CRIMINAL JUSTICE PUNISHMENT

Criminal Justice Punishment

Criminal Justice Punishment

Introduction

The topic of this essay is criminal justice punishment. It considers personal preference of composer with regard to punishment philosophy. The discussion makes use of different concepts of criminal justice such as retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, rehabilitation, vengeance and presumption of innocence. It highlights the desired purposes of corrective treatments and makes a conclusion by suggesting appropriate means to accomplish those purposes.

Discussion

Modern philosophies underlying criminal justice punishment vary in their nature as each of them aims to accomplish different objectives with sometimes entirely or moderately different paradigms.

There is a notion in punishment philosophy that can simply be described as eye for an eye. In legal terms this is known as the principle of retribution. The concept of retribution has underlying assumption that equivalent harm shall be made to the criminal that the criminal made to the victim. The justice model based ob retribution is widely accepted in America. The notion of retribution is convincing than others on the basis that family of the victim and victim himself/herself wants such punishment made to the criminal. For example a rape victim would want the justice system to make the criminal suffer by the same magnitude as she suffered.

The notion of rehabilitation is entirely opposite to retribution. Retribution and rehabilitation are different as North and South. Rehabilitation emphasizes on the notion of utilitarianism that encourages society to forgive the criminal and give him a chance to improve himself. The verdict based on rehabilitation recommends a mode of benevolent punishment that provide conducive environment to the criminal to get rid of his criminal temptations and then join the society by becoming a productive and positive member. Critics of the notion of rehabilitation often argue that satisfied vengeance is not provided to the sufferer as there is lack of retribution ...