Question 1- Elaborate on the major goals of criminal sentencing?
Answer 1: The criminal law aims to punish the offenders, but the forms of punishment are different and have different goals. This lesson explores the types and goals of contemporary criminal judgments. A convicted murderer was sentenced to death. Convicted offenders must serve a sentence of one year, probation, and compensation for the store. A truant high school student was ordered to attend an alternative school and complete community service hours.
These are examples of criminal cases, but pay attention to differences! Severity is different because the purpose of each penalty is different. Criminal judgments have five different goals. Different types of judgment are designed
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Crime usually has the highest penalty, but judges are free to choose all kinds of options - imprisonment, probation, and fines. The Parole Board decides the release date. The principle behind the indeterminate sentences is to hope that the prison can fix some criminals and that different people react differently to punishment. Prison officials generally prefer an indeterminate sentence because the prospect of early release makes prisoners motivated by passive imprisonment. In cases indeterminate sentencing, the goal is to show that the most progressive offender will be detained to the minimum deadline, not the minimum duration. The decision took into account the crimes of the individual offenders (including the mitigation or aggravation of the circumstances), the history of the crimes, the conduct in prisons and the efforts for rehabilitation. Criminal offenders can also submit statements. At least, in theory, there is a careful and concrete assessment before criminals are released into the community. Critics argue that the problem with the indeterminate sentencing of the judgment is that it places too much power on the Parole Board, resulting in arbitrary and discriminatory results. They often accuse that if a minority has no relationship with a prisoner, he or she will be subjected to excessively harsh sentences on the parole board, and less credible criminals will be released …show more content…
Strict punishments for adults and children are not always serious. Sentences such as brand, whip, mutilation, and execution are common. For example, in the period of King Henry VIII, not less than 200 crimes were sentenced to death, many of which were minor crimes. This harsh attitude eventually led to some progressive sections of British society to feel dissatisfied with the evolution of the judicial system. In order to alleviate these inhuman punishments, various measures were slowly and firmly established and adopted. Royal pardons can be purchased by defendants; activist judges can avoid applying regulations or choose loose interpretations; stolen property may be devalued by the courts, so criminals may be accused of committing crimes lighter. In addition, methods such as clergy, judicial probation, shelters, and protection laws provide criminals with a degree of protection from harsh judgments. In the end, the court began the practice of "kidnapping for good conduct." This is a form of temporary release, during which the offender can take measures to obtain a pardon or a lighter sentence. It is controversial that some courts have started suspending judgments. In the United States, and especially in Massachusetts, different approaches are being developed. "Safety of good behavior" is also called "good variation" and is very similar to the modern bail system: Defendants pay fees as
When an offender is sentenced to imprisonment, post sentencing considerations must be made based on an evaluation of the individual and this will determine the manner in which the prison sentence is served. Post sentencing considerations include security classifications, parole and continued detention orders. These offer different levels of incapacity, accessibility of rehabilitation programs and incentives for good behaviour, and are implicated in order to achieve justice through upholding the rights of the victim, the offender and the wider community.
Prior to the implementation of sentencing guidelines, judges had total judicial discretion in determining sentence lengths leading to a wide fluctuation of sentences to offenders convicted of similar crimes due to the judge considering all information about the offender when sentencing.
Serious crimes such as murder, burglary and rape have raised questions as to whether the young offenders should face severe punitive treatment or the normal punitive measures in juvenile courts. Many would prefer the juveniles given harsh punishment in order to discourage other young people from engaging in similar activities and to serve as a lesson to these particular offenders. However, results from previous studies indicate such punitive measures were neither successful nor morally acceptable. Instead, the solutions achieved have unfairly treated the youths and compromised the society status (Kristin, page 1).
