Punishment and Correctional Measures for Criminals - Term Paper Example

Crimes happen daily in our society because everyone is allowed to exercise free will and therefore everyone chooses what to do and when to do them. Some people choose actions that do not conform to the norms of society and therefore are considered criminals. Punishing criminals is a response or deterrent for their actions and wrongdoings and has been used by the authorities for quite some time now. The purpose of punishing criminals is to defend the community norms, maintain law and order, and maintain discipline in a society, and punishment is aimed at making people better. People commit crimes for various reasons, and crimes are committed at different levels starting from people of low class in the society to highest ranking officials of the society. Some of the reasons why people have committed a crime are to survive the harsh living conditions, to boost their ego and because of personality disorders and because they’ve seen crime rewarding other people and so they find the need to follow the same suit. Therefore, correctional measures must be taken to reduce the levels of these crimes in our society. Punishment by taking away the criminal’s freedom has been the correctional measure used worldwide to reduce the crime rate in our society and has been successful in reducing crime rates. THEORIES ON WHY PEOPLE COMMIT CRIME Various theories have been used to explain why some members of the community decide or find themselves engaging in criminal activities. The theories are: rational choice theory biosocial theory psychological trait theory neutralization theory RATIONAL CHOICE THEORY The theory explains that criminals decide to take risks by committing a crime and if they deem the risks of committing a crime to be greater than the reward, they may decide not to engage in criminal activities. If not, they go ahead and commit these crimes, harvest the rewards and accept to suffer the consequences. These risks and reward are evaluated according to personal factors such as the need for money, revenge, and thrills. If being locked up and punished is too much of a risk in these cases, the offenders may decide to go straight (Howe 45). For example, a robber who wants to rob groceries from a grocery store may decide not to engage in the robbery simply because they feel the groceries are not worth being locked up. However if they have an option of robbing a bank and getting away with millions of dollars, they would because they feel the reward is worth the risk. BIOSOCIAL THEORY The theory explains that physical, environmental and social conditions drive people to develop different behaviors, and therefore criminal activities. People acquire characteristics according to the environment they live in. Harsh environments lead to acquired criminal activities to adopt. An example of crimes that develop by this theory is the street boy who decides to become a pickpocket to fend for their daily needs. The environment has molded this street boy into a pickpocket to adjust to the harsh living conditions. It is not the street boy’s choice or behavior to be a criminal. PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAIT THEORY The theory focuses on the psychological traits of an individual, right from childhood, to development in behavior to their reasoning processes. It states that crimes evolve due to weak egos and damaged personalities developed in childhood, developed behaviors when they see the reward that others get from crimes, and reasoning processes of an individual. When someone commits a crime such as stealing and gets away with the rewards, a person may be tempted to do the same thing thinking that it is the easier way of earning something if one is not caught. For instance, a child abuser may commit such atrocities because of a rough childhood they passed through that damaged their egos. They, therefore, find the need to feel strong and powerful and end up abusing powerless and defenseless children. They feel the crimes give the reward of feeling strong and powerful. NATURALIZATION THEORY The theory states that people commit crime through learning and mastering techniques that allow them to counterbalance controversial values in the society (Akers 14). They master the controversial values and find their way around them, and use them to justify the anti-social actions. These controversial values are values that have been entrenched in culture but are publically condemned. They are condemned in public but are privately admired and practiced. Examples of these anti-social actions include prostitution and pornography. People have learned the art of practicing prostitution and watching pornography in private while in public they condemn these vices and teach their children against it. The young generations also figure out their ways of manipulating these controversial values in their favor and practice them in private too. CORRECTIONAL MEASURES FOR CRIMINALS All the theories why people commit crimes have one assumption in common, and that is a crime is people choose to engage in criminal activities. The criminals know that what they do is wrong by society, but still, criminals decide to exercise their free will in engaging in such anti-social behaviors (Akers 17). They are not forced into crime, neither are they blind to the norms of the society that condemns these behaviors. Therefore therapy is a long shot of correctional measures for criminals. Our prisons should remain as correctional centers and not be turned into re-programming centers. Anti-social actions committed from the reasoning of the rational choice theory are better solved by raising the risks of various crimes to deter them from engaging in these behaviors. For example, a person who decides to engage in taking a bribe to make quick cash rather than work hard for it should be punished by imprisonment to teach them and others that what they did was wrong and has consequences (Ryder 24). Behavioral therapy or genetic therapy would suggest that these offenders have been born with or raised to have such genes when in reality it is just a moment of