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An essay on the purpose of punishment
An esaay on punishment
Essay on comparative approaches to punishment
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Critical thought #1
Compare and contrast the philosophies of punishment.
In the philosophies of punishment, we have retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, isolation, incapacitation, reintegration, restitution, and restoration. I’ll define these philosophies of punishment.
Retribution: It refers to revenge or retaliation for harm or wrong done to another individual. This was an unearthed written code dated back more than 3500 years that clearly spell out a retribution approach by the Archaeologists. “If a man destroy destroys the eye of another man, they shall destroy his eye. If he breaks a man’s bone, they shall break his bone. If a man knocks out a tooth of a man of his own rank, they shall knock out his tooth.
Deterrence: This philosophy is made to discourage criminals from committing future crimes. Deterrence include prisons, or execution. If you send a criminal to prison, or executing them, this will discourage the other criminals from committing the same crime.
Rehabilitation: In rehabilitation, we provide psychological or educational assistance or job training to offenders to make them less likely to engage in future criminality. This philosophy says that these offenders are human being, no matter what, they are changeable. This means that we could change them from being criminal.
Isolation: This philosophy is a very old correctional philosophy that really had served two purposes throughout recorded history. This first is the simple incarceration of people in...
Society has long since operated on a system of reward and punishment. That is, when good deeds are done or a person behaves in a desired way they SP are rewarded, or conversely punished when behaviour does not meet the societal norms. Those who defy these norms and commit crime are often punished by organized governmental justice systems through the use of penitentiaries, where prisoners carry out their sentences. The main goals of sentencing include deterrence, safety of the public, retribution, rehabilitation, punishment and respect for the law (Government of Canada, 2013). However, the type of justice system in place within a state or country greatly influences the aims and mandates of prisons and in turn targets different aspects of sentencing goals. Justice systems commonly focus on either rehabilitative or retributive measures.
The judicial system is based off the norms and values that individuals are held to within society. When a person is found guilty of committing a criminal act, there must be a model that serves as the basis of what appropriate punishment should be applied. These models of punishment are often based off of ethical theories and include retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation, and restoration. The retribution model of punishment views the offender as responsible for their actions and as such, the punishment should fit the crime (Mackie, 1982). Incapacitation is a form of punishment that removes an offender from society. This model protects
This objective rests on the assumption that there was some factor going into why the crime was committed in the first place, and that that factor can be either fixed or eliminated. There are many different approaches to rehabilitation including therapy, education, or some combination of the two. Generally the rehabilitation process begins with addressing the problems which led to criminal behavior, and then helping inmates find other ways to solve those problems that do not include criminal
The theory of punishment as a whole is worth investigating as well. My largest argument against the theory of punishment is that it is not a fair or just operation. The concept of punishment is a way to intentionally harm people. This is not a just way of making a case right, or making a victim heal from any crime they may have been a part of. The victim is not compensated for the damage or harm caused to them. Punishment, in the retributive theory will really only do good in that it deters people from committing crime because they are scared of the punishment- but this simply does not work as well as it should. The restitution theory does not address the issue of who is entitled to cause harm to others, or punish said criminals.
Crime control, consisting of many elements of prevention and punishment, is a widely debated and often contentious topic. Myriad agendas occur in government and society, depending upon the kind of organizational or philosophical objective trying to be met. Political differences are present within the criminal justice system that draw upon certain models, techniques, and methods associated with crime prevention. Society functions as another element in crime control, as often an underlying fear creates a pressure to enact programs and laws. The media enters in as a forum to present conservative and liberal opinions to enact and enforce criminal laws and punishment. A debate over crime often strives to define prevention and punishment, in models that make these terms mutually exclusive, versus a view that crime prevention is a result, and punishment only one possible tool for achieving that result. Different forms of punishment will be discussed in relationship to the criminal justice system as well as the purpose the punishment serves, problems relating to the punishment, and an opinion on improvements and solutions.
Crime and Punishment and Notes from the Underground Fyodor Dostoyevsky's stories are stories of a sort of rebirth. He weaves a tale of severe human suffering and how each character attempts to escape from this misery. In the novel Crime and Punishment, he tells the story of Raskolnikov, a former student who murders an old pawnbroker as an attempt to prove a theory. In Notes from the Underground, we are given a chance to explore Dostoyevsky's opinion of human beings.
