preview

Purpose Of Punishment Analysis

Decent Essays

The question of identifying the purposes of punishment would depend on whether or not you identify yourself as a retributive, or utilitarian type of person. While these two fundamentals have some similarities, they are vastly different in most ways. For the retributivist, the purposes of punishment is simple, a person who commits a crime or rule violation should be punished because they deserve it (Brody & Acker, 2010). This is easy to understand for most people. The average person understands that their actions have consequences, and depending on the action, the consequences can be either positive or negative in nature. Another purpose for punishment for the retributivist is that it restores the social norms and sense of fairness to …show more content…

This general deterrence serves the whole community, not just the offender who committed the violation. When other members of the community see the punishment, which was handed down to the violator, then in their minds, the fear of suffering the same consequences, will prevent them from violating the law. This general deterrence also helps with the second philosophy of utilitarian punishment, which is the reinforcement of the social norms, or values (Brody & acker, 2010). Along with the deterrence value, punishment also shows the rest of the society that violators will be condemned by the rest of the community. The fear caused by this, and of the punishment itself, keep others from breaking the …show more content…

It is easy to see that punishment may deter the violator from committing similar acts in the future. If punishment can serve as a general deterrent for the society, it should have more of a deterrent effect on the person suffering from it. This goes along with the next utilitarian philosophy of punishment, which is incapacitation (Brody & Acker, 2010). When a violator is incapacitated, or incarcerated, they are keep away from the rest of the community, and usually in an environment that is very uncomfortable. This also supports the philosophies of general and individual deterrence, in that once members of a society know that they will be incapacitated in an undesirable place, they will not want to risk their freedom by violating the law. As for the individual deterrent, once a person has been incapacitated, then released, their experience should prevent them from committing future violations. This previous experience with incapacitation also supports the next utilitarian philosophy for punishment, which is reform (Brody & Acker, 2010). It is hoped that by making the punishment, and incapacitation so uncomfortable, that the violators will reform their criminal ways, and become viable members of the community. This brings us to the last utilitarian philosophy for punishment, which is vengeance (Brody & Acker, 2010). This philosophy is geared more towards the victims, who suffered

Get Access