Punishment Flashcards
One justification for punishing offenders is that it prevents future crime. This can be done through?
Reduction
- Deterrence- Punishing the individual discourages them from future offending. ‘Making an example’ of them may also serve as a deterrent to the public at large.
- Rehabilitation is the idea that punishment can be used to reform or change offenders so they no longer offend. Rehabilitation policies include providing education so they are able to ‘earn an honest living’ on release
- Incapacitation is the use of punishment to remove the offender’s capacity to offend again. Policies have included imprisonment, execution etc. Incapacitation has proved increasingly popular with politicians, with the American ‘three strikes and you’re out’ policy and the view that ‘prison works’ because it removes offenders from society
What type of justification is this?
Reduction
This justification is an instrumental one- punishment is a means to an end, namely crime reduction
Retributions means ‘paying back’. It is a justification for?
Retribution
- Punishing crimes that have already been committed, rather than preventing future crimes.
- It is based on the idea that offenders deserve to be punished.
- Furthermore, society is entitled to take its revenge on the offender for having breached its moral code
What type of justification is this?
Retribution
This is an expressive rather than instrumental view of punishment- it expresses society’s outrage
Durkheim: a functionalist perspective
Durkheim argues that the function of punishment is?
To uphold social solidarity and reinforce shared values. Punishment expresses society’s emotions of moral outrage at the offence. Through rituals of order, society’s shared values are reaffirmed and its members come to feel a sense of moral unity
Durkheim: a functionalist perspective
Durkheim identifies two types of justice, corresponding to two types of society?
Two types of justice
- Retributive justice- In traditional society, there is little specialisation, and solidarity between individuals is based on their similarity to one another. This produces a strong collective conscience. Punishment is severe and cruel, and its motivation is purely expressive.
- Restitutive justice- Durkheim calls this Restitutive justice, because it aims to make restitution- to restore things to how they were before the offence. Its motivation is instrumental, to restore society’s equilibrium. Punishment is still an expressive element, because it still expresses collective emotions.
Marxism: capitalism and punishment
For Marxists, the function of punishment is?
- To maintain the existing social order
- As part of the RSA, it is a means of defending ruling-class property against the lower classes
Marxism: capitalism and punishment
What does the form of punishment reflect?
- The economic base of society
- As Rusche and Kirchheimer argue, each type of economy has its own corresponding penal system. They argue that under capitalism, imprisonment becomes the dominant form of punishment because of capitalist economy is based on the exploitation of wage labour
Until the 18th century, prison was used mainly for?
The changing role of prisons
- Holding offenders prior to their punishment.
- It was only following the Enlightenment that imprisonment began to be seen as a form of punishment itself, where offenders would be ‘reformed’ through hard labour, religious instruction and surveillance
Imprisonment today?
Imprisonment today
- Imprisonment is regarded as the most severe form of punishment.
- However, it is not proved an effective method of rehabilitation- about two thirds of prisoners commit further crimes on release.
The demogrography of prisons in England and Wales
Imprisonment today
- The prison population is now at record size and the number of prisoners in England and Wales is growing.
- Between 1993 and 2016 there was a total of 85,000 people in prison.
- The prison population mainly contains men.
- Black and ethnic minorities are over represented
Era of mass incarceration?
Era of mass incarceration?
- More people are being imprisoned as politicians and the criminal justice system are being tough on crime.
- For example, American war on drugs - become so widespread in America this has given the police an unlimited supply of arrestable and imprisonable offenders.
- David Downes argues the US prison system soaks up about 30-40% of the unemployed thereby making capitalism look more successful.
Transcarceration
Transcarceration
- This is the idea that individuals become locked into a cycle of control - shifting between different agencies throughout their lives.
- For example - those brought up in care/foster homes tend to go on to be young offenders, then they may end up in an adult prison and then a psychiatric hospital.
- Some sociologists see this as the blurring of boundaries between criminal justice and welfare agencies.
- For example, health, housing and social services are increasingly being given a crime control role, and they often engage in a multi-agency working with the police, sharing data on the same individuals.
Alternatives to Prison
Alternatives to Prison
- Diversion = diverting them away from contact with the criminal justice system to avoid a self fulfilling prophecy.
- Instead of prison focus on welfare and treatment.
- More community based controls e.g. curfews, fines, tags and ASBO’s.
- Cohen argues the growth of community controls has simply cast the net of control over more people.
- Following Foucault’s ideas, Cohen argues the the increased range of sanctions available simply enables control to penetrate even deeper into society.
