Justification Of Punishment Essay

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Why punish? Is the use of punishment ever Justified? In Punishment: The Supposed Justifications Revisited, Ted Honderich aim to answer these questions. Society needs to establish a well thought-out moral explanation as to why we punish and what we strive to achieve with the use of punishment as it is at the core of our punitive system. Honderich set out to analyze the supposed moral claims that justify the use of punishment and to determine if they are reasonable enough for the intentional infliction of suffering and deprivation.
What are the claims as to why punishment should be morally used? The author looks at three main justifications of punishment. Those who believe that the offender deserves to be chastised for his or her crime justify punishment by appealing to desert thereby retributive in nature thus backward-looking. The justification of punishment …show more content…

The core justification for forward-looking theories is that punishment reduces crime. His argument against incapacitation as a means of preventing crime is convincing. In reference to statistical facts he showed prison does not prevent crime, maybe to the outside world but in actuality crime if the same offence, rape, is higher in prison. I believe rather than just focusing on prison as a form of incapacitation in preventing crime what about the permanent incapacitative punishment other than the capital punishment? Would crime be prevented if we cut off the hands of a thief? Or castrate a sex offender? It is common sense to agree that prison will not prevent future crimes as criminals often become hardened with their crimes as they are with like-minded people who feel their imprisonment is unjustified. We cannot determine the through effect of incapacitation in reducing crime if the only source of study is the

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