A punishment is a penalty inflicted by a court of justice on a convicted offender as a just retaliation for the purposes of reformation and prevention. Laws are established to protect the society. If they are broken there must be consequences for those who deliberately do so. The aim is to instruct in the practice of sticking to social norms and to prevent a recurrence of the wrong. Its essence is to teach and dissuade wrongdoers and onlookers. This is in harmony with Durkheim’s thinking: ‘The ultimate justification of any punishment is not only that it is a disincentive, but also that it is an emphatic denunciation by the community of a crime.’ To achieve this role, two things need to be clearly present:
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The offender’s mind should be convinced and conscious of his offence. This will enable him to think to future consequences of his crime: loss of liberty, reputation, opportunities.
- The offence should be made public to help the community learn through examples.
Punishment is inflicted in two forms: custodial sentencing and non custodial sentencing. Custodial sentencing is imprisonment. Non custodial sentencing includes fines, community orders: up to 240 unpaid community works, community rehabilitation order: attending a course or reside in a hostel for reformation and drug treatment and testing order.
Specifically, there five main objectives to sentencing:
- Retribution
- Deterrence
- Rehabilitation
- Incapacitation
- Restorative justice
Retribution: Punishment is, first of all, inflicted in order to satisfy justice. If someone breaks a law, the State cannot just ignore the law being broken. That would lead to anarchy. The retribution looks backward in proportion to what the criminal has done. It achieves ‘just deserts’ and society’s denunciation. Only those found guilty should be punished, and their punishment should fit, but be no more than, their crime in order to take an action on behalf of both the victim and society as a whole. The imposition of punishment translates society’s disapproval of the offender’s crime. But is retribution worthwhile? Retribution has been criticized as being irrational and revenge-seeking. But to see its effectiveness, we need to look at the history. During the last years of the Conservative Government with Michael Howard as the Home Secretary, retribution in punishment was a high priority. This is obvious in the White Paper of 1990 Crime, Justice and Protecting the Public where a reference was made to sentencing in order to achieve ‘just deserts’, saying ‘punishments should match the harm done and show society’s disapproval of that harm.’ And the outcome was that retributive measures were harsh. Those whose crimes were deemed to ‘fit’ a fine were ending up in prison because they were too poor to pay it.
Deterrence: is concerned with preventing the commission of future crimes. It is oriented in two directions: to dissuade the offender in question from committing further crime again, this is called specific deterrence and to show other people what is likely to happen to them if they commit crime, which is general deterrence. The effectiveness of deterrence is not true to life, because people are different. What may be discouraging to one person may not be the case to another. In addition, the use of punishment as deterrence depends on the chances of detection: a serious punishment for a particular crime will not deter people from committing that offence if there is very little chance of being caught and prosecuted for it. It is therefore unrealistic to construct sentencing arrangements only on the assumption that most offenders will weigh up the possibilities in advance and base their conduct on rational calculation. It is important to couple this purpose with many others.
Rehabilitation: The aim of using punishment a means for rehabilitation is the reformation of the offender, to teach him by compelling him to attend an education centre, drug treatment program or a hostel where he will learn how harmful is the activity he was engaged in to himself and to the rest of the community. Awaking the offender by making him see and think about the stigma of his offence may well work for many. However, some may not understand and change. That is why some people need to be completely incapacitated from committing further crimes. Another disadvantage of rehabilitation is its subtle assumption that everyone who commits a crime is ignorant as to its effects. This is not true, because crimes are committed even by well educated people including doctors, lawyers and religious leaders who are themselves teachers of mental, physical, legal, moral and religious norms.
Incapacitation: Dangerous offenders who are difficult to teach should be incapacitated or put in prison or custody. This will prevent them from committing further crimes and meanwhile the public will be protected. When they come out of prison, they will face shame, loss of their job, reputation and friendship. Being avoided by their neighbours, will make them think twice to re-offend. Imprisonment is worthwhile where highly dangerous offenders are concerned. But it is an extremely expensive way of dealing with crime prevention. A recent report states: “It costs £37,500 to keep someone in prison for a year. This compares with only £3000 for a probation order and £2000 for community service. Since 1995, over 12,000 additional prison places have been provided at an average cost of £100,000 per prison place.” Another problem with imprisonment is that it is often the place where criminals pick up new ideas and techniques, and they may become more vicious once released. Facts speak by themselves: ‘Over half of all prisoners are back inside within two years. And 58% of adults discharged from prison are reconvicted within two years of release. Nearly three quarters of young offenders are reconvicted within 2 years.’
It is therefore important to think of another alternative.
Restorative justice: Administrating punishment as a restorative of justice puts the central concern on healing of breaches, the redressing of imbalances, the reparation of broken relationships between the victim and the offender. The offender should be given the opportunity to be reintegrated into the community that he has injured by his offence. He should meet the victim and genuinely apologize. This new method is both risky and traumatizing. In one way the victim may feel that it is an occasion given to him to physically revenge himself. And many victims feel that offenders’ apology are not genuine. This undermines the effectiveness of this method.
In conclusion, people need to re-adjust their perception about the purpose of punishment. Its primary purpose is not to hurt those that hurt others but to satisfy justice in order to protect society. An orderly society depends upon those convicted of crime facing its consequence. This as well protects the convicted offenders as well. The criminal justice that exists today is not perfect; it cannot satisfy everybody or cover every single aspect according to human needs. But at least, it is a means to an end: it protects and stabilizes the society. The so-called bias in punishment methods may be overcome by combining more than one method. No man is perfect and nor is the legal system. Only God’s kingdom will bring a perfect legal system on earth.
Skynews Press Release, 16/10/2003 at 18:33., Also recorded in paragraph 7 on (last visited 03.11.2003)
Home Office Department Report 2003, ‘Foreword by the Home Secretary David Blunkett’, pdf p 6. paragraph 9. (last visited 03.11.2003)
Card, R., 2001. Criminal Law. 15th ed. London: Reed Elsevier p 4.
Durkheim, E., 1964. The Division of Labour in Society. London. Free Press p 79.
Roshier, B., and Teff, H., 1980. Law and Society in England p131.
Elliott, C., and Quinn, F., 2002. English Legal System. 4th ed. London: Pearson p303.
(last visited on 3.11.2003)