AC2.2 Flashcards
Retribution
Paying back - inflicting punishment as revenge for their wrongdoing
Just deserts - the punishment that one deserves - society is morally entitled to take its revenge
Punishment should fit the crime - eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth - punishment should reflect harm done- eg death penalty for murder
Means CJS has a tariff system, whereby each crime has a deserved punishment
Retribution theory - rational choice
Right realism
Costs and benefits of committing a crime are weighed up and if the benefits outweigh the costs they make the rational choice to committ the crime
Assumes we have choice and control over our actions
Supports retribution - make choice now have to face consequence
No factors contribute to committing crime
Retribution theory - Durkheims functionalist
Functionalism
Moral outrage of society is performing a function by reminding everyone the difference between right and wrong maintaining boundaries in society
Eg. Someone gets life sentence for murder, society is outraged, boundaries are reinforces
Criticisms of retribution
Fixed punishment for bleach crime so someone who is remorseful gets the same sentence as a repeat offender
People’s morals differ and punishment is based on the opinion of who is giving it
Punishment reduces chance to make amends
Not consistent, down to interpretation of people individually
Rehabilitation
The idea that punishment can be used to reform or change offenders into non offenders
Rehabilitation programmes
Education and training programmes - Avoid unemployment and earn a wage
Anger management courses - ART and CBT
Drug treatment and testing orders - treat drug or alcohol misuse
Community sentences and rehabilitation
Often require offenders to engage in in a programme as part of the sentence
Offenders must want to change their behaviour for the programme to work
It takes a lot of resources, money and support for the programme to take place
Rehabilitation theory - eysenck
Personality questionnaire to measure extraversion/introversion, neuroticism/emotional stability.
Found criminals score highly on extroversion and neuroticism.
Personality type is formed through conditioning.
Extroverts seek excitement leading to impulsive behaviour (crime) leading to punishments.
Neurotics have high anxiety so they don’t learn from punishments.
High levels of these are linked to crime.
Aversion therapy - psychotherapy used to cause a patient to reduce or avoid undesirable behaviour patterns by conditioning the person to associate the behaviour with an undesirable stimulus.
Achieves rehabilitation as it deters negative behaviour
Rehabilitation theory - skinners operant learning theory
Operant conditioning - if a behaviour results in a reward it is likely to be repeated, behaviour that results in a negative outcome is less likely to be repeated.
Supports rehabilitation as an aim because the use of token economies encourage more acceptable behaviour, resulting in positive behaviour outside of prison.
Rehabilitation theory- left realism
Sociological theories see factors such as unemployment and poor education as reasons for offending.
Favour rehabilitation as they believe programmes to reduce these factors reduce crime and rehabilitate.
Criticisms of rehabilitation
Right realists - offenders will still choose to commit crimes, rational choice
Marxists - capitalism causes crime, rehabilitation puts the focus and blame on the individual rather than capitalist society
Detterance
Individual - punishment to determine offender from reoffending
General - deter society from breaking the law
History of detterance
Individual - Margaret thatcher ‘tough on crime approach’, ‘ short sharp shock’
General - previously done through public executions people saw consequences
History of detterance
Individual - Margaret thatcher ‘tough on crime approach’, ‘ short sharp shock’
General - previously done through public executions people saw consequences
Detterance - severity vs certainty
Depends how likely you are to get caught, how certain, if you commit the crime or not
High chance of getting caught, low chance of punishment etc
Theory for detterance - right realism
Rational choice - people weigh up Costa and benefits, high costs low benefits will act as detrerance
Theory for detterance - situational crime prevention
Target hardening makes it harder to commit an offence, acts as a detterance
Target hardening - cctv, gates, locks, etc
Theory for detterance - social learning theory
Offenders see a role model or peer being punished they will be less likely to commit a crime, deter from bad behaviour
Criticisms of detterance
Little evidence for ‘short Sharp shocks’
Half of prisoners reoffend within a year
Detterance assumes offenders know the punishment for each crime
Assumes people act rationally when committing crime
Unlikely to be dettered by punishment
Reparation
Involves the offender making amends for a wrong that they have done, whether it is to the individual victim, the society/community or both
Material reparation
Financial compensation - to the victim, courts have power to impose a ‘compensation order’ on offenders so that they have to pay for the damage
Unpaid work - making reparation to the community by ‘community payback’, the court have the power to impose a community order so that offenders have to payback to their community
Social reparation
Restorative justice - bring offenders and victim together with the help of a mediator to make amends for the social damage caused
Allows victim to explain impacts on them and offender can begin to understand the harm they caused, express remorse and seek forgiveness, brings closure to victim and helps to reintegrate the offender into society
Theory for reparation - labelling theory/interactionism
Reparation de labels the offender and gives them a chance to show genuine remorse
Allows them to reintegrate into mainstream society and sees them as human
Stopping them from going into secondary deviance
Labelling act rather than person
Theory for reparation - functionalism
Durkheim argues that restitutive justice, reparation to put things back to how they were before, is essential for the functioning of society
Criticisms of reparation
May not work for all types of offence
Reparation to murder victims is impossible
Reparation is too soft and let’s offenders off lightly
Incapacitation
Punishment used to protect the public from further offending by removing the offenders ability to offend again
Incapacitation methods
Execution
Cutting off hands
Chemical castration
Banishment
Foreign travel bans
Curfews
Electronic tagging
Imprisonment as incapacitation method
Protects public by ensuring offenders cannot commit further crimes.
Crime sentences act 1997 introduced mandatory jail sentences for repeat offenders:
Life for serious sexual or violent offences
7 years min for a 3rd class a drug trafficking offence
3 years min for 3rd domestic burglary conviction
Criminal justice act 2003 introduces imprisonment for public protection (ipp) - courts could give indeterminate sentence to a dangerous offender - abolished in 2012
Incapacitation in us
‘Three strikes and you’re out’ introduced in 1990s giving repeat offender longer prison sentences for 3rd offences, even if minor crime if first two offences were serious
Incapaciration theory - biological, lombrosso
Believed offenders biologically different to non offenders and it is impossible to rehabilitate them
No point giving them chances
Favoured sending them to prison
Other biological theories favour chemical or surgical castration to incapacitate sex offenders
Incapacitation theory - right realists
Believe that a small number of persistent offenders are responsible for most crimes so incapacitating them with longer sentences will significantly reduce crime rates and protect the public
Criticisms of incapacitation
Longer prison sentences with little hope of release, high cost and increased prison population
Does nothing to deal with causes of crime or reduce crime, strategy of risk management
Three strikes rule just punishes people for things they’ve already been punished for
Imprisonment people with assumption they will commit the same crime again, unjust and shoes cjs has no faith in people, no chance at rehabilitation
Prison protects public but people can still commit crime in prison to staff or other inmates
