In this essay I will discuss two approaches to punishment which are retributivism, also known as non-consequentialism, and utilitarianism, also known as consequentialism. I will then analyse three justifications of punishment within the utilitarian approach which are reform and rehabilitation, individual and general deterrence and incapacitation.
Retributivism is a sociological perspective of crime which looks at the different forms and changes in punishment. It is a backward thinking approach as it does not look at future consequences of punishment and is mostly concerned with offences already committed and getting ‘justice’. This approach is considered similar to ‘an eye for an eye’ as it is based on the idea that if we inflict harm on another …show more content…
Reform is concerned with changing the offender and is based on the idea that the crime was committed by the offender due to an inbuilt immorality. This is achieved through educational programmes. Rehabilitation is concerned with restoring the offender back into the community and how they were before they committed the offence. This approach is based on the idea that the crime committed changed the offender. Rehabilitation fell in line with science and experts from different fields, such as medicine and psychology were introduced and crime was seen as an illness that needed a cure. Consequently, the aims of prison changed and the prisoner became the inmate and prison became the institute that the offender is sent to for treatment to improve …show more content…
This exists as an attempt to reduce offenders physical capacity to commit further crimes due to the punishment they receive. It focuses primarily on restraint (Zimring and Hawkins, 1995) rather than rehabilitation. There are two types of incapacitation, the first being temporary which can be prison or disqualification of driving, temporarily preventing the offender from being able to offend further. The second type of incapacitation is permanent which could be capital punishment or castration which could make it impossible for the individual to re-offend. Bentham supported prisons and developed the Panopticon which was the idea that prisoners thought they were being watched and Bentham thought that prisoners could become better through surveillance and hard work. It is thought that long term imprisonment in the UK is one of the most efficient and the “conservative view on imprisonment in a post rehabilitation age took the form of the strategy of general incapacitation that would achieve large crime prevention gains by imprisonment of substantial numbers of ‘run-of-the-mill’ felons” (Zimring and Hawkins, 1995:11). However, persistent offenders are not always dangerous and long term imprisonment of these individuals could be damaging to the likelihood of being able to rehabilitate them and bring them back into
Retributivism is a sociological perspective of crime which looks at the different forms and changes in punishment. It is a backward thinking approach as it does not look at future consequences of punishment and is mostly concerned with offences already committed and getting ‘justice’. This approach is considered similar to ‘an eye for an eye’ as it is based on the idea that if we inflict harm on another …show more content…
Reform is concerned with changing the offender and is based on the idea that the crime was committed by the offender due to an inbuilt immorality. This is achieved through educational programmes. Rehabilitation is concerned with restoring the offender back into the community and how they were before they committed the offence. This approach is based on the idea that the crime committed changed the offender. Rehabilitation fell in line with science and experts from different fields, such as medicine and psychology were introduced and crime was seen as an illness that needed a cure. Consequently, the aims of prison changed and the prisoner became the inmate and prison became the institute that the offender is sent to for treatment to improve …show more content…
This exists as an attempt to reduce offenders physical capacity to commit further crimes due to the punishment they receive. It focuses primarily on restraint (Zimring and Hawkins, 1995) rather than rehabilitation. There are two types of incapacitation, the first being temporary which can be prison or disqualification of driving, temporarily preventing the offender from being able to offend further. The second type of incapacitation is permanent which could be capital punishment or castration which could make it impossible for the individual to re-offend. Bentham supported prisons and developed the Panopticon which was the idea that prisoners thought they were being watched and Bentham thought that prisoners could become better through surveillance and hard work. It is thought that long term imprisonment in the UK is one of the most efficient and the “conservative view on imprisonment in a post rehabilitation age took the form of the strategy of general incapacitation that would achieve large crime prevention gains by imprisonment of substantial numbers of ‘run-of-the-mill’ felons” (Zimring and Hawkins, 1995:11). However, persistent offenders are not always dangerous and long term imprisonment of these individuals could be damaging to the likelihood of being able to rehabilitate them and bring them back into