AC 2.2 Discuss the Aims of Punishment Flashcards
What are the 6 aims of punishment?
Deterrent, Retribution, Rehabilitation, Reparation, Protection Public, Denunciation
What act do the aims of sentencing come under?
Criminal Justice Act 2003
Outline deterrent and give examples
- Discourage people from committing crimes (general and individual)
- Examples
- Giving harsher punishments during London Riots 2011
- Harsher punishments to role models/celebrities (Ant + David Beckham)
What theories does deterrent link to? (H)
- Right Realism = Rational Choice Theory, rational actors, weigh up costs and benefits before committing crime, harsh punishments is a bigger cost so may see as not worth it + Situational Crime Prevention via target hardening
- Social Learning Theory = seeing someone else punished deters you (vicarious)
- (H) High recidivism rates after prison contradicts this. Maybe offenders don’t think about sentence, only what their chance of getting caught is
Outline Retribution and give examples
- Punish people for their crime, “eye for an eye”, get just desserts
- Examples
- Harsh custodial sentence
- Large fines
- loads of examples, just where someone has been punished…
What theories does Retribution link to?
- Right Realism = rational actors, responsible for their crime, society take equal revenge
- Functionalism (Durkeim) = the moral outrage from society ensures boundary maintenance by reminding everyone of right + wrong
Outline Rehabilitation and give examples
- Change offenders mindset away from criminality, address the issues that caused them to commit crime to prevent it in future
- Examples
- Education and training programmes - prisoners not unemployed on release, money…
- Anger management courses - e.g. Aggression Replacement Training (ART) + CBT
- Specialist drug + alcohol dependency programmes
- In the community - Banger Car Racing (4 in 50 car thieves re-offended)
What theories link to Rehabilitation? (Hint: Individualistic, Sociological, Criticisms)
Individualistic
- Cognitive theories = suggests use of CBT to correct faulty thinking and biases causing crime
- Eysenck’s Crim Personality = aversion therapy
- Skinner’s theory Operant Conditioning = Token Economies make behaviour more socially acceptable
Sociological
- Left Realism = unemployment, education and poverty are causes of crime so addressing these issues will reduce crime
Criticisms
- Right realism = rehabilitation is limited because many will still choose to re-offend
- Marxism = rehabilitation shifts the blame for the crime onto offender, instead should be focusing on how capitalism forces some people to commit crime
Outline Reparation and give examples
- Offender makes up for the crime by putting things back to how they were
- Examples
- Repairing damage/returning property
- Unpaid work
- Financial payments
- Restorative justice
What theories link to Reparation?
- Labelling theory = restorative justice helps to reintegrate them back into society and remove the label so escape the deviant cycle and self-fulfilling prophecy
- Functionalism (Durkheim) = restorative justice is essential for smooth functioning society in our complex world
- (H) Can’t always be done become some crimes are victimless e.g. selling drugs, or irreversible injuries
Outline Protection of the Public and give examples
- Keep society safe by incapacitating the offender from committing further crimes
- Examples
- Prison
- Electronic tag - not go near V
- Exclusion orders e.g. football hooligans
- Chemical castration - sexual offenders
What theories link to Protection of the Public? + criticisms
- Biological theories = Lombroso says criminals are biologically different so would be impossible to rehabilitate them, therefore best alternative is chemical/surgical castration and sending offenders to islands away from public for protection
- Right Realism = a small amount of offenders are responsible for most crimes so by incapacitating them with long sentence we protecting society
- Criticisms
- Not enough room in prisons, effects of putting lots of serious criminals together
- Unjust, keeping them locked away based off assumption will commit further crimes
- IPP (Imprisonment for Publis Protection) was against human right freedom to have no definitive release date - scrapped 2012
Outline Denunciation and give an example
- Reinforce the moral and ethical codes and boundaries within society to make it clear what society disapproves of. Aims to show the offender that the behaviour is unacceptable
- Examples
- Banning cigarettes in public places
What theories link to Denunciation?
- Functionalist (Durkheim) = social control achieves solidarity amongst society as all agree what’s acceptable and not
- Labelling theory = creates self fulfilling prophecy and deviant cycle
What Factors influence views on Punishment?
- Actions of Individuals and Pressure Groups
- Social Changes
- The Media
- New ideas in Education and Politics
