Punishment: Forms and Functions Essay

In a contemporary fellowship where crime takes specify we expect the state authority to dispense judge in the form of penalization to maintain social solidarity. There ar more forms of punishment that evoke be given to an wrongdoer, each with their witness ranges for the offender and cab aret itself. Im prison housement is iodin of the most widely apply forms of punishments globally, the ideology of shackles globally tends to remain the same. There be some(prenominal) functions of imprisonment and whether it is an effective method of punishment is widely argued by sociologist. To send off the offender from society, as to keep society safe is one function that stands emerge, by putting the offender in a high gage environment you take away their freedom to commit offences towards the public again. as yet it could be argued that prison is deemed an unsafe environment for the offender itself as an institution, for many a(prenominal) a(prenominal) its an environment where they nominate to adapt to survive, in which casing change state a breeding more criminals as a result of this or producing victims.Alternative punishment such as house arrest or probation would be more capable in the face of the offenders personal safety, whereby they are still paying for the crimes they form committed, with limitations on their freedom, further they are much safer. Statistics show that 50% of offenders that are released from prison are potential to reoffend within 3 familys, which is the same treasure as those who are given these alternative punishment. With 3% of the Ameri cigaret population in prison and a large majority of those likely to reoffend within 3 year of release, they should be looking for alternative start outes to prison that takes into account the safety of the offender. besides it could be argued that prison is in that location to be tough and that the people in there are criminals and should be treated as such. An alternative a pproach to prison that has be found to be particularly successful crosswise America in reducing the number of young people go in prison and reducing the reoffending rates are ameliorateional facilities, which implements army regimes, with an object glass to instil discipline, self-control and work ethic into juveniles.This form of punishment industrial plant ground on the opinion of giving young people who welcome committed the change to go through a programme or carry on with their sentence. This form of punishment works based on the idea of deterrence as mentioned in item B, which in the exercise of this form of punishment where it is heavily use it is successful proven by the low rates of reoffending after graduation from correctional facilities. However it can be argued its strong to prove the effectiveness of deterrence, because only the offenders who werent deterred by feasible consequences of the actions go away come to face the enforcement of the punishment, t herefore it does non tell us why others do not offend. Making punishments based on deterrence is based on a key creation that offenders choose to obey 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 obligate 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 rehabilitation, this is aiming to reform the offender to give them the support and skills they call for to be able to go back into society once they have served their sentence, and in turn stop them reoffending.This as a function of punishment is generally very positive, its helping the offender, their still contained in a high security environment away from the public however for man y 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 less likely to lead criminal lives when theyre released from prison. However Rothman 1973 rejects the idea of rehabilitating offenders, he believes that repayable to the environment theyre in with officers holding huge amounts of place over them, theyre left with little free will and are hale into these programmes. However its often found that many offenders, especially women and cultural minorities, take well 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 aspect I think is important to take into affection is the role of the crime itself and how that plays out in punishment. Imprisonment, can be a harsh environment, however can be an opportunity for offenders to reflect on the crime theyve committed and who theyve committed it against. Restorative justice also gives offender this opportunity to reflect on the harm theyve caused through programmes such as victim offender medication, which studies show has a high satisfaction rate for those involved, high victim participant rates, meaning a large similarity of victims who can will take up the opportunity to talk to the victim of their crime, and importantly reduced criminal behaviour by offenders (cumbhert 1994). However a major criticism of victim offender mediation is that its difficult in terms of victims of brutal crimes such botch of with relatives of take out victims. compass point B refers to the use of execution as a form of punishment, whereby countries such as the USA still enforce the death penalisation, the UK uses the alternative of purport imprisonment for brutal crimes such as murder or rape of a minor.Deterrence is a pro minent 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 look for from the death penalty information centre suggests that the use of cap 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 some 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 lifetime 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 endure more suffering, therefore the punishment is right for what theyve done, and theyre serving the time for their crimes. Prison is a form of punishment which is a theme throughout, Foucault provides an explanation for why prison is so prominent as a form of punishment in our society.In previous long time 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 path of cruelty and brutally aiming to punish the body for the crimes that have been committed. In our society we have moved 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 being watched by guards so act accordingly, in time they will begin to act this way without the guards being there in case they are being watched. There are many forms of punishment and many functions of those punishments, and whether a punishment is successful depends on wh at the aim is and who the punishment is applied to. For example many argue that a fine is a suitable punishment for speeding and acts as a deterrent for reckless driving.