Retributive Approach To Criminal Justice

To maintain peace and respect among members of a society is to achieve justice. Justice is to ensure fairness, equity, and moral righteousness through law and order. That is, by imposing the idea that there are consequences for deviant behavior, actions that serve to threaten the norm and disrupt the peace of the public. In essence, the result of socially, individually, and criminally harmful behavior is to endure punishment. Though, of what purpose is being served if the punishment inflicted fails to independently acknowledge the offender as an individual, by personalizing the punishment. This implies that a reoffender who is familiar with the legal system has adapted and aware of the humane limitations of punishment. Whereas, a first time offender entering the system will be deterred and more anxious for release into society after serving a short, swift, and effective punishment (Bank 2004). Therefore, recognizing a distinction between the two offenders described, it would be most effective for our punishment system to be developed on the basis of the retributive theory which accounts the history
Indeed it is. The retributive approach focuses on the other components that are relevant to the punishment process and moral code of society such as the past actions of the offender, the nature of the criminal act in question, and being held accountable for the harm caused. Society assumes to be actively involved in the retributive approach as the utilitarian approach attempts to isolate the problem. Although the utilitarian approach aims to prevent future crime, by functioning to maintain the safety of the public, it does so in a very rigid fashion. That is, even if the means to prevent future crimes or doing the ‘greater good’ results in mass incarceration and imprisoning of innocence rather than focusing on the reduction of crime (Bank