The Justifications Of Prison And Punishment

Imprisonment is one of the primary ways in which social control may be achieved; the Sage Dictionary of Criminology defines social control as a concept used to describe all the ways in which conformity may be achieved. Throughout time imprisonment and its ideas around social control have varied. Imprisonment has not always been used for punishment, nor has it always thought about the prisoners themselves. However when looking at imprisonment it is important to consider the new penology. Therefore, it needs to be clear what the new penology is. The new penology is said, not to be about punishing individuals or about rehabilitating them, but about identifying and managing unruly groups in society. It is concerned with the managerial

Incarceration is thought of as a positive form of punishment, and negative form of punishment. The opinion varies with the type of person, and their experience from jail if they have gone. Most inmates while in prison will tell you it is a horrible place that should be gone. That would allow criminals to be free and that would let them cause harm to others or other illegal activities. Incarceration was not designed to be a paradise, it is a detention center for the bad, and meant for them to be punished. Without jails the world would be filled with even more evil, and would leave people in more danger than they already are.

Every civilization in history has had rules, and citizens who break them. To this day governments struggle to figure out the best way to deal with their criminals in ways that help both society and those that commit the crimes. Imprisonment has historically been the popular solution. However, there are many instances in which people are sent to prison that would be better served for community service, rehab, or some other form of punishment. Prison affects more than just the prisoner; the families, friends, employers, and communities of the incarcerated also pay a price. Prison as a punishment has its pros and cons; although it may be necessary for some, it can be harmful for those who would be better suited for alternative means

In prisons today, rehabilitation, deterrence, incapacitation, and retribution are all elements that provide a justice to society. Prisons effectively do their part in seeing that one if not more of these elements are met and successfully done. If it were not for these elements, than what would a prison be good for? It is highly debated upon whether or not these elements are done properly. It is a fact that these are and a fact that throughout the remainder of time these will be a successful part of prison life.

Mass incarceration has been an issue in the United States since the start of the War on Drugs, because of the political agenda attached to the “tough on crime” regimen thousands of people have suffered as a consequence. The solution to this is one that can only be possibly solved by approaching through several angles. The ten steps presented by Michael Tonry, are an innovative and have merit to some extent. However, mass incarceration results from more than unjust sentencing laws, which is his main focus. If ever we are to resolve the issue, society and the criminal justice system must come together to completely reevaluate what we consider to be “tough on crime” and redefine the purpose of prisons, strictly punishment or rehabilitation. The focus has to shift from harsh sentencing, stigma, racial discrimination to a basic form of rehabilitation and reduction of the prison system in general. The criminal justice system has to do what they are actually meant to do and focus on rehabilitation measures, and when possible completely stop interaction with the prison system all together.

Provide the justifications for punishment in modern society. Punishment functions as a form of social control and is geared towards “imposing some unwanted burden such as fines, probations, imprisonment, or even death” on a convicted person in return for the crimes they committed (Stohr, Walsh, & Hemmens, 2013, p.6). There are four main justifications for punishment and they are: retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation. There is also said to be a fifth justification of reintegration as well.

Within this paper, you will find a comprehensive review of the United States prison system, and why it needs to analyzed to better support and reform the people of this country. I plan to persuade the other side (politicians and society) into seeing that the way the prison system is now, is not ethical nor economical and it must change. We have one of the world’s largest prison population, but also a very high rate of recidivism. Recidivism is when the prisoners continuously return to prison without being reformed. They return for the same things that they were doing before. So, this leads us to ask what exactly are we doing wrong? When this happens, we as a nation must continuously pay to house and feed these inmates. The purpose of a prison needs to be examined so we can decide if we really are reforming our inmates, or just continuing a vicious cycle. What is the true purpose of prison besides just holding them in a cell? There must be more we can do for these hopeless members of society.

Have you ever wonder why prisons are made? It is known that prisons are built to isolate and punish everyone that committed crime in their lives, whether it is in the past or present. However, lately there have been some arguments on whether everybody that committed crime should be put in jail or they should be allowed to stay outside of the prison, but with very strict supervisions. Nowadays, there have been some cases in which criminals are given the freedom to stay in their usual surroundings. The reason is people agree that criminals may have done something bad, but not all of them should be put in jail. There are other ways to punish those who did wrong aside from putting them in quarantine.

