Arguments for Penal Reform - Essay Example

Arguments for Penal Reform Arguments for Penal Reform Ward and Salmon argue that the history of modern penal system liesin discipline and punishment as perceived by the society (Ward & Salmon 2009, p. 240). This paper is a critical analysis of the penal system especially for the law offenders. There is a consideration of the theories of punishment, which gives a wider perspective of punishment as perceived by the society. Before the eighteenth century, corporal punishment and public execution were critical sentences. The same period saw torture as the primary tool for criminal investigations. It is, therefore, worthwhile mentioning that punishment was ceremonial, and the prisoners and other affected individuals bore it all on their bodies. For this case, there was a need that the public form the center stage of the process because the process was a ritual that the rulers used to show power to the rest. It, therefore, follows that punishment was ceremonial in most of its aspects, and it aimed to inflict fear in the affected, as well as the remainder of the community. Ward notes that there were calls for reforms in the manner of punishing the prisoners during the eighteenth century. Such was because of the increased concerns about making power to run more efficiently (Ward and Salmon 2009, p. 237). There is a need to note that most of the reformers did not have the interest of the prisoners at heart while they fought for the reforms. Reformers proposed a theater of punishment were there was a chance for public display of signs, and complex systems where punishment related to the committed crimes and acted as obstacles to law breaking. As such, there was the evolution of a trial system for the lawbreakers and the start of prisons as the primary form of punishment. Introduction There are not yet imaginable implications of prison as a form of punishment. Michel Foucoult notes that three contemporary models of penalty assisted in removing the resistance to the use of prisons. Foucoult argues that the developments of the seventieth and eighteenth centuries were the forerunners of the modern prison developments. He asserts that discipline is an array of techniques that can control the operations of one’s body, and it works best through coercing and arrangement of a person’s movement and their experiences of space and time. Devices such as military drills, timetables and the process of exercises attain such aspects of discipline. Discipline creates individuals out of a mass, which Michel Foucoult relates to the effects of penal activities. Therefore, disciplinary power has three critical elements: normalizing judgment, examination, and hierarchical observation. Observation and gaze form essential elements of power. Foucoult relates the development of the norm with the three processes as well as the human sciences. Bentham’s Panopticon is a building that illustrates how to supervise and control individuals efficiently, and can exemplify disciplinary power. Institutions founded on the panopticon start to spread throughout the society, which is the argument, that Tony Ward for the basis of prisons (Ward & Salmon 2009, p. 240). He argues that prisons develop from the idea of discipline because it targets to deprive the affected by their perceived freedom as well as reforming them. For such a case, there are critics who argue both for and against the use of prisons. This work is, therefore, an assessment of the available literature for evaluation of arguments that attempt to explain penal reform. Philosophical Ideas, Themes, and Arguments for Penal Reform Power and Knowledge The relationship between knowledge and power forms the core of Foucaults work. Discipline and Punish examine the reorganization of authority to punish as well as the development of varied bodies of knowledge such as human sciences, which produce effects that correlate with power. The contemporary power to punish individuals has roots in the organization and supervision of bodies in time and space, which comes with strict technical approaches. According to Foucault, there is a need that reformers relate human nature with the set norms. For such a case, Foucaults work describes that one exists dependently of the existence of others. There are attempts in his work that relate punishment with the social context of humans. The techniques and power of punishment depend on an understanding that classifies and creates individuals as well as the authority that knowledge derives from some relationships of power and domination. The Body The body forms a subject acted upon by very effect of punishment and the issue of political technology. Starting with public execution, which horrifically displays the body, Foucaults work charts a transition where there are no direct effects on the body. Foucault, however, notes that punishment will always affect the body partly because the past did not imagine the existence of punishment without corporal effects. The modern forms of punishment view the body as regulated, arranged and supervised rather than tortured. At the same time, the net result of punishment is to reform the soul, rather than punishment of the body. Foucault, therefore, writes a deep relationship between the body and the soul and their relationship with penal activities. The Politics and Philosophy of Punishment and Sentencing A number of factors such as prison crowding, rising crime rates, loss of faith in the treatment paradigm as well as concerns for just dessert delivery sharpen the debate about sentencing policies. These factors form a greater or less influence on the effects of punishment in most countries. According to Anthony Bottoms, there are therefore about three principal constituents of the process of sentencing. The first is a concern for just desserts as well as an observation of human rights. Such an aspect formed a critical element of the process of sentencing in the 1970s (Bottoms 1995, p. 20). Bottoms (1995) maintains that the approach continues to form a relevant part of the sentencing reforms for the modern human scientists. Bottoms notes that the popularity of just deserts and the observation of human rights depend on two items. The first is the pessimism concerning the effects of the previous punitive measures, which focused on torturing the body. The second is rising interest claims about the rights of prisoners and the duty of state authorities to treat offenders with fairness in a method that limits the dominant utilitarianism of the day. Bottoms notes that if there was to be an interpretation of the just deserts theory of punishment in its primary relevance as limiting retributivism then the theory will have an explicit meaning. For this case, the model would mean that power over the life of a criminal should not be in excess (Bottoms 1995, p. 23). It, therefore, implies that the model was and remains a mechanism that allows the criminals to have an individual level of freedom considerably as directed by the human rights charter. There are challenges however in the determination of what is fair and what is unjust because of the variation in the views of individuals of the same. For this case, there is a need to note that any comprehensive sentencing systems must adopt a rigid scheme of deserved punishments. It