AC2.2

Question 1

What are aims of punishments?

Answer 1

-Retribution: expressing society’s outrage at crime
-rehabilitation- making offenders change their behaviour
-deterrence: discourage future offending
-public protection from offenders
-reparation- making good the harm caused by crime.

Question 2

What does reparation mean?

Answer 2

Involves the offender making amends for a wrong they have done

Question 3

Reparation can be done both material and social what are they?

Answer 3

-financial compensation to the victim
-unpaid work: to make a reputation to society through community payback.

Question 4

REPERATION: What is restorative justice?

Answer 4

Reparation can be done through restorative justice it involves brining the offender and the victim together and the victim explains how that crime has impacted them.
-can help bring closure to the victim

Question 5

How does the labelling theory favour restorative justice?

Answer 5

Labelling theory favours restorative justice as a way of reintegrating offenders into mainstream society. Enables them to show real remorse it permits their reintegration and prevents them being pushed into secondary deviance.

Question 6

How does functionalist favour reperation?

Answer 6

Durkheim argue that restorative justice aims at putting back to how things were through reparations. Back to before crime was committed. This is essential if society is to function smooth.

Question 7

What are the criticisms of reperation?

Answer 7

-may not work for all crimes. For more serious sexual offences like rape the victim may not want to face them as it may be traumatic for them.
-reperation can enables offenders to manipulate victims in order to get their sentence reduced
-some even regard reparation as too soft a form of punishment that lets offenders off lightly.

Question 8

What is rehabilitation?

Answer 8

Idea that punishment can be used to reform or change offenders so they no longer offend and can go on to live a crime free life.

Question 9

Rehabilitation policies could include?

Answer 9

-Education and training programmes: for prisoners so they can avoid unemployment and “earn an honest living” on release.
-anger management courses: for violent offenders control their behaviour eg aggression replacement therapy (ART) or other cognitive behaviour therapy.
-drug treatment and testing orders: community workers to be tested regularly for drugs/ alcohol helps tackle the causes of some offenders crimes.

Question 10

Which theories support rehabilitation?

Answer 10

-Cognitive theories: facilitate cognitive behavioral therapies (CBT) to teach offenders to correct the thinking errors that lead to violent behavior.
-eysenecks personally theory favours the use of aversion therapy to deter offending behaviour
-skinners learning theory supports the use of token economy to encourage prisoners to produce more acceptable behaviour.

Question 11

Criticisms of rehabilitation?

Answer 11

-Right realists: argue that rehabilitation has only limited success, in that many offenders still reoffend after these programmes.
-Marxists criticise rehabilitation programmes for shifting the responsibility for offending onto the individual offender failings rather than focusing on how capitalism plays a part in some people committing crime.

Question 12

What is deterrence

Answer 12

To deter someone from doing something is to put them off doing it. The fear of being caught and punished may deter people from committing crime. Deterrence can either be general or individual

Question 13

What theorist favours deterrence?

Answer 13

Right realise favours deterrence as a means of crime prevention:
-rational choice theory sees individuals as rationals actors who weigh up the costs and benefits before deciding whether to offend or not. Therefore high punishments will deter them from committing.
-social learning theory is relevant to understanding general deterrence. If would be offenders see a model (one of their peers for example) being punished for offending then it may be less likely to imitate that behavior.

Question 14

Criticisms of deterrence

Answer 14

-the fact that about half of prisoners reoffend within a year suggests that prison is not an effective deterrent.
-deterrence assumes would be offenders know what the punishments are, but they may be ignorant of the penalties.

Question 15

What is retribution?

Answer 15

Means paying back. It involves inflicting punishment on an offender see as vengeance for a wrong or criminal act.

Question 16

What theorists links to retribution?

Answer 16

Right realists like the rational choice theory. Retribution assumes that offenders are rational actors who consciously choose to commit crimes and therefore must suffer the outrage of society for what they have done.
-for functionalists such as Durkheim the moral outrage that retribution expresses performs the function of boundary maintenance.

Question 17

What are the criticisms of retribution?

Answer 17

-It can be argued that offenders deserves forgiveness, mercy or a chance to make amends not just punishment.
-how can we decided what is proportionate penalty or “just desert” for each crime. People disagree about which crime is more serious than others.