Prison as a Prominent Form of Punishment for Society - Essay Example

In the 21st Century, there has been an enormous change in the practice of corrections and sentencing. In the last seven decades, a strong emphasis on rehabilitation gave way to the focus on justice and fairness. In this case, sentences mainly reflect just deserts rather than utilitarian motives. There is also an emphasis on incarceration which reduces crime in society. The crime control model has also become popular. Additionally, four major goals are emphasized in the modern prison and punishment sector which include retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation. The three goals aim at protecting the general public (Smith, 2008, p. 6).

Prisons are intended to serve four distinct functions: punishment, deterrence, ensuring public safety and security, and rehabilitation of a criminal offender (Flynn, 1998). When a criminal is socially isolated and confined in prison, the intention is to remove this threat from society; a threat to the established social order in a region, thereby ensuring that his deviance can no longer disturb peaceful and compliant society members. Deterrence speaks to rehabilitation, changing an offender’s beliefs, values, perceptions, and motivations to effectively restore his position in society and re-socialize him according to established societal norms related to morality and social harmony. The main goal of imprisonment is to give the offender adequate time to reflect on his criminal experiences and find, ultimately, repentance and remorse for these behaviors (Hanser, 2012).

The main function of prison is correction, ensuring that individuals who do not comply with established laws designed to uphold established social norms are punished according to their criminal deeds; hence through correction becoming more socially compliant. In essence, prisons serve as obedience education institutions. This has been the basic premise of utilizing prisons to correct offenders throughout the modern era, suggesting that prisons could serve as centers of moral instruction to ensure that, upon release, inmates would ultimately become exemplary members of established society (Lewis, 2009).