Utilitarian Philosophy Of Punishment Essay

This assignment will provide an overview of the main justifications for punishment and essentially discuss the moral and political arguments for and against punishment. A constant theme that will run throughout will be the Utilitarian philosophy of punishment. Utilitarianism is forward-looking and therefore seeks to prevent the reoccurrence of crime. This is generally achieved through Deterrence, Rehabilitation and Incapacitation with all too some extent playing a vital role in the criminal justice system. Utilitarianism is the idea that an action should be judged on the benefits that have resulted from the act and that it should be performed in like situations by everyone (Laufer, Adler, and Mueller, 1999). However the idea of performing
It implies that the objective is to avoid upcoming crimes by excluding an individual from society on a short or long term basis or limiting their physical ability to re-offend (Incapacitation Theory , 2011). Incapacitation provides security as it physically restricts ones capability of committing an offence. It is perhaps the only and most effective way of controlling anarchy by situating criminals together in one location. By placing a criminal in a prison presents the view to the society they have been humiliated and restricted from their everyday freedoms. Significantly it allows for the government to exercise their legitimacy by scaling certain offences this proves and confirms the authority of the state. Due to the psychological impact of imprisonment , punishment becomes a routine for the offender depending on the length of the sentence. Though being imprisoned has significant negatives. For instance the punishment may be justified but however the label of being a criminal remains. Moreover this is apparent in modern society when it comes to systems such as the DBS and Criminal Records Bureau check. The capability to prosper in life is restricted in particular in the fields of education and employment. A statistic showed a staggering 75% of employers have declared that a criminal record should not be disregarded (Forrest, 2015). Therefore punishment in this logic can not be justified. If a released prisoner has no option to enter particular fields then no doubt committing another offence is extremely probable. Incapacitation is indeed about controlling certain groups who pose risk to society. It is indicated that to reduce crime by 1 per cent the prison population has to rise by approximately 15 per cent (Redmayne, 2015). The disadvantage of this is the costs related to imprisonment alongside an overcrowded environment. This makes the task of handling high risk offenders