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Punishment of criminal
offences
The punishment of an offender is the purpose of criminal justice,
but it is relevant to enquire what aim or aims are intended
by imposing punishment, and then to see what punishments are
awarded to achieve these aims.
Before going into detail, it is to be noted that for many years
Parliament has set it s face against two forms of punishment
– capital punishment judicial corporal punishment, not
so much because they would be ineffective (a matter of considerable
dispute) but because there can be no place for them in modern
civilised society.
In legal theory, a particular punishment is designed to achieve
one or more of four aims:
-Vengeance.
-Deterrence.
-Protection of the community.
-Reformation.
Many people would like to think that vengeance is so base a
motive that it should not be the purpose of any form of punishment,
and indeed some writers on the subject omit mention of it altogether.
Whatever may be the ideal, a considerable sector of the public
still sees merit in the principle of ‘an eye for an eye’,
and this public feeling is reflected in sentencing policy.
There can be no doubt that the main purpose currently served
by punishment is deterrence. Deterrence has two aspects. First,
it is hoped that a criminal who is punished will thereby be
deterred from committing the same offence again. Secondly, and
more important, the mere threat of punishment is sufficient
to deter most people from attempting to commit crime.
It is obvious that some people must be punished, particularly
by imprisonment, for the protection of the community. It could
hardly be argued, for example, that a fine, of whatever amount,
would ever be a suitable punishment for murder.
By any standards, reformation of the criminal himself is the
most useful purpose of punishment; it is in the interests both
of the criminal himself and society at large that he should
mend his ways and therefore no longer be a danger to, nor a
burden on, the community as a whole. Unfortunately, there is
scant evidence that the main forms of punishment which are intended
to reform achieve any notable success in this respect.
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