decision making that leads them to commit these crimes. Punishing these offenders is a quick way of preventing such crimes from happening since those who are contemplating committing the same will know of the consequences too and will refrain from the offense. Punishment also teaches the offender never to commit the crimes again. Therapy however only has the benefit of changing the error of ways of the offender, and not giving lessons to other potential offenders in the community. The physical, environmental and social conditions drive people into criminal behaviors, and therefore correctional measures on how to deal with these conditions should be taught rather than therapy which aims at altering behaviors without giving solutions to the immediate problems (Howe 64). Example of a crime that results from biosocial theory is one having to steal to meet the basic needs essential for their survival. Stealing is not the primary behavior of an individual in this case, but due to harsh economic and social environments, the individual is forced to engage in this anti-social behavior for primary survival. The existing prisons aim at punishing these individuals for the crimes committed while at the same time teaching them on ways by which they can afford the basic needs without stealing. The punishment administered would be a lesson to the offender and another potential offender not to engage in anti-social behaviors like that (Brantingham 112). Behavioral therapy, on the other hand, would change the person’s acquired trait of stealing, but when the individual is released back to the society, they will still meet the same challenges and find other means to adapt to the harsh living conditions and acquire different characters which might as well be anti-social behaviors. Re-programming them is therefore not a guarantee in reducing anti-social behavior in this case. Crimes emanating from psychological trait theory would be better solved by behavioral therapy since they emanate from the behaviors people have built up either from their childhood or from their environment. Anti-social behaviors such as child abuser often have a perception that they are superior and that they can abuse a child because they have a disturbed personality leading to such type of reasoning process (Fagerlund et al. 82). These are crimes that are committed due to people’s personalities and behaviors. Re-programming their behavior into better people is the best method of eliminating these criminal behaviors from them. However, therapy, in this case, should be accompanied by punishment to help them understand that child abuse is wrong and unacceptable in society. They may not see the error in their ways, and hence therapy accompanied by punishment helps them understand the norms of the society and what is required of them. Moreover, punishment gives the society a sense of fulfillment that the offenders do not go scot-free of their crimes, and also teaches the community at large that actions have consequences no matter the excuse one gives for their actions. People have learned and mastered the technique of committing anti-social actions by counterbalancing controversial values of the society that are publically condemned but are privately accepted, and the only way to eradicate such crimes is through punishment (McCollister et al. 17). An example of such actions is actions such as nepotism which is publically condemned, but in private people find every excuse to embrace them and practice them. For instance, if someone commits a crime of hiring an individual because they come from the same ethnic group instead of going through the company’s regulations, the employer should be punished. Technically, this employer will not see the wrong they have done since they have done their job which is to employ. However, the employer is cultivating vice in the company by not following the rules of the company. Therapy, in this case, will cultivate re-programmed behavior which will allow the employer to follow the rules and regulations, not only of the company but of the whole society. However, this might reduce the efficiency of their performance when brought back to the industry since sometimes rules need to be broken to achieve a specific target and progress. Punishment and correctional measures, however, will ensure the individual learns the error in their ways and come back to the industry reformed. Punishment will also enhance the reduction of such anti-social actions in the society as the people will know that whichever way they master these controversial values, crime will still be punished (Garside et al. 6). CONCLUSION Crimes have emerged in our society because people are allowed to exercise their own choices and act as they please, that is, exercising free will. Some people end up having anti-social behaviors that are unaccepted by society because they have been allowed to exercise free will, and therefore they deliberately decide to engage in crime. The criminals often taken to prison for punishment and correctional measures, and also as a lesson to the other society members that criminal action have consequences. Some people have argued that when criminals are locked up they are deprived of their free will, and they, therefore, are more likely to engage in crimes because this is what is in their nature and nature. They say criminals should, therefore, be re-programmed through therapy to alter their behaviors or genes. However, the current system of punishing crimes is the best since not only does it punishes the wrongdoers, but also teaches them to do better and teaches the whole society that actions have consequences. Re-programming criminals may alter their behaviors into different personalities which may give birth to other criminal activities as well. Therefore locking criminals up and teaching them correctional measures is the better method of handling them rather than re-programming them. Bibliography Akers, Ronald L. Criminological theories: Introduction and evaluation. Routledge, 2013. Brantingham, Patricia, and Paul Brantingham. "Crime pattern theory." 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