AC 2.2

• AC 2.2 - Discuss the aims of punishment
• Aims of punishment

  • When D pleads guilty or is found guilty of an offence, the court must decide what sentence should be given
  • Each offence has a maximum sentence and a judge or Magistrate can impose a sentence up to the maximum
  • They will also have to decide what they are trying to achieve by the punishment they give
• Aims of punishment

  • Most people believe that punishment is an offence way to prevent or reduce crime
  • others argue that offenders deserve to be punished anyway, regardless of whether or not this reduces crime
• Penal theories - Theories behind the practice of punishment

  • various principles that can justify the different sentences for punishment that can be handed down by a court
• Sentencing - Section 57 of the Sentencing Act 2020
• Sentencing - Section 57 of the Sentencing Act 2020

  Any court 'must regard to' the five purposes of sentencing:

  • Punishment of offenders
  • Reduction of crime
  • Reform and Rehabilitation of offenders
  • Protection of the public
  • Making of reparation by offenders to persons affected by their offences
• Retribution

  • Literally means paying back so that the offender should be made to suffer for breaching society's moral code
  • Includes inflicting punishment on an offender as vengenance for a wrong or criminal act
  • Based on the idea that criminals should get their 'just desserts' offenders deserve to be punished and society is morally entitled to take its revenge
• Proportionality

  • Punishment should fit the crime - it should be equal of proportionate to the harm done
  • A form of revenge - a severe sentence is imposed for a committing a serious offence
  • An eye for an eye - the offender should suffer the same level of harm as the victim and that the offender deserves to suffer
• Proportionality

  • Proportionality leads to a 'tariff system' or fixed scale of mandatory (compulsory) penalties for different offences
  • EG fixed penalty notices and mandatory life sentence for murder
• Expressing moral outrage

  • May deter potential offender but this is not its purpose
  • supply a way for society to express its moral condemnation or outrage at the offender
• Expressing moral outrage

  • justification for punishing crimes already committed
  • EG GBH it goes up from a maximum of 5 years to 7 years
• Retribution - Theory

  • Linked to right realism theories of criminality such as rational choice theory
  • Assumes that offenders are rational actors who consciously choose to commit their crimes and are fully responsible for their actions
• Retribution - Theory

  • The moral outrage that retribution expresses performs the function of boundary maintenance (functionalist sociologists)
• Criticisms of Retribution

  • Can be argued that offenders deserve forgiveness, mercy or a chance to make amends, not just punishment
  • If there is a fixed tariff of penalties, punishment has to be inflicted even where no good to come from it, EG on a remorseful offender
  • How do we decide what is a proportionate penalty or 'just desserts' for each crime
• Synoptic links

  • Biological theories - Genetic and physiological
  • Individualistic theories - Learning theory
  • Psychodynamic and psychological theories and sociological theories
  • (Marxism, functionalism, interactionism and realism)
• Rehabilitation - Cost more money

  • The idea that punishment can be used to reform or change offenders so they no longer offend and can go on to live a crime free life
  • Uses various programmes to change the offender's future behaviour by addressing the issues which led to that offending happening
• Rehabilitation

  • Education and training programmes - For prisoners so they can avoid unemployment and earn an earning upon release
  • Anger management courses - for violent offenders, such as Aggression Replacement Training (ART) and other cognitive behavioural therapy programmes
• Rehabilitation

  • Drug treatment, Testing orders and programmes to treat alcohol dependence
  • Support - Offenders often require considerable input of resources and professional support from therapists, probation offices
  • Community sentences often include requirements offenders to engage in such programmes
• Rehabilitation - Linking to theories

  • Cognitive theories - Favour cognitive behavioural therapists (CBT) to teach offenders to correct the thinking errors and biases that led to aggressive or criminal behaviour
  • Eysenck's personality theory - favours the use of aversion therapy to deter offending behaviour
• Rehabilitation - Linking theories

  • Skinner's operant learning theory - supports the use of token economies to encourage prisoners to produce more acceptable behaviour
  • Sociological theories as left realism also favour rehabilitation in that they regard social factors such as unemployment, poverty and poor educational opportunities as causes of crime
• Rehabilitation - Linking theories

  Rehabilitation therefore addresses these needs among offenders which will help to reduce offending
• Criticisms of rehabilitation

  • Rights realists argue that rehabilitation has only limited success, in that many offenders go on to reoffend even after undergoing programmes aimed at changing their behaviour
• Criticisms of rehabilitation

  • Marxists criticises rehabilitation programmes for shifting the responsibility for offending onto the individual offender's failings, rather than focusing on how capitalism leads some people to commit crime