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In our society's criminal justice system, justice equals punishment. You do the crime, and you do the time. Once you have done the time, you have paid your debt to society and justice has been done. Because our society defines justice in this manner, the victims of crimes often seek the most severe possible punishment for their offenders.
Society tells them this will bring justice, but it often leaves them feeling empty and unsatisfied after getting what they wanted. Punishment does not address the other important needs of victims. It cannot restore their losses, answer their questions, relieve their fears, and help them make sense of their tragedy or heal their wounds. Regardless of their particular view, most people agree that crime and violence are blowing up out of control in the streets of our towns and cities. Most also agree that what we are doing about it is not working.
We are fearful and we have good reason. We know our criminal justice system is broken and we dont know how to fix it. Crime always goes down when the economy is good. That is because there is more money for police, but more importantly because there are less people who are desperate for money, or could not make money in a legal way. One of the dominant principles of justice is the principle of proportionality. The punishment should always be proportional to the crime.
That makes it needed to describe a range for the harshness of crimes. It allows an evaluation of several crimes between each other, and provides a quick suggestion of what the punishment should be in a perfect, fair, and real world. A crime is an action considered to be wrong and punishable by the law. A sin is an act of breaking the rules which goes against the will of God.
People do wrong for a variety of reasons. Most people will commit small crimes and if not caught and punished the gains become a routine and tradition. Some of the reasons for committing crimes are social pressure, personal problems, greed and other circumstances. Social pressures are people who need to have lots of wealth so therefore they commit crime.
Personal problems cause a difficult life which can lead to a life of crime as payback, an expression of anger or as a method of escape. Greed is someone wanting possessions that others have and will commit a crime to get it, and circumstances are people who are more likely to commit crimes if they come from areas of high unemployment, bad housing or are underprivileged. Christians also believe that laws should be just. Some people are victims of unjust laws like rejection of religion, freedom of speech, or politics. These people are called prisoners of conscience.
Christians today realize that the fight against crime also means the fight against unreasonable and unfair laws. Most churches and Christians agree that we need to look at the causes of crime as well as how to deal with existing crime. Many of the crimes come about because of poverty, unfair distribution of wealth, poor housing and bad social conditions. If we could spend money on reducing these things then maybe there would not be so much crime. We also need to look closely at the lifestyle that we are encouraged to lead. It is considered normal to have a house, car, stereos, TVs, videos, computers, designer clothing, shoes, microwaves, holidays etc.
However even with promoting this as the standard society prevents some people from achieving this by creating economic structures which keep millions of people in unemployment or low paid jobs. The church accepts that, in a present society, criminals need to be put off but we need to look at the root causes of crime as well as methods of punishment. But if a person has broken the law they need to be punished. The aims of punishment are protection, deterrence, reform, vindication and retribution. Protection is putting a person into prison which keeps them away from the chance to commit a crime and so it protects society.
Deterrence is if a person is caught and punished they will not commit the crime again, and it will put others off from committing crimes. Reform is people who do crimes and need help. Connected to the punishment will be help that will stop them from offending again. Vindication is people who must be punished so that the laws will be respected. The last aim of punishment is retribution which is if you do something wrong you deserve to be punished in a way that is fitting for the crime youve committed. Most Christians believe that punishment and forgiveness can go together.
They also put great pressure on working to stop the causes of crime. Over the last 150 years many Christians have worked towards the idea of reforming criminals as they see the idea of reform as being the most important reason for punishment. Many Christians are involved in prison visiting. A culture of punishment is a culture of suffering and this may only be with a culture of forgiveness. A victim who suffers criminal offence gains nothing through the infliction of further suffering upon the offender and not even satisfaction which is even though that is what he thinks he gets. But this requires understanding of the deepest and highest kind because it is not easy to say that an evil crook is coming to a horrible and gruesome end is not all right.
The culture of punishment needs to be set in reverse. And it needs to be set in reverse by what is actually a harder, more severe, tougher stand. A stand which gives effect to a culture of forgiveness. Only forgiveness can heal. The most shattered victim, the worst kind of offender and both have deep experience of this.
In the early world the most common type of punishment was crucifixion. Death was caused by suffocation, heart failure or exhaustion. Crucifixion was stopped in the west in about 400 but carried on in Japan until the late 19 th century. Other forms of capital punishment have included stoning, decapitation which is having your head chopped off, being burnt alive, hanging, being fed alive to wild animals, being ripped apart by horses, being drowned, being thrown off a high place, being shot, electrocuted or poisoned.
There is arguments for having capital punishment and they are that it puts off possible murderers, it protects people, it shows that we think murder is very bad, it allows the term? A life for a life? to come in effect, and it helps the victims family knowing that a person who committed the crime is now gone. Therefore there are also arguments against capital punishment and they are that it is murder in itself, it is merciless, all life is sacred and killing a person would be a sin, mistakes are made and innocent people are executed, and no one is going to carry out the execution. Consequently Christians believe that giving and receiving of life is in Gods hands, and not humans. In most societies the typical way of dealing with lawbreakers is imprisonment.
There would seem to be four reasons for jailing someone which are punishment, protection of the innocent, deterrence and rehabilitation. Punishment is the community's example of revenge for injury. It may seem to be necessary when someone has done an evil act, especially a violent sin. But from another person? s understanding there is no need at all for society to inflict revenge. Protection of the Innocent is rare cases of shameful people who need to be separated from society for everyones protection.
