The four fundamental philosophies surrounding the purpose of sentencing are retribution, deterrence, Incapacitation, and Rehabilitation. Retribution is the belief that those who commit criminal acts should be punished according to the seriousness of the crime and that no other circumstances are considered. It relies on the principle of just deserts, which holds that the severity of the punishment must be in proportion of the severity of the crime. Deterrence is the thought that if the punishment given is severe enough that it will stop the potential criminal from committing the crime or to be a repeat offender, so rather than seeking only to punish the offender this strategy is to try to sentence to prevent future crimes along with incapacitation and rehabilitation. Incapacitation is the third philosophy that is a belief that if the criminal is detained for a crime, thereby being separated from the community reduces the criminal activity and once released will not be as likely to be a repeat offender. Rehabilitation is the fourth and final philosophy that surrounds the purpose of sentencing, some believe that society is best served when those who break the law are not simply punished but are provided with resources needed to eliminate the need or want to engage in criminal behavior activity. There are three steps to help determining sentencing. When public opinions move toward more severe strategies of retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation, legislatures have responded by asserting their power of over determining sentencing guidelines. The Legislature passes sentencing Laws; this specifies the terms of indeterminate sentencing. An Indeterminate term of incarceration is in which a judge determines the minimum and maximum terms of imprisonment. Only a jury can hand down the decision of the death penalty. When the minimum term is reached the prisoner becomes eligible to be paroled. Then there is determinate sentencing, this is a period of incarceration that is…
Since World War II through the 1970s, many changes occurred in the United States correctional systems. Rehabilitation Model is a treatment program that was designed to reform the inmates. According to www.copower.org, “This model is similar to the medical model; it regards the person with a disability as in need of services from a rehabilitation professional who can provide training, therapy, counseling or other services to make up for the deficiency caused by the disability. Historically, it gained acceptance after World War II when many disabled veterans needed to be re-introduced into society. The current Vocational Rehabilitation system is designed according to this model. Persons with disabilities have been very critical of both the medical model and the rehabilitation model. While medical intervention can be required by the individual at times, it is naive and simplistic to regard the medical system as the appropriate locus for disability related policy matters”. Clear, T., & Cole, G. (2013) acknowledged that most of the states started building prisons and transformed the others in the correctional institutions between 1960s and 1970s. The rehabilitation model was conquered and the counselors or teachers administered the treatment programs at that time.…
In society today, it is commonly known that crime rate has increased dramatically by the years. This is where many of us look for ways to solve such issue. It is the last place anybody would want to be in. but unfortunately we have hundreds of thousands of them, if not millions around the world. Thousands in just the United States, Those are prisons. Just hearing that word makes us think bad things right away. Murder, theft, violence, and everything bad that happens in this world. We live in a world where prisons and jail are very important and almost every country, state, county, or city must have at least one. Prisons now are much more crowded than they were 20 years ago. The number of inmates in just the United States has doubled between the years of 1992 and 2011. The question many of us should ask ourselves is why do we need prisons? Are prisons effective in any way? Are prisons causing economic issues? Are prisoners getting proper treatment while incarcerated?…
Many people don’t possess realistic vision on today’s prison system. I have this knowledge because I had a chance to experience it for months while serving a sentence for Trafficking of Marijuana. We are often given the impression that prisons are full of bad people such as rapists and murders. This is a huge misconception.…
Amendment III- No Soldier shall, in time of peace be kept in any house, without the consent of the Owner, or in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.…
According to Logan, and Gaes (1993), “Meta-analysis is the study of other studies, and in this case, the studies test the effectiveness of various programs of correctional treatment. Advocates of rehabilitation believe that meta-analysis can be used to supply deposits of prior research, to reveal hidden veins of effective treatment not necessarily revealed by…
Simone Weil, a French philosopher, once said, “As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles.” We punish criminals because there is an intrinsic good in the guilty suffering; because the offender had knowledge that he/she would be punished if they committed a crime. Because we make a contract to give up certain rights in order for other rights to be protected, those who break such rules deserve to be punished. But is also to warn others that what they do has consequences which will follow if the law is broken. Current research and closer examination has led me to believe that it is better to punish criminals rather than rehabilitate them, because change or no change, the purpose of punishment is to show the offender that he or she has committed an offence to society that will not be tolerated. Therefore, this person has to take the foreseeable consequences.…
