Punishment Flashcards
What are the two main justifications of punishment?
Reduction and Retribution.
Describe reductive justice.
Focuses on preventing future crimes through:
=> Deterrence - punish the individual discourages them from future offending e.g., making them an example may deter others from offending.
=> Rehabilitation - punishment can reform or change offenders so they no longer offend e.g., providing education and training for prisoners so they are able to ‘earn an honest living’ on release, along with anger management courses for violent offenders.
=> Incapacitation - use of punishment to to remove offenders capacity to re-offend e.g., execution, imprisonment, cutting off of hands or chemical castration.
Describe retributive justice.
=> ‘Paying back’.
=> Justification for punishing crimes that have already been committed, rather than preventing future crimes.
=> Based on the idea that offenders deserve to be punished, and society is entitled to take revenge on the offender for breaching its moral code.
Describe functionalist understandings of social control.
=> See the criminal justice system as operating to look after the interests of society as a whole (lack of this control = anomie).
=> Aims to uphold social solidarity and reinforce shared values.
=> Punishment expresses society’s emotions of moral outrage at the offence.
=> Society’s shared values are reaffirmed through public trial and punishment, and its members come to feel a sense of unity.
Describe Marxist understandings of social control.
=> The criminal justice system operate to benefit the capitalist class.
=> Police and the law are both agents of the ruling class.
=> Punishment exists to maintain the existing social order.
Why is punishment a key component of social control according to Durkheim?
It allows us to see how far society goes to maintain social control.
What is the function of punishment according to Durkheim?
=> To uphold social solidarity.
=> To reinforce shared values.
Why is punishment primarily expressive?
=> It expresses society’s emotions of moral outrage at the offence.
=> Through public trial and punishment, society’s shared values are reaffirmed and its members come to feel a sense of moral unity.
How does Durkheim differentiate between retributive and restitutive justice?
Retributive justice:
=> Solidarity between individuals is based on similarities between one another in a traditional society.
=> A strong collective consensus is created as a result of this which when offended, responds with vengeful passion to repress the wrongdoer.
=> Punishment is severe and cruel; it’s motivation is purely expressive.
Restitutive justice:
=> Solidarity is based on the resulting interdependence between individuals in modern society.
=> This interdependence is damaged by crime; it is necessary to repair the damage (e.g., through compensation).
=> Aims to restore things to how they were before the offence occurred; its motivation is purely instrumental, to restore equilibrium.
Give examples of retributive justice.
=> Chemical castration.
=> Public hanging.
=> Execution.
Give an example of restitutive justice.
Compensation.
What are Marxists interested in in relation to punishment?
How punishment is related to the nature of class society and how it serves ruling class interests.
What do Marxists argue is the purpose of punishment?
=> To maintain the existing social order. => As part of the 'ruling class apparatus', it's a means of defending ruling class property against lower classes.
What does the form of punishment reflect?
The economic base of society.
What do Rusche and Kirchhemer argue?
=> Each type of economy has its own corresponding penal system.
=> E.g. money fines are impossible without a money economy.
