What is Punishment?
Punishment may be used in lieu of many things. Usually when a punishment is given it is because an individual has violated a rule or law by not following the commands in which were put into place. According to The Free Dictionary, “Punishment is a penalty imposed for wrongdoing.” (thefreedictionary.com). If a child has committed an act that was disapproved by that child’s parent, their punishment may mean an early bedtime, no television, or not being able to go out to play. An adult, in their place of employment, may receive punishment a little differently. A punishment may be given if the individual violates company policies or procedure. The punishment may involve disciplinary action that may consist of a written warning, suspension, or even termination. When dealing with criminals, or alleged offenders, a punishment is given as a form of justice. The punishment may include a fine, penalty, or confinement. The punishment is usually given to fit the crime that was committed. If one has committed a crime, the result(s) of their punishment are endless.
History of Punishment
Crime is an act that has been committed in which society is affected. Crime has been around for centuries. There are ranges for crimes. The ranges are determined by misdemeanor or felony. Misdemeanors are less serious offenses and carry a punishment of up to a year of imprisonment. Felonies are serious offenses and carry a punishment of more than a year of imprisonment. Depending on when in history a crime was committed, determined the type of punishment someone received. Crimes committed during the B.C. (Before Christ) period had a different punishment, from a person who may have committed the same crime now.
The first murder, known to man...
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... whatever the offense committed by an individual, not only violated the law, also was offensive to god. In order to correct the offense, not only for the offender but also the community, the offender had to make peace with God.
For every justification for punishment, (retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and divine will), there are reason as to why a particular punishment is used. Though each is different, each with different intentions, they all have one main goal in common. The goal of the justifications for punishment is to deter future behavior in order to decrease crime. If there were not justifications put into play to have order within the criminal system, there would be chaos and crimes being committed by everyone with very little regard for the law. Because of punishment,
There are no limits to who a punishment can be imposed up on.
Crime can be defined as an action or omission that constitutes an offense that may be prosecuted by the state and is punishable by law.
When discipline is used correctly it can help guide somebody develop socially acceptable patterns of behavior. Discipline also teaches people about their mistakes, how to problem solve, and deal with their emotions in a correct way. Punishment is when the person who gives out the discipline, feels like the one being discipline has given a negative response to the discipline. Punishment c...
Arguably, there are many reasons for punishment, including: retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, restoration, and rehabilitation. The main aim of criminal law is to punish anybody who does wrong to the society; however, it is clear that there are different goals and forms of punishment as listen above. Notably, these differences exist because of the severity of the crime and its punishment. A murderer can be sentenced to die but a shoplifter cannot face the same sentence. The first type of punishment, retribution, punishes the crime doer because the system believes that it is right and fair. Therefore, it looks back at the crime and matches it with the best possible punishment (Schmalleger, 2013). The second type, incapacitation, is forward
Crime is seen as deviant behaviour that violates prevailing norms which are the cultural standards prescribing how humans ought to behave normally. This violation of a law;-offences against the person, violent offences, sexual offences and offences against property, causes injury to the public or an individual and a term in jail or prison, and/or a fine are possible penalties.#
whether the punishment fits the crime and if it honors the nature of the moral
Crime is some action/omission that causes harm in a situation that the person/group responsible ‘ought’ to be held accountable and punished irrespective of what the law book of state say.
Deterrence punishment is a threat to deter people from offending. Deterrence is often contrasted with retributivism, which holds that punishment is a necessary consequence of a crime and should be calculated based on the gravity of the wrong done.
In the 17th and 18th century, the purpose of punishment in society was to seek revenge and retribution for the crimes, however, in the 18th century classicist criminology thinking emerged in response to the cruel punishments that were handed out. The two key leaders of this was Beccaria and Bentham, both of which were utilitarian, so believed the reductivist approach to punishment would be the most effective. Beccaria argued that the purpose of punishment was to make society associate a strong link between the crime and punishment so they knew the consequences of their actions (Easten, S. and Piper, C,. 2012), he argued this could be done by delivering the punishment as quickly as possible and believed that the certainty of punishment in society would be the most effective way of deterrence (Newburn, T. 2007). The other key leader Bentham, argued that the purpose of punishment should be to show people that the cost of the crime outweighs the gains of it, he was a supporter of the use of prisons and thought that punishment should be proportionate to the crime and have predictable, certain consequences to deter people from future offences.
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.
The function of punishment is to instruct and rehabilitate, never to gain retribution. In other words, punishments do not make the offender "pay" for his crime. Justice is interpreted in the context of the first noble truth - suffering - and punishments implemented in the way that causes the least amount of pain, stress and conflict for the offender and the community at large.
There are many explanations for what punishment characterises. For Emile Durkheim, punishment was mainly an expression of social solidarity and not a form of crime control. Here, the offender attacks the social moral order by committing a crime and therefore, has to be punished, to show that this moral order still "works". Durkheim's theory suggests that punishment must be visible to everyone, and so expresses the outrage of all members of society against the challenge to their collective values. The form of punishment changes between mechanic (torture, execution) and organic (prison) solidarity because the values of society change but the idea behind punishing, the essence, stays the same - keeping the moral order intact not decreasing crime. Foucault has a different view of the role or function of punishment. For Foucault, punishment signifies political control. His theory compares the age of torture with the age of prison, concluding that the shift from the former to the latter is done due to changes in society and new strategies needed for the dominance of it by the rulers. Punishment for Foucault is a show of power first brutal and direct (torture), then organised and rational (prison). Punishment does not get more lenient because of humanitarian reasons but because the power relations in society change.
Crime is a human conduct that violates the laws of a state or the ferdral government. There are different ways people view criminal behavours either thourgh the view of the social problem prespective which blames the society and the social responsibility which blames the person who commited the crime. Through thses two prespective we get the idea of therories. A thoerey
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.
Crime exists within the broad category of behaviour that sociologists call deviance, according to sociologist William Graham Sumner ‘deviance is a violation of established contextual, cultural, or social norms, whether codified by laws or not.’ and crime is behaviour that breaks a law requiring a legal sanction. Deviance, although comes with a negative connotation, it can also be positive, for instance, when Rosa Parks decided to sit on the wrong section of the bus, she challenged
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.