Punishment
Introduction
In criminal justice, punishment refers to the imposition of undesirable outcomes on individuals or groups with the goal of deterring undesirable behaviours. These unpleasant or undesirable impositions may include confinement, fines, penalties, or the removal of things considered to be desirable or pleasant. Punishment in criminal justice is carried out or imposed formally under a system of laws, and it serves four major goals: rehabilitation, retribution, incapacitation and deterrence. The focus of this paper is to explain these four goals of punishment and to explain the difference between “corrections” and “punishment” in the context of criminal law.
The Four Goals of Punishment
Rehabilitation
As a rehabilitation tool, punishment aims at providing education, vocational or therapy sessions to offenders with the aim of reforming their behaviours so that they can return to their communities as law-abiding citizens (Kendall, 2018). Based on this assumption, offenders are not punished. Instead, they are treated so that they are able to stay away from criminal behaviour. According to Kendall (2018), the rehabilitation function of correctional facilities is in most cases ineffective because most correctional facilities are either underfunded, understaffed (or both) in the rehabilitation services or programs that they offer. Additionally, offenders are not always assisted in getting jobs that suit or fit the skills that they learn in prison when they get released (Kendall, 2018).
Retribution
Retribution describes a form of punishment that is imposed upon groups or individuals for infringing upon the rights of other people (Kendall, 2018). This form of punishment is based on the principle that “punishment should fit the crime.” This implies that the degree of punishment one gets should match the degree of social harm caused by the person (Kendall, 2018). For example, the degree punishment imposed on murderers is higher than that imposed on shoplifters.
Incapacitation
This form of punishment is based on the principle that detained or executed offenders are prevented from committing further crimes (Kendal, 2018). In recent years, there has been a great emphasis of “selective incapacitation,” a form of punishment in which longer prison terms are given to those who do certain crimes repeatedly.
Deterrence
The goal of deterrence is to “instil certain degrees of fear of punishment in the general public with the aim of reducing criminal activity” (Kendall, 2018). This form of punishment is based on the assumption that when offenders are punished, the rest of the public is discouraged from engaging in criminal activity because of the fear of being arrested.
Different between Corrections and Punishment
The term corrections differ from punishment in the sense that while punishment describes the imposition of unpleasant outcomes on offenders, corrections refers to organizations, prisons, jails and programs that manage people or individuals convicted or accused of crimes (Kendall, 2018). Examples of corrections include community service, halfway houses, counselling, probation, parole supervisions, education and work release programs (Kendall, 2018).
Conclusion
The focus of this paper was to explain the four functions of punishment which are rehabilitation, retribution, incapacitation and deterrence. Punishment has been described as the imposition of undesirable outcomes on offenders with the aim of achieving these four ends or roles. Additionally, the difference between punishment and corrections has been provided by explaining that corrections describe the organizations, prisons, jails and programs that manage people or individuals convicted or accused of crimes. Examples of corrections are also provided above.
References
Kendall, D. (2018). Sociology in Our Times: The Essentials. Cengage.