therefore, follows that however much there can exist approaches to just punishment, there is still a difficulty in grouping what is fair from what is unjust. The most basic example of the problem of unjust ruling is in terms of race, ethnicity, and crime. For instance, in Wales and England, there is a tendency for the police to stop and search Blacks is as twice as the Whites. About 30% of the Black men that live in the UK are on a DNA database, which only compares to 10% of the Whites. At the same time, about 15% of the 2.2% of the British population imprisoned are Blacks. There are statistics that for every African Caribbean undergraduate males at a Russell Group university, three African Caribbean men aged 18-24 are in prison. Victims’ descriptions indicate that in certain offences such as robbery, fraud, and forgery and homicide black people appear to be more often involved as suspects (Ministry of Justice 2009, p. 20). There are about three reasons for such occurrences. The first is because blacks commit more crimes, which is, of course, an opinion based on some prejudice ideologies. The second reason is that the CJS has institutionally rooted racism, which is an affirmation of prejudiced views. The second problem translates into the third, which is the structural disadvantage of the Blacks in their representation in the CJS. Bottoms still notes that other critics to the just deserts theory wrote that another theory for use is the Parity Principle (Bottoms 1995, p. 18). The later attempt suggests that a penal system should group offenders of the same magnitude and deliver a similar verdict on them. Such will be a way of working to ensure that what this work has already described as justice will not work for as long as there are varied types of punishments for the same mistakes. It therefore points to the fact that there can never exist a precise deserved way of punishing a given offender because of the varied opinions for the same. Therefore, what the courts exercise nowadays is an act of freedom especially in giving different punishments to similar offenders (Ministry of Justice 2010, p. 2). The second main considerable concept is that of managerialism, which has an emphasis on the criminal system of justice. The approach conceives the notion as a system rather than a collection of different parts. For instance, the probation service is a criminal justice system, which is among five others (Mears 2008, p. 165). The most critical reason for their existence is to define crime as well as a way of dealing with it such as prevention and dealing with it. The different categories each fall under specific categories, but at a basic level, all the five departments share a common course in the intention, but at the operational level, they have distinctive layouts. Bottoms writes that at each given level, each of the categories can frustrate the actions of the other because of the differences in the defined roles. For this case, there is a consideration that each of the five categories must work in harmony with others so that the result has the perceived objective. The third aspect of punishment is community, which has relevance to sentencing and punishment. According to Bottoms, three main aspects of the community relate to punishment (Bottoms 1995, p. 20). The first is community penalties and diversion, and the second is justice in and for local communities and groups and the last is the development of decision-making processes to the community. The last thirty years have seen an increased attention to the process of delivering community punishments. There have been considerations that the offenders receive their sentences in the community, and not in prison. Such is the reason for the use of the probation punishments, which target to correct the law offenders as a part of the community and not in isolation. Other forms of community punishments include the curfews and electronic tagging, which have the same effects on the affected individuals. The rationale for such punitive measures is to avoid overcrowding in the prisons and the costs of building new prisons. There has also been the development of diversion mechanisms especially those that seek to divert people from the court. The rationale for such is to give the offenders a chance to reform as a part of the rest and avoid the stigmatization that may result in more negative self-image as if the punishments occurred in courts. Conclusion and the Overall Penal Reforms In this work therefore, there is a discovery that the current criminal systems are a result of consistent changes most of which shift from the corporal punishments to better forms. Most of the reformers focused on shifting affliction of the offenders’ bodies and make the punishment less influencing, but at the same time a causative of change. Today there are varied forms of sentences that have the same effect. Some of them focus on diverting the process of punishments from the courts and the prisons. For instance, the development of probation is one of the methods that seek to reform the offenders outside the jail. Such are developments of the urge to educate the penal administrators of the rights of the criminals. The use of such a theory is the course of the shift from corporal punishments and public execution of more considerate methods. However, in all the forms of punishment, there is remains the aspect of denial of freedom and space, which sums up to torture of the same bodies. It summarizes to the fact that whatever the punitive approach, the results frustrate the bodies of the affected. The work has also analyzed the perception of punishment according to the existent philosophies and theories. The discussed literatures overlap in the rationale for punitive actions on individuals as well as the use of some approaches. There is a revelation that the development of modern disciplinary measures is because of the development of the need for communal values. In most cases, such values rate the usefulness of punishment in reforming the offenders rather than inflicting oppression. Such ideologies are the basics of most of the philosophers and politicians of the punitive reforms. There is however still a problem in determining the most suitable forms of punishment. For this case, there is a need that the penal reformers seek the best way of ascertaining the just sentences. Such is the rationale for some of the writers in their debates over what standards set the justice and the mode of punishing offenders of the same scale. It is therefore, a challenge for the arms of justice around the globe to determine the best approaches for punishments. Bibliography Bottoms, A 1995, The Philosophy and Politics of Punishment and Sentencing, The Politics of Sentencing Reform, pp.17-49. Mears, A. R. 2008, Rehabilitation of offenders-does the 1974 Act help them? Probation Journal, 55(2), 161-170. Ministry of Justice, 2012, Statistics on Race and the Criminal Justice System 2012, retrieved March 14, 2015 from https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/269399/Race-and-cjs-2012.pdf Ministry of Justice. 2010. Breaking the cycle: Effective Punishment, Rehabilitation, and Sentencing of Offenders. Ward, T & Salmon, K 2009, The Ethics of Punishment: Correctional Practice Implications, Aggression and Violent Behavior, 14, 4, pp.239-247. Read More