INCARCERATION AS PUNISHMENT

Incarceration as Punishment

Incarceration as Punishment

US Criminal Justice System

Criminal justice, like all other social institutions, represents the value system of a society. It not only make this society a safer and healthier place to live in but also fights undesired behavior, which might corrupt the societal fabric. US recently became the country with the highest number of prisoners and the highest imprisonment rate in the world. However, this high level of incarceration is not due to an unusually high crime rate but because of the country's strict sentencing guidelines, policies, and practices for restraining the increasing crime rate.

Incarceration as Punishment

Prisoners who are jailed include non-condemned defendants pending trial who did not get a bail, condemned offenders, and criminals serving in jail on account of probation breach. Mostly, convicts are sentenced to the prisons for long-term sentences i.e. of more than a year for their criminal offences (Regoli & Hewitt, 2009).

Rationales for Using Incarceration as Punishment

The goal of crime reduction along with punishment and incapacitation is targeted by the sentencing guidelines in the US judicial system. According to Regoli & Hewitt (2009), the basic goal of all criminal sentencing is to reduce the deviance of members of a society from the accepted behavior, and thus, maintain a healthy society. However, the goals of sentencing may differ according to the deterrence of the offender, need for rehabilitation, and positive confirmation of the legal norms in the public, and retribution.

There are two types of lawmakers at work, the retributivists and preventionists. The retributivists design sentencing guidelines with the purpose of restoring the injustice committed, while the preventionists base them on the fundamentals of utilitarianism. Meaning, offender should only be punished if it will have positive consequences like the prevention of further offences, so as to contribute to societal utility.

Effectiveness of Incarceration as ...