unit 4

• Punishment

  not an exclusive province of the law. parents punish their children, and people will punish members of their peer group, has no rigid boundaries

  • evil or unpleasantness
  • an offence
  • an offender
  • imposed by authority
  • pain inflicted intentional
• Denunciation (element)

  makes it clear to society that certain behaviours will not be tolerated. Represents strong symbolic collective statement to the offender and the public that crime will not be tolerated. E.g. Rene Lopez, got 1,503 years in prison and 186 counts of sexual assault for repeatedly raping daughter over five yers
• Criminal Justice Act 2003 


  to punish offenders, reduce crime, rehabilitation of offenders, protecting the public, the making of reparations by the offender to the victims: Retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, public protection and reparation
• Retribution

  based on the ideas an offender deserves to punished, display of public disgust of an individuals actions and as such has a certain degree of revenge. punishment must be suitable to crime for justice to victims. 'eye for an eye'. does NOT seek to alter individuals behaviour in any way so does prevent no further crime from occurring. e.g. increase in prison sentence for crimes racially motivated (sentence uplift) 'casing death by dangerous driving' went from 5 to 14 years.
• Deterrence

  aims to dissuade offender, or anyone in society, from committing crime by a fear of punishment, in example of external social control: individual and general deterrence.
• individual deterrence

  ensures the offender does not reoffend, aim in practice is a suspended sentence: the offender may rethink their actions and behaviours if they know that they will be sent back to prison if they reoffend. another example: america= 'three strikes and you're out'= convicted of three offences, at least one violent, then you will automatically be given a life sentence.
• general deterrence

  aimed at deterring other potential offenders in society at large if public know that an offender has Benn given a long and sever prison sentence for a particular act, then they will be less likely to act in a similar way as they would not want to receive such a sentence. e.g Jordan Blackshaw received 4 years in prison for trying to incite disorder over Facebook during the riots in 2011, judge in case wanted to dissuade public from taking part, but high recidivism rates suggest that prison sentences are not an effective deterrent
• Rehabilitation

  seeks to help the offended become a productive, non criminal member of society: education programs, drug treatment programs, anger management and many others are aimed at helping the offender "get offender'. aim presumes criminal behaviour is a result of rational choice and free will. behaviour modification: drug treatment, community sentences ( punishment with activities), probation (serve sentence in community to carry out unpaid work etc). forward looking. aims to change offenders behaviour. rehab sentences seen as controversial as it seems offender is being "rewarded"
• Public Protection

  based on assumption that the state has a duty to protect members of society from actions of dangerous criminals. incapacitates or prevents an offender from committing further offences. e.g. long prison sentences= limit freedom of offenders and therefor protecting public.. curfew orders (electronic tagging) limit opportunity for people to commit further, chemical castration pf sex offenders
• Reparation

  aim involves the action of ensuring the criminal makes amends for their actions, to provide compensation or other assistance. making reparations to society as a whole. e.g. community sentences (unpaid work) community order. bring offenders and victims together, so offenders cam make direst compensations e.g. writing apology, meeting face to face to see harm they caused
• retribution theory

  right realism= offender punished without considering the reason why the crime occurred
• deterrence theory

  learning theory= try to learn more acceptable behaviour to avoid prison->individual deterrence.

  marxists= threat of long prison sentence is way of controlling the working class-> general deterrence
• rehabilitation theory

  left realism= they view punishment as a way to produce long-term change to make a more equal, caring society
• public protection theory

  right realism= main focus on control, containment and punishment of offenders rather than eliminating the underlying cause of offender.
• reparation theory

  learning theory= change behaviour after seeing impact of victim (restorative justice)
• retribution evaluation

  fails to address the causes of crime so does not prevent future offending
• deterrence evaluation

  recidivism rates (re-offending) show that punishments are an ineffective deterrent
• rehabilitation evaluation

  too much focus on an individual and not social causes
• public protection evaluation

  this has led overcrowding in prisons "warehousing of offenders"
• reparation evaluation

  some argue that it is too lenient