(Stojkovic and Lovell 2013) The pros of rehabilitation are of course the fact that it is successfully most of the time and is beneficial to society when a person can go from being a criminal to being a productive member of society like a preacher or teacher. The cons are some people just don’t want to change so rehabilitating them is nearly impossible and even there are those that cannot be because they suffer from mental issues or enjoy committing crimes too much to want to change. (Stojkovic and Lovell
Rehabilitation is another objective of sentencing. Rehabilitation is different from incapacitation and deterrence in that it does not always involve getting put behind bars. An offender may receive a sentence of rehabilitation where they are released back into society to complete a community based sentence (Goff, 2014 p.296).
Deterrence theory of crime is a method in which punishment is used to dissuade people from committing crimes. There are two types of deterrence: general and specific. General deterrence is punishment to an individual to stop the society as a whole from committing crimes. In other word, it is using the punishment as an example to “scare” society from precipitating in criminal acts. Under general deterrence, publicity is a major part of deterrence. Crime and their punishments being showing in the media or being told person to person can be used to deter crime. Specific deterrence is punishment to the individual to stop that individual from committing other crimes in the future. This type of deterrence is used to teach the individual a lesson whatever action that participated in. Specific deterrence is founded on a principle called hedonistic calculus meaning, “an assumption that human nature leads people to pursue pleasure and avoid pain” (Brown, Esbensen, & Geis, 2010, p 155).
Guilt in Crime and Punishment In Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky tells the story of a young man who has been forced out of his studies at a university, by poverty. In these circumstances, he develops his theory of an extraordinary man (Frank 62). This conjecture is composed of the idea that all great men must climb over obstacles in their way to reach their highest potential and benefit humankind. In Raskolnikov's life, the great obstacle is his lack of money, and the way to get over this obstacle is to kill a pawnbroker that he knows.
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
Provide the justifications for punishment in modern society. Punishment functions as a form of social control and is geared towards “imposing some unwanted burden such as fines, probations, imprisonment, or even death” on a convicted person in return for the crimes they committed (Stohr, Walsh, & Hemmens, 2013, p.6). There are four main justifications for punishment and they are: retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation. There is also said to be a fifth justification of reintegration as well.
In Crime and Punishment, Fyodor Dostoevsky invites the reader to explore the results of fully embracing utilitarianism as a moral philosophy. The novel does this through Rodya, a character who adopts utilitarianism and acts in unsettling ways. I will argue Dostoevsky does not challenge the core premises of utilitarianism, but instead asks the reader to think about the consequences of this ideology. Rodya, who is the incarnate of this worldview, is both secular as well as utilitarian to the extreme. Rodya’s absolutist commitment to consequentialism is evidenced when he is persuaded, at least in part, to kill Alyona by the conversation he overhears.
Punishment has been in existence since the early colonial period and has continued throughout history as a method used to deter criminals from committing criminal acts. Philosophers believe that punishment is a necessity in today’s modern society as it is a worldwide response to crime and violence. Friedrich Nietzche’s book “Punishment and Rehabilitation” reiterates that “punishment makes us into who we are; it creates in us a sense of responsibility and the ability to take and release our social obligations” (Blue, Naden, 2001). Immanuel Kant believes that if an individual commits a crime then punishment should be inflicted upon that individual for the crime committed. Cesare Beccaria, also believes that if there is a breach of the law by individuals then that individual should be punished accordingly.
Deterrence means to punish somebody as an example and to create fear in other people for the punishment. Death penalty is one of those extreme punishments that would create fear in the mind of any sane person. Ernest van den Haag, in his article "On Deterrence and the Death Penalty" mentions, "One abstains from dangerous acts because of vague, inchoate, habitual and, above all, preconscious fears" (193). Everybody fears death, even animals. Most criminals would think twice if they knew their own lives were at stake. Although there is no statistical evidence that death penalty deters crime, but we have to agree that most of us fear death. Suppose there is no death penalty in a state and life imprisonment without parole is the maximum punishment. What is stopping a prisoner who is facing a life imprisonment without parole to commit another murder in the prison? According to Paul Van Slambrouck, " Assaults in prisons all over US, both against fellow inmates and against staff, have more than doubled in the past decade, according to statistics gathered by the Criminal Justice Institute in Middletown, Connecticut" (Christian Science Monitor, Internet).