In the Russian novel Crime and Punishment by Fyodor Dostoevsky, the main character, Raskalnikov goes through a vast time period of great psychological turmoil. When comparing and contrasting this death and reincarnation of his consciousness and mind to the biblical tale of Lazarus’s resurrection, the author not only highlights the extremeness of the crimes he has committed, but also touches on the importance of recognizing one’s guilt. This theme of reconciliation and religion becomes one of the central themes of the novel.…
From their inception, prisons have attempted to act as both a deterrent and a rehabilitator. However, in certain times one of these is more stressed than the other. In the case of drug offenders the rehabilitation aspect would is more important. But, overall prisons encounter many different situations and must be very adaptive to all kinds of offenders and types of reform. The prison system today is a very important part of our society and will probably always remain that way.…
For the philosophy of punishment I chose deterrence, specifically because of the goals and benefit this philosophy. The deterrence punishment is divided in to two separate categories. First on is the general deterrence, the goal of general deterrence is to prevent non-offenders (those who’ve not committed a crime) from committing crimes by exposing non-offenders to the reality of the punishment that they would possibly be given if indeed they committed a crime. For example showing juveniles the process from being arrested, booked, charged, sentenced, and then incarcerated. The goal by doing this would be to teach the non-offender that if they chose a life of crime this is what would happen, and what they would receive as punishment for their actions. General deterrence to me would benefit Idaho's youth better by exposing them to the actual reality of a life of crime, vs. only being told not to do it and it’s wrong. I think the actual exposure would impact them more than just verbal influence. As stated in (Fagin, 2011), “The concept based on the logic that people who witness the pain suffered by those who commit crimes will desire to avoid that pain and suffering”. Example being in other countries, parents will bring their children to witness physical punishment of the offender. I wouldn’t say this would be something Idaho should use but, general deterrence should be more than drug prevention week in schools, and parents simply informing that committing crimes are bad and you’ll go to jail. Enforcing drug prevention, parental influence with actual exposure to the consequences I feel would create a stronger deterrence from juveniles committing crimes.…
I believe that retribution should be the foremost goal of the criminal justice system in the United States today because of its perspective of “an eye for an eye”. Retribution is a theory that states that people should be punished for that crime that they have committed equally to what they have done (396). It is not like the other two goals of punishment, which is deterrence and rehabilitation that does not make much of an impact on criminals we see today. Deterrence has many problems that arise with it and is not very affective, such as a criminal would commit the crime again in knowing the severity of the time, cost, and if they would even get caught doing so (339). Furthermore, in the case of rehabilitation only 35% of criminals…
The first concern is one pointed out by Angela Davis in "Are Prisons Obsolete"1. She states "prison… functions ideologically as an abstract site, into which undesirables are deposited, relieving us of the responsibility of thinking about the real issues of afflicting those communities from which prisoners are drawn in such disproportionate numbers. This is the work that prison performs – it relieves us of the responsibility of seriously engaging…
As a judge, they play many roles; but the main purpose of their role is, “Sentencing.”…
This week’s reading focuses on the various types of sentencing theories, the types of sentencing options, and how they are applied. I found the just deserts and retribution perspectives to be interesting. While these theories are similar in their favoring of proportionality in sentencing, they differ in terms of when prison sentences should be imposed and the length of prison sentences (when they are imposed). Retributionists believe that individuals that cause harm should be inflicted with the same level of pain and that prisons strictly used for punishment.…
A prison can be defined as a facility, in which inmates are forcibly confined and denied a range of freedoms under the state ruling as a form of punishment. Prisons have four major purposes. These purposes are punishing the inmate for their crimes against society, excluding them from society which prevents further crimes and is also a means of punishment, deterring criminals from committing more crimes in the future and rehabilitating the inmates by reforming them into law abiding citizens. Prison systems in the UK have evolved over the years from straightforward workhouses to high-tech, refined correction facilities. Around the 17th century, the majority of prisons were seen as workhouses run by the church.…