Kent Greenwalt On Punishment Analysis

According to Kent Greenwalt (1983), both retributive, as well as the utilitarian perspective in relation to justification of societal punishments were prevailing methodologies. First, the main justifications for punishment using the retributive perspective were that punishment was in place due to the offender deserving to be punished for a specific wrongdoing. Greenwalt states that there is a simple justification for using this perspective, if there is an offender who has violated the law that others have to follow, then the offender is worthy of punishment to reestablish the moral order that has been damaged by the committing of a crime. In this particular perspective, there is a justification in place that the community, society, etc. …show more content…
First, the use of this perspective is in place to help restore moral order in a society. Also, a goal of this use of societal punishment is to punish to re-establish the norms a society has developed. In addition, a fairness standard is in place, and if a person is not punished then the community will feel as if they were treated unfairly. This would be unjust to them and would give the offender an advantage he or she does not deserve. The utilitarian perspective on punishment also has various goals. For example, this perspective wants to bring about happiness. If an offender needs to be incarcerated due to being dangerous or an offender needs to be rehabilitated then this is looked at as serving the community through weighing the good over the bad, and the community remains happy. Another goal is to reform the offender. If the offender can be rehabilitated or reformed then they may be able to lead a more happy life, as well as being a useful member of society (Greenwalt, 1983, p. …show more content…
For instance, the restorative justice perspective focuses on repairing both the personal and social damage he or she may have caused to an individual or a community. Restorative justice aims to receive some sort of victim retribution from the offender. Also, there is conflict resolution involved, which is where mediation occurs to have understandings of the repercussions a crime has caused to both parties. Also, this could include restoration of the community which helps the community heal the bonds a crime has broken (Hirsch, 1999 p. 14-16).This is a major difference from both the retributive and utilitarian perspectives due to the incorporation of the victims as well as repairing a community. These two perspectives are focused on severity, proportionality and vengeance, and on the other hand focused of incapacitation of dangerous offenders and the happiness standard (Greenwalt,