Punishment Is The Punishment An Individual - 948 Words

Retribution can be described with these two words: Deserved Punishment. Retribution is the punishment an individual receives contingent upon the severity of their wrong doings. They must â€Å"pay their debts†. The authors of the text â€Å"Criminal Justice in America† mentions that if the government fails to sentence the individual to an appropriate amount of punishment, society will take the situation into their own hands (Cole, Smith and DeJong 277). If a murderer receives 5 years in prison, the family of the victim(s) would feel like justice wasn’t served and would probably resort to their own type of retribution (Cole, Smith and DeJong 277). Punishment is the ethical response to harm inflicted on the society. What this means is, if society†¦show more content†¦As rational individuals, we weigh the consequences of our actions versus the benefits of our actions. The more severe the punishment of the potential crime, the higher chance that individuals will be deterred. If a petty thief receives an 8 year minimum sentence along with a high fine, the severity of this punishment will deter others from committing the same crime. Also, the severity of the punishment of the first time offense must be severe enough to deter the same individual from committing another crime. The downside of the deterrence theory is that it assumes that everyone thinks before they act (Cole, Smith and DeJong 278). Individuals who are mentally unstable or have psychological problems aren’t accounted for. Another major goal of punishment is incapacitation. Incapacitation deprives an offender from the ability to commit crimes by detaining them in prison. Both deterrence and incapacitation focuses on the potential of a crime occurring in the future. But with incapacitation, the offender is kept in prison and won’t be given another chance in society until they have proven that they will no longer commit crimes (Cole, Smith and DeJong 278). Being punished by incapacitation is dependent upon the nature of the crimes committed in the past and how extensive the offender’s criminal record is (Cole, Smith and DeJong 278). There are some difficulties with this form of punishment because there is