Very few lawbreakers fall into this group, and even here we should increase our sympathy. They are already living in a private hell and there is no need to make their lives any more miserable. Deterrence is the risk of imprisonment that can prevent some criminal acts, but the success of harsher punishment as a stronger prevention has time and again been questioned. Rehabilitation allows a progressive criminal justice system and makes as its first goal the rehabilitation and restoration of the criminal to the community. This has not worked and the inmates return to society at the end of their time worse than they went in. The question is if prison does stop crime and research shows that people are not putting off committing crimes by what the possible sentence might be but the probability of getting caught has some effect.
Only three percent of offences result in a conviction or caution, so sentencing is an unimportant part of the difficult crime prevention maze. Over half of ex-prisoners are re-convicted within two years of leaving prison. If you look at countries where prison rates have increased, there is no consistency in what happens to crime rates. So meaning that there are countries where lots more offenders have been locked up but crime has continued to rise, and other countries where sentences have started to send fewer people to prison and the crime rate has gone down. Theres just no easy obvious connection between how many offenders are locked up and how many crimes are committed. Probation programs with criminals are delivered according to methods which have been proved to work better, and they are twenty percent more successful at preventing re-offending crimes.
But currently most probation programs arent this strictly planned and the re conviction rates are close to the same for offenders who have had a prison sentence and for those who have had a community sentence. We do not really know if people are born evil or if they become bad by virtue of their education or lack of it. However as we are now beginning to solve the mysteries of the brain we may be able to find an answer to this. Already scientists are able to identify genes that are responsible for certain types of behavior as well as physical features.
It is clear that certain types of criminal literally cannot help themselves from committing offences that even they acknowledge as being wrong. Many pedophiles would come into this category. Punishment or the fear of it does not have any effect on them and therefore we must either permanently contain these people in secure units or find a genuine cure for their particular mental problems. Equally it seems that a lot of people commit minor offences because they can get away with it or because it?
s just a laugh or a way of obtaining easy money, etc. These people could be classed as bad because they understand society? s rules and their own actions but choose to disobey the rules for their own selfish ends. They may well prove much harder to diagnose and treat and are likely to be the result of a poor education and an out of control society. It is easy to see the effects of discipline upon this very much larger group. The method of execution is of course important.
We must not take cruel enjoyment on inflicting pain on our prisoners. This is just a primitive desire for revenge. The more pain a prisoner suffers, the more of a hero he appears. We must not make heroes out of our criminals.
Death should be swift and impersonal. In some countries, those who steal have their hands against their will removed. This seems to work because you can not steal without any hands. There are those who say such a punishment is barbaric but it is not, as long as it is done in a modern medically controlled way.
People get limbs amputated all the time for medical reasons. It is not barbaric to amputate a limb for the sake of a persons health, so why is it barbaric to amputate a limb for the sake of society. One main factor influencing the rise in crime is the criminals belief that they will not be caught. We must destroy this principle, right in front of their very own eyes. It is not enough for justice to be done because justice must be seen to be done.
It is sufficient for justice to be seen to be done and it does not actually need to be done at all. As long as the criminal believes he cannot get away with the crime he is doing, the deterrent is there. If we are to convince everyone that crime really doesnt pay, we must get rid of all those things which make our justice system look stupid. Put an end to the appeal courts.
Any court decision which is later overturned makes a joke out of the justice system, ruins public confidence, and ruins the deterrent effect. It does not matter if the wrong people are executed for a crime, as long as everyone believes that they did it. Any proof to the contrary that shows up must not be allowed to reach the public. If the real perpetrator then tries to own up, he must be made out to be mentally ill and discredited.
The justice system must never be seen to fail. All failures must be covered up. If at some point, it does become known to the government that some innocent people were executed while the real criminals of the crime are free, the real criminals should be investigated in secret, and maybe made to have an accident. Eventually, with this apparently perfect justice system, no-one in their right mind would ever commit any kind of serious crime.
With hardly any crime being committed, the chances of executing the wrong person drop almost to nothing. After all, you cant be executed for a crime that wasnt even committed in the first place. The prison system must be updated to focus on two areas which are rehabilitation of those who can be reintroduced into society, and protection of the public from those who cannot. This will require a second look of sentencing practices, as well as hiring new people and making changes to the institutes.
For the people who have the potential to be productive members of society, imprisonment must be the solution to their problem, and not just a place of imprisonment. Education to an expert level of literacy, job training, and psychological counseling are the keys to rehabilitation; and combined with goal-oriented sentencing, would be far more effective than current methods. Some types of criminals pose a permanent threat to society, and cannot be rehabilitated or cured. These people are primarily sociopathic, and include serial killers, child molesters, serial rapists, and chronic perpetrators. In the case of these individuals, the goal in sentencing is to protect society from their actions, and therefore they must be held until further notice under maximum security.
A cure or control will be found for sociopathic disorders, but for now nothing short of separation from the public is completely safe. Although many cultures simply execute this type of offender, they are pursuing a shortsighted agenda. Eliminating each particular sociopath does not alter the fact that their numbers increase by 1. 5 million each year due to the birth rate alone. This is not to say that all of them will become criminals even though although all serial killers are sociopaths, not all sociopaths are murderers. In fact, this deficiency in social emotions can lead to a successful career in politics or law and those born into wealth and power may never pose a direct threat to society. The potential danger of a sociopath rising to a position of leadership in a country with a strong military force should never be ignored.
Until attitudes change in respect to crime and punishment, we will continue along the same path. The masses will continue to conform to ineffective ideals, and call for retribution rather than rehabilitation. Future criminals will continue to be born at the same rate. The problems associated with society? s obsession with material gain will continue to allow people to justify their criminal tendencies. People will continue to demand that something has to be done to protect mankind from itself just as people have done since the beginning of human creation.
Free research essays on topics related to: criminal justice system, threat to society, commit a crime, committing crimes, serial killers
Research essay sample on Criminal Justice System Commit A Crime
