Punishment For Criminal Offences Essay

Punishment for criminal offences is a practice that had been present since the inception of human civilizations across the globe. In ancient times too, people were convicted and punished for committing crimes which encompassed heinous crimes like murder. Though the modes of punishments varied from what are present today, different forms of retribution were thoroughly present in those ancient civilizations. But it must be noted that the entire criminal justice system, today, has changed, and to ensure that no one is unduly punished, the criminal justice systems of different countries across the globe resort to several procedures. Today criminal law has the responsibility to meet several different objectives which ensure that justice is served, …show more content…
Deterrence should be considered one of the primary objectives of the criminal justice system and criminal law because deterrence acts as a countermeasure against the probability of the occurrence of criminal acts in the future. Deterrence protects public from criminal acts because “The threat of punishment deters people from engaging in illegal acts” (Cassidy, n.d.). Restitution, on the other hand, is meant to give an opportunity to a perpetrator to rectify himself and to assimilate into the mainstream society, and such an act restores faith of the common public in the justice system, and this also provides opportunity to the justice system to refrain from providing long-term punishment mistakenly to an innocent. Retribution is a goal which must be accomplished by the criminal law in order to prohibit a perpetrator to roam free again and inflict untreatable wounds to the society. And, the objective of rehabilitation must be accomplished by the criminal justice system in order to transform a perpetrator into a responsible citizen and to thereby protect the society from yet another