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Principles underlying effective punishment
Principles of good punishment
Principles underlying effective punishment
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In this essay I will discuss the main concepts and limitations of Classicism. Criminology and classicism begin to emerge at the time on the Enlightenment in the eighteenth century. Before this time, socities throughout Europe provided harsh punishments to law breakers. Enlightenment thinkers disapproved strongly of injustice.
A concept of classicism is that criminals choose to commit crime. Individuals have free will: and are guided by hedonism, which means individuals want the maximisation of pleasure and the minimisation of pain. These ideas changed the focus to punishing offender’s behaviour rather then the offender’s social or physical characteristics (Walklate, S. 2007).
Another concept proportionality, refers to the punishment needing
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This neccessitated a rational justification for the states right to punish (Bradley, T & Walters, R. 2011). Ceasare Beccaria is considered the founder of the classical school of criminology. He argued that there was a contractual relationship between the individual and the state. This relationship occurred to prevent chaos. As a part of this relationship individuals gave up some of their liberties in the interest of the common good, with the purpose of the law being to ensure that these common interests were met (Walklate, S. …show more content…
Deterrence encourages the individual to calculate the costs of committing the crime. Convicted offender’s merit punishment proportionate with the seriousness of the harm they caused. This punishment is for the specific offense they committed and not for any other reason. If the punishment is too harsh it is counterproductive and results in a lack of respect for the law. If the punishment is too lenient, it will not serve as a deterrent (Henry, S & Lanier, M, 2010).
The concepts in classicism were not without contradiction and limitations. The first limitation of classicism was the assumption that people were equal. Pure classicism took no account of individual differences. Even when differences were clear, such as the difference between adults and children (Henry, S & Lanier, M, 2010).
Determinate sentences are intended to make justice fair and to make possible offenders aware of what sentences they could receive. This does not answer whether determinate sentencing reduces the sentencing inequality between people who are sentenced for similar crimes. Unless criminals think rationally before committing offences, there is little point to the deterrence argument. Another related issue is that unless the meaning of the gain to the criminal is known, there is no way to create punishments that will counter the gain (Henry, S & Lanier, M,
The central element of calculation involves a cost benefit analysis: Pleasure versus Pain, (5) Choice, with all other conditions equal, will be directed towards the maximization of individual pleasure, (6) Choice can be controlled through the perception and understanding of the potential pain or punishment that will follow an act judged to be in violation of the social good, the social contract, (7) The state is responsible for maintaining order and preserving the common good through a system of laws (this system is the embodiment of the social contract), (8) The Swiftness, Severity, and Certainty of punishment are the key elements in understanding a law's ability to control human behavior. Classical theory, however, dominated thinking about deviance for only a short time. Positivist research on the external (social, psychological, and biological) "causes" of crime focused attention on the factors that... ... middle of paper ... ...
punishment is an asset to society: it is the only punishment that fits the crime, it deters potential criminals
This would again tie into general deterrence because as we talked about in class, a severe punishment would make an example out of the criminal and make other people hesitant to do the same in the future. The idea would be to incapacitate the criminal and make everyone feel safe. However, the problem with incapacitation is that someone will take the place of the criminal. Another way court’s policy decisions are influenced is through their jurisdiction. As we talked about in class a court’s jurisdiction is the physical location it is responsible for, it’s duty and responsibility. There are five levels of courts that each have their own jurisdiction they are responsible for. The five courts from the lowest level to highest level are the following; magistrate, state, district, circuit, and the Supreme Court. As we talked about in class, state court’s jurisdiction would be the state it is located in. While courts like Circuit court’s jurisdiction cover a much larger geographical area. Finally, the Supreme Court’s jurisdiction would cover the entire country and could take cases from any state. As stated in class, an example of jurisdiction would be New Hampshire’s single death row
Paine’s contribution of the utilization of natural laws and how they apply to the criminal behavior. His thoughts on natural rights being the basis for law making where all persons are entitled to their rights has contributed to the Classical School of criminology as well as the formation of the Constitution (Schmalleger, 2012).
