Punishment: Forms and Functions Essay

In a contemporary participation where detestation slangs grade we expect the state authority to dispense justice in the suffice upon of penalisation to maintain social solidarity. There are legion(predicate) nervous strains of penalisation that can be given to an offender, each with their own functions for the offender and society itself. Im prison ho practice sessionment is one of the most widely used systems of penalizations glob onlyy, the ideology of impounding globally tends to remain the same. There are several functions of imprisonment and whether it is an utile method of punishment is widely argued by sociologist. To remove the offender from society, as to keep society safe is one function that stands step to the fore, by putt the offender in a high security measure purlieu you take away their freedom to commit offences towards the public again. just it could be argued that prison is deemed an unsafe environment for the offender itself as an institution, for many its an environment where they have to adapt to survive, in which case becoming a raising such(prenominal) wrongs as a result of this or producing victims.Alternative punishment such as house arrest or probation would be more suit competent in the face of the offenders personal safety, whereby they are still paying for the crimes they have move, with limitations on their freedom, up to now they are much safer. Statistics show that 50% of offenders that are released from prison are likely to reoffend in spite of appearance 3 years, which is the same rate as those who are given these alternative punishment. With 3% of the American population in prison and a vauntingly majority of those likely to reoffend within 3 year of release, they should be feeling for alternative approaches to prison that takes into account the safety of the offender. However it could be argued that prison is there to be tough and that the people in there are criminals and should be treated as s uch. An alternative approach to prison that has be found to be particularly successful across America in bring down the number of young people entering prison and reducing the reoffending place are correctional facilities, which implements army regimes, with an aim to instil discipline, sobriety and work ethic into juveniles.This form of punishment works based on the report of giving young people who have committed the swop to go through a programme or carry on with their sentence. This form of punishment works based on the bringing close together of rejectment as mentioned in item B, which in the case of this form of punishment where it is heavily applied it is successful proven by the low rates of reoffending after graduation from correctionalfacilities. However it can be argued its difficult to prove the matteriveness of deterrence, because only the offenders who werent deterred by affirmable consequences of the actions volition come to face the enforcement of the puni shment, therefore it does not tell us why others do not offend. Making punishments based on deterrence is based on a key concept that offenders choose to come after or disobey the law having calculated the possible gains and consequences of their actions.It could be argued that all forms of punishment are based on deterrence, we have punishment to deter the public from committing crimes, and it forces society to conform. Over the many centuries that there have been prison systems there have been changes in the way offenders have been treated, one concept that is present in todays prison system is the idea of replacement, this is aiming to reform the offender to give them the support and skills they needs to be able to go back into society once they have served their sentence, and in exercise stop them reoffending.This as a function of punishment is generally in truth positive, its helping the offender, their still contained in a high security environment away from the public how ever for many offenders they tend to be uneducated or lack vocational skills which has left hand them unsupported previously, with rehabilitation theyre able to gain these skills so they can go out and get jobs, meaning theyre little likely to lead criminal lives when theyre released from prison. However Rothman 1973 rejects the idea of rehabilitating offenders, he believes that due to the environment theyre in with officers holding huge amounts of actor over them, theyre left with little free will and are forced into these programmes. However its often found that many offenders, especially women and ethnic minorities, take headspring the programmes having been discriminated against in education and in the work place so having had less opportunism before prison. 30 minsWhen assessing the functions and forms of punishment one key scenery I think is important to take into consideration is the role of the crime itself and how that plays out in punishment. Imprisonment, can be a ha rsh environment, however can be an opportunity for offenders to consider on the crime theyve committed and who theyve committed it against. Restorative justice also gives offender this opportunity to reflect on the harm theyve causedthrough programmes such as victim offender medication, which studies show has a high satisfaction rate for those involved, high victim participant rates, meaning a large proportion of victims who can will take up the opportunity to talk to the victim of their crime, and importantly minify criminal behaviour by offenders (cumbhert 1994). However a major reprimand of victim offender mediation is that its difficult in toll of victims of unrelenting crimes such rape of with relatives of murder victims. Item B refers to the use of execution as a form of punishment, whereby countries such as the ground forces still enforce the death penalty, the UK uses the alternative of biography imprisonment for brutal crimes such as murder or rape of a minor. intim idation is a prominent concept when discussing death penalty, the idea is that if you take a life where the death penalty is used as a form of punishment, your life will be taken, however research from the death penalty information centre suggests that the use of capital punishment has no effect on the rate of murder case, when they compared states that used the penalty there wasnt much difference between the number of murder cases and in or so year It was higher for states with the penalty. In the UK we abandoned capital punishment and replaced it with life imprisonment, which some argue to be unfair on the victims and believe in the take a lie give a life ideology.However when you take into consideration a life prison term imprisonment and was that would actually be like, living with hundreds of criminals for a lifetime, in isolation, without many rights, it could be argued that the offender would hold on more suffering, therefore the punishment is right for what theyve done, an d theyre serving the time for their crimes. Prison is a form of punishment which is a theme throughout, Foucault provides an interpretation for why prison is so prominent as a form of punishment in our society.In previous years sovereign power was prominent, whereby punishment would be handled by those in power of the land, i.e. the king or queen, this would be done in a manner of cruelty and viciously aiming to punish the body for the crimes that have been committed. In our society we have locomote towards disciplinary power whereby punishment is handed out by the authorities, its done so with an aim of disciplining the mind, making them correct their own actions. The idea of self-discipline comes into play in prisons where by prisoners are organism watched by guards so act accordingly, in time they will begin to act this way without the guards being there incase they are being watched. There are many forms of punishment and many functions of those punishments, and whether a puni shment is successful depends on what the aim is and who the punishment is applied to. For example many argue that a fine is a suitable punishment for fastness and acts as a deterrent for reckless driving.