All the laws, which concern with the administration of justice in cases where an individual has been accused of a crime, always begin with the initial investigation of the crime and end either with imposition of punishment or with the unconditional release of the person. Most of the time it is the duty of the members of constituted authorities to inflict the punishment. Thus it can be said that almost all of the punishments are an act of self-defense and an act of defending the community against different types of offences. According to Professor Hart “the ultimate justification of any punishment is not that it is deterrent but that it is the emphatic denunciation by the community of a crime” (Hart P.65). Whenever the punishments are inflicted having rationale and humane factor in mind and not motivated by our punitive passions and pleasures then it can be justified otherwise it is nothing but a brutal act of terrorism. Prison System: It has often been argued that the criminals and convicted prisoners are being set free while the law-abiding citizens are starving. Some people are strongly opposed the present prison and parole system and said that prisoners are not given any chance for parole. Prisons must provide the following results: Keep dangerous criminals off the street Create a deterrent for creating a crime The deterrent for creating a crime can be justified in the following four types Retribution: according to this type, the goal of prison is to give people, who commit a crime, what they deserved Deterrence: in this type of justification, the goal of punishment is to prevent certain type of conduct Reform: reform type describes that crime is a disease and so the goal of punishment is to heal people Incapacitation: the...
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.
to the innocent. But severity of punishment has its limits -- imposed both by justice and
...ibility of a longer sentence if the trial is lost. In contrast, the indeterminate sentencing reduces prison population but created more case loads for the community corrections. When the inmate is paroled early for good behavior, he or she is placed on parole. While on parole the community corrections must ensure that these individuals are not violating parole. Some ways to monitor the individuals behavior is through electronic monitoring (if on house arrest), alcohol and drug tests, home visits and reporting centers. The more people released early, the bigger the case load (Nieto, 1996).
Evolved from English common law, the United States judiciary system is an intricate series of complex judgments, decisions, and procedures. A corner-stone of this systematic practice, is the belief that a crime against an individual is a crime against society at large, therefore must be punished by that same society. The intent of incarceration is to rehabilitate the offender, so that they might return to society and become productive members of it.
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 heaviest punishment towards convicts is death penalty in law. It means to atone for an offense is dead. Of course, it will not execute for every criminal. Death penalty is only for felons. For example, a people who murdered someone would not get the death penalty. The death penalty is for murders who related to the smuggling of aliens or committed during a drug-related drive-by shooting. Sometimes, however, the felons also can avoid the death because some countries (or actually states) don’t allow death penalty. Then, what decision would the convict get? It is a life sentence, which means the prisoner should be in a prison until he or she dies. However, it is not good idea to keep felons. Death penalty should be allowed and get more active because life sentence is costly, unsafe, and insincere for a victim and the family.
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.
Offenders are protected today by both the rule of law, ensuring that all offenders are treated equally, regardless of their age, sex or position in the community, and due process, which ensures that all offenders are given a fair trial with the opportunity to defend themselves and be heard (Williams, 2012). Beccaria’s emphasis on punishment being humane and non-violent has also carried through to modern day corrections. It is still the case today that offenders must only receive punishment that is proportionate to the crime they have committed and the punishment is determined by the law. The power of the judges and the magistrates to make decisions on punishment is guided by the legislation and they do not have the power to change the law (Ferrajoli,
Offenders sentenced to spend the rest of their life in a prison have zero chances that they will return to society. It is a fundamental way that violations and crimes committed by these offenders serve serious sentences, although there is no sentence more severe than receiving the death penalty. Judges impose life sentencing towards inmates as a punishment for the most serious crimes, such as rape, manslaughter or even murder. It is a matter of life or death that the inmate goes through after standing in a serious situation where they are more likely to spend their whole life in a white, brick, prison cell.
According to David Garland, punishment is a legal process where violators of the criminal law are condemned and sanctioned with specified legal categories and procedures (Garland, 1990). There are different forms and types of punishment administered for various reasons and can either be a temporary or lifelong type of punishment. Punishment can be originated as a cause from parents or teachers with misbehaving children, in the workplace or from the judicial system in which crimes are committed against the law. The main aim of punishment is to demonstrate to the public, the victim and the offender that justice is to be done, to reduce criminal activities and to deter people from wanting to commit any form of crime against the law. In other words it is a tool used to eliminate the bad in society or to deter people from committing criminal activities.