Punishment necessarily assumes the following:
1. The punishment inflicted is something unpleasant and undesirable.
2. The punishment is a sequel to an act that meets with the disapproval of authority.
3. There is some correspondence between the punishment and the act which resulted in it.
4. Punishment is inflicted, i.e. imposed by someone’s, act done willfully.
5. Punishment is inflicted on the criminal or on someone who is answerable for him/her and his/her doings.
The criminal punishment has five main components:
1. The person being punished must be responsible for his/her behaviour. Those who are too immature or mentally unfit to understand what they are doing may be controlled by other formal social controls, but they cannot be penalised.
2. The punishment is intended to be painful in some sense; it is a negative sanction that most rational persons would wish to avoid.
3. The pain inflicted is preceded by a judgment of condemnation; the person being punished is explicitly blamed for the act.
4. Punishment is imposed only by those who have the legal authority over the responsible actor and for the implementation of the law or standard in question. Criminal punishment cannot be enforced informally, even by persons who feel directly damaged. It can be enforced only by those who hold formal office and are charged with determining guilt and imposing punishment.
5. Punishment follows a ‘legally demonstrated breach of established rules of behaviour’. This means that the behaviour to be penalised as well as the punishment for that behaviour must be specified in advance.
Evolution of the Concept of Punishment
A scrutiny of the earlier response of the society towards the criminal suggests that the societal behaviour towards the de...
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... in the belief that the mental torture of re-monstrance was sufficient if the offender sincerely repented for his/her offences or breaches. However, the Italian criminologist Raffaele Garofalo argued that “a criminal by nature lacks moral consciousness and therefore expiation as a punishment has only a theoretical significance.” This outlook seems to be a rather extreme one with regard to those who are not recidivists, example first offenders, because it places absolutely no faith in human nature. Von Hirsch also critiques this concept, because it requires a faith in social justice such that the offender gains from others’ law-abiding behaviour based on mutual benefits accorded to all members of the society, and because offence against law do not always provide advantages to their perpetrators, unless the advantage is noticed to be the disregard of the rules itself
Have you ever wonder if there is any good justification for the policy of punishing people for breaking laws? Boonin’s definition of punishment consists of Authorized, Reprobative, Retributive, Intentional Harm. The problem of punishment incorporates three different answers. Consequentialism, which makes punishment beneficial (will do good for the people later in the future). Retributivism punishment is a fitting response to crime. As well as, the option of ‘other’ punishment can be a source of education, or expressive matter. Moreover a fourth answer can be an alternative called restitution, punishment is not necessary for social order. In The Problem of Punishment, by David Boonin deeply studies a wide range of theories that explain why the institutions is morally permitted to punish criminals. Boonin argues that no state , no-one succeeds with punishment. To make his argument stronger, he endorses abolitionism, the view
Only an act that is defined by the validly passed laws of the nation state in which it occurred so that punishment should follow from the behaviour
...lacks, and men. Furthermore, the competing paradigms influence public policy. Those that maintain acts as voluntary are more inclined to punish the individual or group, however those that are seen to act under determined forces, judge treatment to be more suitable. Even though these theories contrast, they still contain similarities which are shared in the new penology. Aspects are taken from all to create a new perspective on crime that centres on the management of offenders.
There are several types of punishment that can be inflicted upon an offender including, fines, community sanctions and imprisonment (The Judicial Conference of Australia, 2007). Punishment is described as a sanction which inflicts a certain amount of pain and loss on the offender, used for payback and deter (The Judicial Conference of Australia, 2007; Carlsmith, Darley, & Robinson, 2002). There are three ways society justifies punishing offenders, through the
This paper considers the desert arguments raised to support retributivism, or retribution. Retributivism is "the application of the Principle of Desert to the special case of criminal punishment." Russ Shafer-Landau and James Rachels offer very different perspectives on moral desert which ground their differing views on the appropriate response to wrongdoing. In "The Failure of Retributivism," Shafer-Landau contends that retributivism fails to function as a comprehensive theoretical foundation for the legal use of punishment. In contrast, in his article "Punishment and Desert," Rachels uses the four principles of guilt, equal treatment, proportionality and excuses to illustrate the superiority of retribution as the basis for the justice system over two alternatives: deterrence and rehabilitation. Their philosophical treatment of the term leads to divergence on the justification of legal punishment. Ultimately, Rachels offers a more compelling view of desert than Shafer-Landau and, subsequently, better justifies his endorsement of a retributive justice system.
