An Analysis of Crime and Punishment: Effectiveness and Alternatives

This essay delves into the multifaceted debate surrounding crime and punishment, critically examining whether punishment is the sole effective method for deterring criminal behavior. The author explores various perspectives, including deterrence, retributivism, and incapacitation, analyzing their strengths and limitations. The essay discusses the complexities of criminal justice, considering scenarios where punishment may be insufficient or misapplied, and highlights the importance of understanding the underlying causes of crime. Furthermore, the essay reviews the role of civic education and alternative approaches to reducing crime, such as restorative justice and community service, emphasizing the need for a balanced and nuanced approach to address crime effectively. It also touches upon the impact of sentencing and the challenges of achieving true justice, providing a comprehensive overview of the subject matter.

The only way to stop crime is
to increase punishments

Table of Contents
The only way to stop crime is to increase punishments...................................................................1
INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................1
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES ...............................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
This essay is about crime and punishment, however there is no one who wanted to be a
criminal but they face such circumstances when they commits a crime . On other side, there are
so many rules and laws which are established to prevent society from committing serious crimes
that affects others and also maintaining discipline, so that the world can leave peacefully.
MAIN BODY
As the title stated that, the punishment is the only way to prevent from crime, but it is not
probably true, because why people wait to get punished 1. They should understand that this is
not they way to deal with things, they have conscious to recognize what is true and what is
wrong. For example, when a person violates a traffic rule, they know that they would be fined for
that but still there are some people who would like to perpetrate the crime. There are several
ways to punish people who are acting wrong, paying fine is one of the way to punish wrongdoer.
The court orders the culprits to pay the penalty when they have enacted a crime on lesser scale
of punishment. For an instance, disobey the civic rules, like spitting on the road, when an
individual person have commit an action then they have to pay the fine which is prescribed by
the law of order. If they are regular to commit such offences then they have to pay higher and
this is an deterrent in hopes that they learn to obey the rules because they never wanted to spend
their earned money to the system by such silly actions. There is a restorative justice which uses
an approach to justice that focuses on the needs of the victims, they has an active role in
punishment. For an instance, if a criminal were destroyed a store then store owner has the right
to take part in the punishment process and demand the criminal to help them to clean up the store
and refurnish the store again by paying them all the damage 2. Other then that, community
service is another way to punish a lawbreaker, this one is also included in low scale punishment
but failure to do so may result in fine and jail time. This gives them a chance to rehabilitate the
criminals and it is a donated service.
The one of the major punishments comes under sentencing which is an important aspect
in the criminal justice. It is a punishment which suspects receive when they have been proven
guilty for the crime, and this has a vast spectrum of punishment ranges from community service
and fines which is described above. There are some other penalization which gives the justice
1 Andrews, Donald A., James Bonta, and J. Stephen Wormith. "The risk-need-
responsivity (RNR) model: Does adding the good lives model contribute to effective
crime prevention?."Criminal Justice and Behavior 38, no. 7 (2011): 735-755.
2 Glenn, Andrea L., and Adrian Raine. "Neurocriminology: implications for the
punishment, prediction and prevention of criminal behaviour." Nature Reviews
Neuroscience 15, no. 1 (2014): 54.
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from fines to incarnation and sentenced to death. Punishment and sentencing are to be
considered when there are some complicated issues are discussed. But there is not a perfection
in the laws that gives a perfect justice regarding a particular case. A sentence forms when a final
and explicit act of ruling made by a judge, the act may involve a decree of captivity and /or a fine
or other punishments. Giving a punishment is an imposition of something negative or unpleasant
of a person in response to a behaviour deemed wrong by a law. In sentencing there are three
reasons for punishments, deterrence, retributivism and incapacitation.
Deterrence philosophy
Deterrence is a philosophy that goes to says that criminal itself prevent to commit a
crime, that means specific deterrence theory states that when a delinquent is punished and
released after completing their duration for imprisonment they would less like to do the wrong
things again. They also have a reasonable thinking that what they can do better to avoid the
wrong thinking. For an illustration, a robber was not always wanted rob any bank, but their drug
habits drawn them on wrong path cause they didn't had any way to source of earning from where
they can get money, so they chose a simple way, without considering the consequences. But after
completion of their punishment, they realize that they can start a new life but will not do the
same thing again as before. So, punishment is may be good way to stop crime to make the people
realize that they have committed such a blunder mistakes, which will have bad impact on their
lives. On the other hand, punishments are not always a right way to stop crime cause deterrence
effects are limited, because the one who is performing the wrong action, they don't have the
ability to take the decision about benefits and loses of committing a crime. The deterrence theory
is not applicable for violent persons, because of the most time when the offenders commits
violent crimes, their criminal intent blights their ability to think rationally of the consequences of
wrong acts, like a terrorist who is willing to sacrifice their life for being involved in murder or
such a bruter crime, as being aware for the death penalty but they don't have any regret to kill
someone, they do not care about that they destroy someone's life and they will also get
punishment for that, and despite of all the known facts like they will be punish for the death
sentence that does not serve as deterrence for them. So, for such kind of criminals punishment is
the only way to prevent crime and society. The deterrence effect of the penalty is not always
successful to remove people' intent to remove crime unless the people will not weigh the
