Theories of Punishment

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The criminal justice system is the system of law enforcement that takes an extensive position in prosecuting, defending, sentencing, and punishing those who are suspected or convicted of criminal offenses. It is essential to know the many theories of punishment that the justice system has created in their minds that eventually became a part of society. This paper will analyze the theoretical explanations of punishment and their effect on society by generating an opinion of how each type of punishment deters crime the best and if punishment provides any benefit to the offenders and to society. Retribution is something done or given to somebody as punishment or vengeance for something he or she has done. Those who side with retribution usually do not consider trying to improve a criminal in any way and attempting to make him or her an asset to society. Usually, their motto would be, “An eye for an eye.” An example of this would be a person raping a person’s daughter, so someone who knew they daughter reacting and going after the person or maybe even their daughter and raping them. Retribution is usually not carried out by the criminal justice system but by vengeance and society taking the law into their own hands. Several people do not believe that retribution is the most effective way to go about punishing criminals due to the fact that it sends out the wrong message to those around us. The use of punishment as a threat to prevent people from committing crimes is knows as deterrence. Deterrence also has a role to make the person or persons feel afraid or anxious. It rests on the theory that it is feasible to deter the rest of society from lousy conduct by arresting and chastising those as the example to others, even if th... ... middle of paper ... ...ture of the offense. Punishment is justified by the risk individuals pose to society. Every single one of these theories have their faults. The issue with all of these theories is that each one doesn’t fit every criminal out there; everybody is different. There are some criminals who wouldn’t mind another twenty years in prison, some who want out as soon as possible and will do anything to do it, and some who wished they never did the crime. So, how exactly is society supposed to judge them? Works Cited http://marisluste.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/incapacitation-theory.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deterrence_(legal) http://www.ask.com/question/example-of-general-deterrence http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/03/retribution-and-overcriminalization http://www.frihost.com/forums/vt-98929.html http://www.studymode.com/Crime-And-Punishment-813487.html

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