Philosophy Of Punishment Research Paper

When I think of punishment, does society have the right to punish? There are various theories that have been developed as to why society chooses to inflict punishment upon criminals. The developed theories are deterrence, retribution, incapacitation, rehabilitation, and restoration. In today’s twenty-first century criminal justice system, the term punishment is sometimes associated with things that are painful. For example, we refer to a “punishing work schedule” and the term punishment is very popular amongst parents or teachers when disciplining children. When I think of the various punishment goals I have chosen to focus on rehabilitation and retribution. When it comes to punishment rehabilitation is a very complex subject because an examination of the offense and the criminal must be cross …show more content…
The additional problems from rehabilitation are believed to be developed during the offender’s sentence. Like myself and many others I believe that punishment should reform or rehabilitate an offender. While being punished the result should be geared towards changing the offender’s values, so that he or she will forgo past beliefs of committing future offenses, allowing he or she to believe to that partaking in such offenses is morally wrong. For many convicted felons this goal of punishment is achieved when a fear of being caught and punished again developed. It has been of concern of many within the criminal justice system that punishment should be tailored to fit the criminal, rather than fitting his or her committed offense. While researching the punishment goal rehabilitation I came across a very interesting topic; long terms of imprisonment may daunt and even incapacitate, but rehabilitation can only occur if criminals are allowed to re-enter society. There was a term developed known as “state-obligated rehabilitation” which basically means that