The four justifications for punishment include, “retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation” (Reichel, 2013, p. 231). Retribution is when a person receives a punishment as a result for committing a crime (Reichel, 2013). This form of punishment is deemed necessary by society because a person deserves to pay for breaking the law (Reichel, 2013). “A goal of retribution is to retaliate for the wrong done in such a way that the nature of the punishment reflects the nature of the offense” (Reichel, 2013, p. 231). That is why there are different sentences for different crimes because each deserves a certain punishment (Reichel, 2013). For example, a person who commits murder isn’t going to receive the same punishment as a person

With the population of the United States prisons growing every day we need to evaluate if they are doing any good. Personally, I believe that we need to keep our prison system, but we need to take steps in reforming them rather than abolish them altogether. The United States has the highest number of incarcerated people than any other country in the world. We must sit down and look at other countries and see what they are doing different than the United States. In this paper, we will first look at what the prison system in America is like and what we can do to improve upon our prison system. Then, we will also look at the Finland prison systems and see if we can learn anything from them, since they have one of the lowest incarceration and crime rate in the world. We will then look at reforming our prison system or abolishing it. Finally, we will investigate other punishment alternatives other than the prison system that we could use.

With the development of society, prison sentences has become a hot topic among people. On one hand, as the East weekly reported that more than 200 criminals composition of a village after releasing out are still keeping the prison habit after sentence (Easy weekly, 2011). Long-term prison sentence would have a great impact on people's physical and mental health. On the other hand, in the rencent year, the proportion of crimes committed by the short sentence increased from 5.2% to 51%, which has been significantly higher than the long-term offender sentence. There are different opinions among people, prison sentences should be the longer the better? Everything has two sides and whether the prison sentence should be longer or shorter is not an exception, it has both advantages and disadvantages. People’s opinions vary from person to person, however, in terms of our opinions, prison sentence is the shorter the better.

How to treat criminals has been a source of very intense debates for centuries. A typical punishment for most committed crimes whose penalty is not sentencing to capital punishment, is imprisoning. This view has been challenged by a number of the very recent sociologists, who think that a couple of alternative solutions other than sending those society members to jail should be adopted. Thinking about this subject, I would believe that a combination of prison and educating the offenders is the best solution as it will be discussed here.

Over the past generation, the landscape of sentencing prisoners has changed dramatically. Over this same period, United States of America has made a number of modifications in one of the basis of American criminal justice policy, Prison Term. Prison Terms has taken the place of public flogging, death penalty and torture. Stastics has shows that many states has abolished death penalty. Today in order to deter the crime, Nowadays, only few states in the United States of America such as Texas, practices Death Penalty. Nevertheless, many fierce criminals are sentenced for a long prison term; in order to ensure public safety. In a response to fight against crime, there is an increase in the use of imprisonment. Conversely, many state legislatures have reduced prison term, discharging more prisoners (directly to the society) in order to maintain the prison management. A statistics of released prisoners over the decade/

It is through this that philosophers, government and prison officials have arrived at the five traditional goals of punishment which replicates elements of criminal punishment. They are retribution, rehabilitation, deterrence, restoration and incapacitation. Retribution, rehabilitation and deterrence are however the three most frequently used in today’s modern society, as they are the main justifications for punishment.

Punishment in general can obviously be justified (in the traditional sense of the term) on utilitarian grounds. Nevertheless, usually its justification is not asked for. Because justification of punishment, in general is unnecessary. It is the justification of particular infliction of pain (or punishment) that can be enquired of. As a man can legitimately ask for justification of a particular law of a state. However, nobody enquires of the justification of legal system or of law in general. It is meaningful to ask, 'Can this rule be justified? 'Or 'Are not those laws justifiable? ' But it is not worthwhile rather it is absurd to ask, "Can law (in general) be justified?" Similarly, punishment in general or penal system requires no