2.2 Discuss the Aims of Punishment

• Retribution

  • Involves punishment of offender as vengeance for wrong act
  • based on idea that offender deserves punishment - should be made to suffer for breaching societies moral code
  • contains element of revenge, society and victim are being avenged for the wrong done
  • doesn't seek to alter behaviour merely inflict punishment in proportion to offence
  • provides appropriate sentence to give justice for defendant and victim
  • supported by the Sentencing Council which provides guidelines for courts on range of appropriate sentences
• Retribution - Theories

  • Right realist approach would consider retribution as a fitting form of punishment as it ensures a defendant is being punished to an appropriate level without consideration of reasoning behind crime (rational choice theory)
  • Functionalism would argue that harsh sentences would make boundaries of acceptability clear and create social cohesion against crime/criminals
• Rehabilitation

  • aim is to reform offenders and reintroduce them into society
  • has hope that offender's behaviour will be altered, and they will not reoffend
  • also known as reformation, it presumed that criminal behaviour is a result of free will and rational choice - it is caused by factors that individual can do something about
• Rehabilitation - Methods

  • methods include prison education programmes, Aggression Replacement Training (ART), and drug treatment and testing orders
  • ART is a cognitive behavioural curriculum that targets consistent aggressive and violent behaviour, consists of social skills, anger control, and moral reasoning
  • teaching these skills aims to replace out-of-control destructive behaviours with constructive pro-social ones
• Deterrence

  • it can either be individual or general (aimed at public)
  • aim of individual is to ensure that offender does not reoffend
  • recidivism is when criminals reoffend, and deterrence makes recidivism rate low
  • prison has poor record at deterring adults and 46% reoffend within a year of release and 59% for those serving less than 12 months
  • aim of general deterrence is to prevent potential offenders
  • impact of a sentence with a deterrent element is weakened by the fact that it relates to someone else
• Deterrence - Theories

  • right realism favours this:
  • rational choice theory - individuals are rational actors who weigh up costs/benefits before deciding whether to offend, so severe punishments and high chances of being caught deter offending
  • situational crime prevention strategies (target hardening) makes it harder to commit an offence successfully and thus acts as a deterrent
• Public Protection/Incapacitation

  • preventing someone from functioning in a normal way
  • this is the idea that punishment must be a useful purpose for society by protecting us from dangerous criminals
  • sometimes it is incapacitation as the offender is prevented from exercising freedom
  • policies include: long prison sentences, execution, chemical castration, banishment, curfews, electronic tags, foreign travel bans, and cutting of hands from thieves
• Public Protection/Incapacitation - Theories

  • Lombroso argued that criminals are biologically different and it is not possible to change them so should be sent into exile instead
  • right realists see this as a way of protecting the public from crime and incapacitating persistent offenders with long sentences would reduce crime rate
• Reparation

  • involves offender making amends for the wrong they have done, whether to an individual victim and/or society
  • making amends can include financial compensation, unpaid work in the community, and restorative justice schemes
• Reparation - Theories

  • left realist approach may see punishments as a way of providing practical measures to reduce crime and produce long term change to society
  • labelling favours restorative justice as a way of reintegrating offenders into mainstream society, by enabling them to show remorse it permits reintegration and prevents them from being pushed into secondary deviance