How Punishment Work as a Means of Regulating Population - Essay Example

?How Punishment Work As a Means of Regulating Population The goal of punishing individuals for offenses they have committed is to ensure that they donot repeat the same offense. Therefore, it can be said that the main purpose for punishment is deterrence, so that individuals get to understand the harm they have caused not only to themselves, but also to the society and, this will encourage them to desist from committing such crimes again. While this has often been the case, in many instances, those who are punished, for example by being sent to prison, tend to finish off committing the same offenses for which they had previously been convicted. This has created a situation in the modern society where new and innovative ways have been developed to punish individuals who break the law. Most of the punishments that have been created by the legal systems of the world today are aimed at establishing some kind of control over the society, so that order is maintained. The fact that a majority of individuals in the world today seem to be working towards the obedience of all the laws that have been put in place in order to void punishment is a clear sign that the punishments for the various crimes have achieved their purpose of achieving societal control. Most of the crimes that exist in the world today are prosecuted in courts and it is the duty of these courts to ensure that the individuals who have been convicted of crimes are punished. The trial of individuals as well as the meting out of punishments in criminal courts is not a new phenomenon and in some societies in the world, especially in the west, it has been in occurrence for centuries (Baer, 2012). In fact, there are countries that allow the prosecution of individuals of all ages, including those who can be considered as minors, and these often end up being given the same sort of punishment. Most countries in the world today have had at least one stipulation for putting some youth of juvenile age on trial as adults in criminal courts and these stipulations are determined by the age, and the type of offense that the juvenile has been accused of committing. Transfer mechanisms may vary according to where the responsibility for the transfer decision-making lies and these are used in ensuring that even juveniles do not escape the reach of the law whose aim is to ensure the regulation of the activities of the society. While it is a fact that structures have been put in place in many countries to try and discipline individuals in ways that are distinctive depending on the crime committed, crimes such as rape and homicide are controversial because it is not easy to determine whether individuals merit a less punitive treatment from others (Banakar and Travers, 2002). It is understandable that some people would seek to have the most of the individuals who break the law receive a harsher punishment for their crimes, especially considering the high number of crimes being committed in the society. The justice system has come to change so much to the extent that they are almost indistinguishable from the justice system that existed only a century ago. The question that one has to consider is whether all these reforms have been of any benefit to the society or not. While it is a remarkably easy thing to try and punish those individuals who have committed crimes in the society, it is an exceedingly rare thing for those responsible to think of the consequences of their actions (Russell & Gilbert, 1999). It can be suggested that crimes today are rarely controlled through the means of punishment that have traditionally been given and this is due to the fact that some individuals see such punishment as jail sentences as being normal, hence a failure of punishment as a regulator of the actions of the population. In fact, when individuals are sent to prison as punishment for their actions, they are instead placed in a situation which turns them into hardened criminals. The harsh laws and punishments, which have been put in place, to curb crime, have been proven not to work over the years and have instead created a situation where the individuals have wound up being treated unfairly and inhumanely. In fact, it can be said that punishments such as imprisonment have failed in their aim of achieving the safer society that was the purpose for their being enacted (Parkinson, 1994). It has been proven that those individuals who have been prosecuted and punished for the first time, through their experiences in prisons, tend to become dangerous criminals once they are released from such prisons. In addition to this, counselling, which is crucial in helping the individuals who have been sentenced to imprisonment in the transition to life beyond prison, is not present in most of the prisons to which they are sent. Thus it is that many individuals who are released from prison have a hard time adjusting to life once they get back into society. This is because of the fact that there should be structures designed not only to punish individuals but also to reform them