related, persons whose criminal offense (and criminal history) are the same can receive unequal sentences. Once this is done, the same study can be performed on the annoying and justifying factors that warrant a departure from the normally recommended sentence. The more those factors are desert related, the more they help ensure that those whose conduct is equally responsible will receive equal punishments.

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