2.2

• Aims of Punishment


  • Retribution
  • Rehabilitation
• Retribution


  "Paying Back" - Criminals should get their 'just deserts'- they deserve to be punished and society is morally entitled to take revenge. They should be made to suffer for breaching society's moral code.
• Retribution


  • Punishment should fit the crime - 'an eye for an eye'
  • Leads to a tariff system with fixed mandatory sentences for different offences
• Tariffs


  • Theft - maximum 7 years imprisonment and/or unlimited fine
  • Common assault - maximum 6 months custody, 2 years if against emergency worker or racially/religiously aggravated
  • Death offences - life sentence with minimum time in prison
  • Causing/allowing child to suffer serious harm - maximum 14 years
  • Aggravated arson - 8-12+ years custody
  • Rape - average 4-19 years custody, maximum life
  • Sexual assault - 10 years
  • Animal cruelty - maximum 5 years
  • Money laundering - up to 14 years or large fine
  • Stalking - maximum 10 years, 14 years if racially/religiously aggravated
  • Illegal immigration - unlimited fine, 14 years imprisonment or both
• Retribution


  May also act as a deterrent but its main purpose is to express moral outrage and therefore the punishment is good in itself even if it doesn't change the offender's behaviour. It punished crimes that have already been committed rather than preventing further ones.
• Retribution is 'paying back', similar to revenge but in a legal system, to cause suffering equal to the harm enacted.
• Rehabilitation


  • Uses treatment programmes to change offenders' future behaviour by addressing the issues that led to their offending
  • Includes education, training, anger management, drug treatment
• Rehabilitation requires the offender to actively want to change their lives and requires considerable input of resources and professional support
• Deterrence


  • Using punishment to deter an individual offender from committing crime again (individual deterrence)
  • Using punishment to make an example of someone in order to deter society as a whole (general deterrence)
• Severity of punishment vs. certainty of being caught - if people are unlikely to get caught, even severe punishments won't act as a deterrent
• Incapacitation removes the offender's capacity to offend again, e.g. execution, cutting off hands, chemical castration, banishment, travel bans, curfews/tagging
• Imprisonment


  • The main way society practices public protection
  • Includes mandatory minimum sentences, indeterminate sentences, determinate sentences
• Reparation is the offender making amends for what they have done, e.g. financial compensation, unpaid work, restorative justice
• Penal populism and mass incarceration are criticisms of incapacitation and imprisonment
• Retribution contains an element of revenge, in that society and the victim are being avenged for the wrong done
• Rehabilitation can be controversial as it may appear the offender is being "rewarded" for committing crimes
• Rehabilitation requires investment of resources and it is debatable whether the state should be able to change how people think