Punishment Research Paper

Essay by JWeigelCollege, UndergraduateB+, September 2008

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Punishment Research Paper � PAGE �1�

Punishment Research Paper

Axia College of University of Phoenix

SOC120

Jeff Weigel

September 12, 2008

Punishment as a component of the law is not something new. It is known to exist and been practiced since the early history of human existence. It is expressed in different forms and severity. It may be a temporary form of punishment such as imprisonment or imposing sorts of fine. It can be a life long punishment, such as life imprisonment. At the worst, punishment can be up to the extent of permanently removing the criminal from the society through death punishment. Punishment is believed to reduce crime, which has been a long existing unresolved problem of the society. The question in this subject is whether punishment is really doing good and had provided benefits to the criminals and the society as a whole.

The concept of punishment and its practical application and justification during the past half-century have shown a marked deviance from efforts to reform and rehabilitate offenders.

The four justifications for punishment currently used in our society are retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation and societal protection. Retribution was designed to satisfy the people's need for a type of closure that satisfies the moral of society. In principle, punishment should be equal in severity to the deviance itself. It all comes down to equal justice; an eye for and eye and a tooth for a tooth. Deterrence on the other hand, is an attempt to discourage crime by punishment. This punishment relies upon examples of punishment made known to everyone ahead of time before they choose to break the law. Later punishment created rehabilitation which tailors treatment to each offender. In general, punishment in its very concept is favorably perceived as a retributive practice. Our society uses these four...