Being punished should never be a torture method, no one should have to suffer for making mistakes. A punishment should be a learning experience. A time to think about the reasons why the mistake was made and come to the decision to not make them again. Accept the fact wrong and want to change for the better.
In history, crimes have been dealt with by the justice system according to its severity as well as the offender: if the crime committed was not very serious and the offender was deemed “non-delinquent”, or “free of any real criminal disposition”, they would be cautioned or fined. However, were the crime a more serious one and the offender appeared to have a “criminal character”, they would receive more severe and more deterrent punishment (Garland, 2001: 42).
Sentencing is the imposition of a criminal sanction by a sentencing authority , such as a judge. Schmallger & Smykla, 2009, pg# 71) There are seven goals of sentencing including revenge, retribution, just deserts, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation and restoration. Revenge refers to a retaliation to some kind of assault and injury. Revenge can be a type of punishment for the criminal justice system. The jury, sometimes, basis there choices on emotions, facts and evidence. It is considered revenge in some cases because the victim's looks at it that way when they feel justice has been served. Retribution is a type of sentencing involving another form of retaliation. Retribution means "paying back" the offender for what he or she has done. ( Schmalleger & Smykla, 2009, pg# 73) The victim is not alone when it comes to being affected by the crime. Society is strongly affected by what a criminal does in whichever area he or she chooses. Retribution, in a good sense, would be if a coworker does her best as her job and her boss gave her a raise. This would be considered paying her back for her good deeds. As far as the criminal's heinous acts, retribution would more than likely be community service in the town were the crimes occurred. This form of sentencing gives a sort of relief to society
Prison and the penalty have become the essence of punishment because it makes the person fear in committing the same crime repeatedly. For example, prisoners would engage in activities like work in order for them to learn and train them. Therefore, a crime and penalty must be accepted in order for the penalties to be heavier than crimes. Also, there must be a rule that focuses on the intensity of the effect on who committed the crime by using the common truth. According to Foucault (1995), “When the prisoner is isolated it creates a terrible shock. When the prisoner is isolated, they are able to reflect and protect themselves from their bad behaviors and negativity” (p.122). If, essential punishment for prisoners should be based on learning to become a better human with
to the innocent. But severity of punishment has its limits -- imposed both by justice and
penalty, then the judge agrees that the criminal will have to face a form of execution.
Punishment is reserved to those who have committed a transgression, a dominant and common response to injustices upon a victim (Okimoto and Weznzel 2008 p.346). It is a sense of retribution against immoral behavior, not solely for the purpose of punishment against the offender, but
Elevating punishments as a child continue to misbehave allowing for the child to consider what the consequences of their actions may be, decide whether or not they believe that the action is worth the punishment, and ultimately make their own choice whether or not to do the same thing that they have already been warned about. All while preserving the idea that police are there to help them rather than to harass them and without making the child feel as though they are a criminal or a danger to the
Punishing the unlawful, undesirable and deviant members of society is an aspect of criminal justice that has experienced a variety of transformations throughout history. Although the concept of retribution has remained a constant (the idea that the law breaker must somehow pay his/her debt to society), the methods used to enforce and achieve that retribution has changed a great deal. The growth and development of society, along with an underlying, perpetual fear of crime, are heavily linked to the use of vastly different forms of punishment that have ranged from public executions, forced labor, penal welfare and popular punitivism over the course of only a few hundred years. Crime constructs us as a society whilst society, simultaneously determines what is criminal. Since society is always changing, how we see crime and criminal behavior is changing, thus the way in which we punish those criminal behaviors changes.
Laws serve several purposes in the criminal justice system. The main purpose of criminal law is to protect, serve, and limit human actions and to help guide human conduct. Also, laws provide penalties and punishment against those who are guilty of committing crimes against property or persons. In the modern world, there are three choices in dealing with criminals’ namely criminal punishment, private action and executive control. Although both private action and executive control are advantageous in terms of costs and speed, they present big dangers that discourage their use unless in exceptional situations. The second purpose of criminal law is to punish the offender. Punishing the offender is the most important purpose of criminal law since by doing so; it discourages him from committing crime again while making him or her pay for their crimes. Retribution does not mean inflicting physical punishment by incarceration only, but it also may include things like rehabilitation and financial retribution among other things. The last purpose of criminal law is to protect the community from criminals. Criminal law acts as the means through which the society protects itself from those who are harmful or dangerous to it. This is achieved through sentences meant to act as a way of deterring the offender from repeating the same crime in the future.