consequences, the deterrence will not work for them. In contrast, civic education is the one way
that can aid to erase the thought from their mind that is about to performing a crime. This
problem can be overcome through implanting the right values, the potential offenders can find
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the alternative methods that can reduce their anger level so that they can be destruct from3
negative thoughts, that forces them to commit a crime. In this way, the civic education is one of
the best way that can reduce the punishments which is right way to stop solutions.
Retributivism philosophy
Retributivism refers to the notions of justice where crime must be met with an
appropriate penalization but there are so many cases in which this is not true. In some cases the
penalty is blind regarding the causes of the crime and the circumstances of the criminal, hence
the penance is not a correct way to stop the crime. Retributivism is a form of legal justice,
whenever an offender disobeyed laws then they have to forfeit something in compensate. It is not
wrong to say that this law is based on the principle of lex talionis: “an eye for an eye, a life for a
life”, whatever the crime carried out by a person they will have to punished proportionally. There
is also a benefit as it brings a closure for the victims for a short term while in long trials, this law
is not serve the particular solution for any real problems of the offenders. There are so many
cases that guilty is accused for such wrong evidence and sentenced to death. For an example, a
Chinese lady, her name was Li Yan, she killed her abusive husband for self - defence, after
tolerating the brutal domestic violence for four months but she got death penalty, yet it was a
case of self – defence. This is because there was a lack of protection of women for domestic
violence in China and for that reason the law was only focused on how Li Yan should give her
life for life. The punishment is actually failed to do true justice, it is does not care for other's
point of view, there is no sympathetic circumstances. In some cases crime is not committed as a
plan but it just happened in harsh situations, therefore4, it is more important to ensure true justice
by paying attention towards the conditions in what circumstances the incidence happened than to
just meting out punishment blindly. When the court and law will take interest to solve the social
issues behind the transgression that would be a most prominent way to stop peccadillo.
Incapacitation philosophy
Imprisonment dangerous people is not a solution to reform them cause they have are not
liable, they commit the crime again. Incarcerating dangerous people to get them off the street and
remove them from society helps to prevent future harms by these culprit. The punishment under
this law remove their rights of personal liberty, it does not serve to educate and reform the
offenders. If once an offender would get free from prison they can easily commit the crime
3 Lappi-Seppälä, Tapio. "Sentencing and punishment in Finland: the decline of the
repressive ideal." Why Punish? How Much? A Reader on Punishment (2011).
4 Cullen, Francis T., Cheryl Lero Jonson, and Daniel S. Nagin. "Prisons do not reduce
recidivism: The high cost of ignoring science." The Prison Journal 91, no. 3_suppl
(2011): 48S-65S.
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again. For an instance, when Jon Venables released from prison, he again commit a crime for
distributing child pornography and because of this, he again the went for imprisonment. There
are so many people who have the same mentality to commit a crime and this shows that there is
no incarcerating that can change a person in a good person. The incapacitation effect of the
punishment clearly fails to serve the purpose5. There are many offenders who start to involve in
criminal habits since young age, it increases when their parents and school teachers do not pay
attention to correct their unethical behaviour and wrong thoughts which reflects in lots of
difficulties to reform them after they grown up. Thus, the punishment is not going to change the
offenders habits and concepts because after a matured age they are rigid to their nature6. So there
is only one way to stop punishment is that, parents must give their children a better learning and
implanting positive values so that they will not harm anyone and aid to foster good
characteristics. Therefore, such cases offers a sense of security to the victims when the culprit
got the death penalty.
CONCLUSION
The above report is a discussing about, punishments is the only ways to decrease the
crime rate, it has some kinds of punishments that describes different point of views in which
punishment is true and false too, because there are several situations and intent in which a crime
committed. So, here is a need of a system which can justify the convict rather to have a notion of
justice. On the second side of a coin, punishment is the right way to stop crimes at least in justice
so that others can be aware to that and do not attempt the same thing, and that will preclude a
society in some circumstances.
5 Andrews, Donald Arthur, and James Bonta. The psychology of criminal conduct.
Routledge, 2014
6 Meyer, Jeffrey, and Pat O’Malley. "12. Missing the punitive turn? Canadian criminal
justice,‘balance’, and penal modernism." The new punitiveness (2013): 201.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Andrews, Donald A., James Bonta, and J. Stephen Wormith. "The risk-need-responsivity (RNR)
model: Does adding the good lives model contribute to effective crime
prevention?."Criminal Justice and Behavior 38, no. 7 (2011): 735-755.
Glenn, Andrea L., and Adrian Raine. "Neurocriminology: implications for the punishment,
prediction and prevention of criminal behaviour." Nature Reviews Neuroscience 15, no.
1 (2014): 54.
Lappi-Seppälä, Tapio. "Sentencing and punishment in Finland: the decline of the repressive
ideal." Why Punish? How Much? A Reader on Punishment (2011).
Cullen, Francis T., Cheryl Lero Jonson, and Daniel S. Nagin. "Prisons do not reduce recidivism:
The high cost of ignoring science." The Prison Journal 91, no. 3_suppl (2011): 48S-
65S.
Andrews, Donald Arthur, and James Bonta. The psychology of criminal conduct. Routledge,
2014.
Meyer, Jeffrey, and Pat O’Malley. "12. Missing the punitive turn? Canadian criminal
justice,‘balance’, and penal modernism." The new punitiveness (2013): 201.
Clear, Todd R., and Natasha A. Frost. The punishment imperative: The rise and failure of mass
incarceration in America. NYU Press, 2015.
Santana, Shannon A., Brandon K. Applegate, Bonnie S. Fisher, Jennifer A. Pealer, and Francis
T. Cullen. "Public support for correctional rehabilitation in America: Change or
consistency?." In Changing attitudes to punishment, pp. 146-165. Willan, 2013.
Byrne, James, and Gary Marx. "Technological innovations in crime prevention and policing. A
review of the research on implementation and impact." Journal of Police Studies 20, no.
3 (2011): 17-40.
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