through programs designed to achieve this purpose, those sent to prison tend not to have such facilities and these instead end up becoming hardened criminals (Crump, 2008). Such a scenario is likely to increase the likelihood of their going back to crime in society once they are released. Capital punishment is among the most commonly applied punishments that have for a long time been used as a means of controlling the actions of the society. Those who advocate for the death sentence argues that it serves as a deterrent to crime, since those who are given the death penalty serve as an example to those who would commit heinous crimes. Furthermore, it can be suggested that there are those individuals, such as murderers, who if sentenced to death, would be good riddance to society and this is because such individuals will have been removed from society on a permanent basis, thus ensuring that they are kept from repeating the same crimes that they have committed (Osofsky, Bandura & Zimbardo, 2005). Moreover, it can be said that the death sentence is a just punishment for those individuals who commit such heinous crimes as child murder and serial killing, because these are human beings without a conscience who must be completely removed from society. The sentencing to death of such individuals acts as a means of societal control and regulation because it ensures that those individuals who would otherwise have been a force of chaos within the society are completely removed from it. Death as a punishment can be considered to be absolutely justified especially when applied to cases where individuals, in this case political leaders, who have committed such crimes as genocide as this is an act that is unforgivable in most of the societies globally (Wenzel, Okimoto, Feather & Platow, 2008). It can be argued that sentencing such people to death is a means of not only punishing them but also of demonstrating to the society that such acts cannot be tolerated and that if they are committed, then the lives of the offenders would be forfeit, hence achieving the regulation of certain actions in the society (Vargo, 2006). While it is a fact that punishment is a means of ensuring the regulation of the society, the criminal justice system has the duty of ensuring that all the individuals accused have a fair trial so that the punishments they end up receiving is equal to the crime that they have committed (Chisolm and Nettheim, 2002). The development of the evidence against individuals should not only rely on evidence that has been got from the police, but also that from those who witnessed the crime being committed. The judge and jury have the responsibility of listening to both sides of the case impartially because to do otherwise would be to show bias, a thing which they cannot afford to do because this would also be a form of chaos in the society. The large numbers of cases that they have to handle has created a situation where the issuance of punishment through the legal system has failed to act as a regulator of the society because of the need to deal with cases as swiftly as possible. It is a fact that the justice system has chosen the path towards the swift and cost saving means of handling cases, and this has made it common for innocent individuals to be punished, hence a loss of confidence in the legal system (Garland, 1990). In conclusion, it can be said that punishment has for a long time acted as a means of ensuring that the actions of the members of society are regulated. However, while this has been the case, there has developed a tendency by an increasing number of individuals to develop a negative attitude towards punishment and this has made the latter to become ineffective. Therefore, it has become necessary for newer forms of punishment to be developed so that there can be some form of deterrence in society that will eventually lead to the return of absolute control. References Baer, M.H. 2012, "CHOOSING PUNISHMENT", Boston University Law Review, vol. 92, no. 2, pp. 577-641. Banakar, R., and Travers, M., eds, 2002, Introduction to Law and Social Theory, Oxford: Hart. Chisolm, Richard and Nettheim, Garth, 2002, Understand Law, Sixth Edition, Sydney: Butterworth’s. Crump, D. 2008, "The Social Psychology of Evil: Can the Law Prevent Groups From Making Good People Go Bad?", Brigham Young University Law Review, vol. 2008, no. 5, pp. 1441-1464. Garland, D., 1990, Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory, Oxford: Clarendon. Osofsky, M.J., Bandura, A. & Zimbardo, P.G. 2005, "The Role of Moral Disengagement in the Execution Process", Law and human behavior, vol. 29, no. 4, pp. 371-93. Parkinson, P., 1994, Tradition and Change in Australian Law, Sydney: Law book Co. Russell, S. & Gilbert, M.J. 1999, "Truman's revenge: Social control and corporate crime", Crime, Law and Social Change, vol. 32, no. 1, pp. 59-82. Vargo, S., 2006, Law and Society, Eighth Edition, Saddle River, NJ: Pearson-Prentice Hall. Wenzel, M., Okimoto, T.G., Feather, N.T. & Platow, M.J. 2008, "Retributive and Restorative Justice", Law and human behavior, vol. 32, no. 5, pp. 375-89. Read More