Short-term deterrence works in the here and now, moments such as a murderer just had the death sentence carried out deterring that criminal from acting again and spreading a fresh fear through other criminal minds of the risk that is in play with committing certain criminal acts against society. The short-term deterrence acts more like a word of caution, causing offenders and citizens alike to think or re-evaluate before doing due to the fear of death. Long-term deterrence, also known as general prevention, is more of a concept that must be true in order for the concept of deterrence to work within individuals and work in society and criminals alike. That concept is “that the existence of the death penalty for a crime has a ‘moralizing’ influence on people’s perceptions of the gravity of the crime,
Young, J. (1981). Thinking seriously about crime: Some models of criminology. In M. Fitzgerald, G. McLennan, & J. Pawson (Eds.), Crime and society: Readings in history and society (pp. 248-309). London: Routledge and Kegan Paul.
The aims of sentencing include punishment, deterrence, rehabilitation, denunciation and protection. Punishment is used to punish the offender for their wrong conduct to an extent and in a way that is just in all circumstances and is intended to show public abhorrence from the offence. An example of a sentencing option that may be used to punish an offender includes imprisonment. A recent sentence imposed in the Tasmanian Supreme Court aimed at punishing an offender is the case of Michael Robert Keeling v State of Tasmania in which the judge needed to balance the need to punish the offender and the need to deter him and others from such conduct while keeping the best interests of the community in mind. Deterrent sentences are aimed at deterring not only the offender from further offences but also potential offenders. Specific deterrence is concerned with punishing an offender in the expectation they will not offend again whereas general deterrence is related to the possibility that people in general will be deterred from committing crime by the threat of punishment. An example of ...
Narration: Proponents believe that the death penalty is an effective way to stop crime. They believe that the death penalty is a deterrent, so this should mean if the death penalty is the consequence then people will think twice about committing a crime that could result in the death penalty.
"Today's system, where imprisonment is a common penalty for most crimes, is a historical newcomer." Many crimes during 1718 and 1776 were punishable by death. This was usually done by hanging, sometimes by stoning, breaking on the rack and burning at the stake. Towards the end of the 1700's people realized that cruel punishment did little to reduce crime and their society was changing the population grew and people started to move around more frequently. There had to be a search for new punishments. "New punishments were to rely heavily on new ideas imported from Europe in the writing of such social thinkers of the Enlightenment as the baron de Montesquieu, Voltaire, Thomas Pain and Cesare Beccaria". These thinkers came to believe that criminals could be rehabilitated."
Deterrence – is connected to punishment where it is a way to let a person who has committed a crime know and to let the rest of society or those looking to commit a crime know it will not be tolerated or accepted and there is the possibility of some form of punishment. (Stojkovic and Lovell 2013) If a person or society sees what can happen if they commit a crime by seeing what happens to others then they are more likely to obey the laws and live an honest lifestyle.
Giardina, B. (2010). Capital Punishment and Specific Offense Deterrence. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses. University of New Hampshire, Ann Arbor. Retrieved from http://ezproxy.uta.edu/docview/852994781?accountid=7117
During the 1970s, the top argument in favor of the death penalty was general deterrence. This argument suggests that we must punish offenders to discourage others from committing similar offenses; we punish past offenders to send a message to potential offenders. In a broad sense, the deterrent effect of punishment is thought to b...
This research seeks to establish whether making the penalty stiff will work in repeating repeat and future offenders. This research is tied to a larger theory that harsh punishments act as a deterrent to crime. They work by making people not commit a crime for fear of the punishment that is going to follow. This research is applicable across many facets of crimes that are rampant. It is going to help identify whether enacting stricter laws and enforcing them helps in reducing the relate...
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 welfarism and popular punitivism over the course of only a few hundred years.
The Classical School of Criminology generally refers to the work of social contract and utilitarian philosophers Cesare Beccaria and Jeremy Bentham during the enlightenment in the 18th century. The contributions of these philosophers regarding punishment still influence modern corrections today. The Classical School of Criminology advocated for better methods of punishment and the reform of criminal behaviour. The belief was that for a criminal justice system to be effective, punishment must be certain, swift and in proportion to the crime committed. The focus was on the crime itself and not the individual criminal (Cullen & Wilcox, 2010). This essay will look at the key principles of the Classical School of Criminology, in particular