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Punishment Punishment Review Terri Nave SOC/120 Cay Freidline January 31, 2011
Punishment Review Punishment Review Since deviant behavior is any action that steps outside societys perception of normal or moral, then it is reasonable that society has developed specific types of punishment in the attempt to deter the deviant behavior. In the family society, a child who bites a sibling is punished, because biting is not acceptable behavior. Each society a person enters into has specific forms of punishment for the inappropriate or deviant behavior, family, school, work, sports, and society in general. The focus of this paper is society in general. What forms of punishment has been identified by sociologists, how each type of punishment is intended to work, which type deters crime more effectively, and how each type benefits both offenders and victims is the objective of this report. Sociologists have determined four types of punishment, retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and social protection (Marcionis, 2006). Retribution would be the oldest form of
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punishment dating back to the earliest forms of civilization. Vengeance would be another type of retribution. In some Middle Eastern countries, a thief has a hand cut off. During biblical days, women were stoned for adultery. In each of these examples, society has agreed that the punishment fit the crime. Although these examples leave very little room for the so-called criminal to reform, each society believes the offenders suffered as much as the victims (Marcionis, 2006). The second form of punishment is deterrence, an attempt to discourage deviance by making the punishment harsher than the deviant behavior itself (Marcionis, 2006). Deterrents are seen in many forms, warnings to customers of the effects of shoplifting, laws established by governments against speeding, public intoxication, public nudity, and so on, and copyright laws. There are two ways to deter crime by punishment, specific and general deterrence. Specific
Punishment Review deterrence affects a single individual, whereas general deterrence targets an individual to set an example to others (Marcionis, 2006). Rehabilitation is the third form of punishment. For some time, sociologists believed that
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many criminals learned their deviant behavior from their environment; therefore, criminals could learn to obey rules set forth by society (Marcionis, 2006). For example, if a person grew up in an environment of abuse, that individual could learn to control the impulse to be abusive. The final form of deterrence is social protection. This type of deterrence protects society when rehabilitation and deterrents fail or society is unwilling to attempt either. In general, it is usually the latter; society is unwilling to attempt rehabilitation or deterrents. Social protection involves imprisonment or execution of the criminal (Marcionis, 2006). Even though imprisoning serious criminals such as drug dealers, rapists, and murderers removes these offenders from society for a period of time, general consensus is this is short term, that these criminals are released to repeat the offense. The intention of retribution is based on the adage an eye for an eye. All through history including up to the wild-west retribution took the form of you killed my brother, I kill you. In nearly all cases, there was no court system as we know it today. Retribution was inflicted without regard to the offense or the offender (Juszkiewicz, Jolanta, Baker, & J.E. 1990). Cattle rustlers, runaway slaves, rapists and murders often suffered the same consequences of their actions, in most cases public hanging. As a deterrent, these actions intentions were to show other criminals if you steal, rape, run away, or murder, this will happen to you also. Deterrent methods are intended to scare potential criminals away from the intended crime (Deterrence, 2008). Signs like shoplifters will be prosecuted and hitting a construction worker be will a $14,000 fine and 10 years imprisonment are deterrent methods. The former warns the
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potential shoplifter the consequences of those actions and the latter warns to drive safely through construction zones. Rehabilitation, as a punishment, attempts to bring the criminal back to a place before the criminal actions occurred. The thought being, the criminal learned how to obey the laws of society, he/she can re-learn the laws. One form of rehabilitation some areas of society are implementing is restorative justice (Steele, 1998). Restorative justice brings the offender and the victims together with a mediator to bring both victim and offender to a place they were before the offence. "Crime happens on two dimensions, the emotional and the physical. The physical is the concrete harm that is done, like property damage, for instance. The emotional damage is the ongoing fear of a threat to safety and security" (Steele, 1998). The object of this type of rehabilitation is for the victims to question the offender on aspects of the crime, why the offender did it, to questions pertaining to emotional effects of the crime, are you peeking in my windows at night, for example (Steele, 1998). At some point, none of the afore mentioned punishments are effective measures to deter the criminal from committing crimes against society. When this occurs, social protection must be enacted. Social protection involves incarceration and capital punishment. Many adult offenders start out as juvenile offenders. In a report, Violent Juvenile Delinquents: Treatment Effectiveness and Implications for Future Action (Tate, Reppucci, & Mulvey, 1995), the authors note that many states and court justices conclude the juvenile court system needs to be revised to allow for many juvenile offenders to be held to higher, adult standards where the offence is so severe.
Punishment Review Many juvenile offenders, depending on the crime, are tried now as adults in adult courts (Tate, Reppucci, & Mulvey, 1995). Punishment to deter crime only works if the offender is caught. As stated by Marcionis (2006), one third of crimes are known and one half of those go to court. Even the ultimate punishment, the death penalty, has not proven to be a substantial deterrent to criminal actions. Too many criminals still sit on death row, filing appeals and prolonging the sentence. In other cases recently, DNA testing has ultimately removed several previously guilty prisoners because
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the recent evidence prove them innocent. This also brings up the question of how many executed prisoners were actually innocent (Marcionis, 2006).
Punishment Review References Deterrence. (2008). Dictionary of youth justice. Retrieved from
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http://140.234.17.9:8080/EPSessionID=4ea6d7c08958ff2deeaf6a922483e792/EPHost=cr edoreference.com/EPPath/entry.do?id=9224274 Juszkiewicz, Jolanta, Baker, J.E. (September, 1990). Retribution revisited. Federal Probation, 00149128. Vol. 54, Issue 3. Retrieved from http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?hid=2&sid=d6a661b0-816b-4135-bf7ef210f064b484%40sessionmgr15&vid=9&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d %3d#db=f5h&AN=9608132595 Macionis, J. J. (2006). Society: The Basics (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. Steele, K. (December 14, 1998). Privatized punishment. Newsmagazine, 02250519. Vol. 25, Issue 52. Retrieved from http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?hid=2&sid=d6a661b0-816b-4135-bf7ef210f064b484%40sessionmgr15&vid=12&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d %3d#db=f5h&AN=1373366 Tate, D., Reppucci, N., Mulvey, E. (1995). Violent juvenile delinquents: treatment effectiveness and implications for future action. American Psychologist, 0003-066X. Vol. 50, Issue 9. Retrieved from http://ehis.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail?hid=4&sid=c54392a9-51fd-41f3-876a47268d22c812%40sessionmgr4&vid=3&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d %3d#db=pdh&AN=amp-50-9-777
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