Ajs/504: Punishment Vs Rehabilitation

Punishment vs. Rehabilitation

Katie Miller

August 17, 2015

AJS/504

Donald Savell

University of Phoenix

Punishment vs. Rehabilitation

          Today America houses in excess of two million people in jails and prisons.  This number is more than that of all other developed countries combined.  In this paper, the author will explore our systems of corrections.  The author will examine the age-old debate of punishment or rehabilitation.  How victims and their families are effected and the effect on the offender.  Furthermore, the author will assess the social and economic effect as it relates to society.

          There is little doubt that our system is flawed and it is time to look for new strategies to address this problem.  This can only be done if we first take a serious look at the above mentioned issues and begin an open discussion about them.  It is the author’s objective that this paper may invoke further discussion.

Deterrence of Crime

          No matter where one stands on the debate between rehabilitation and retribution, few will debate that in the end what everyone would like to see is deterrence of crime.  Therefore, the debate begins and ends in the best way to ensure crime will be deterred.  Some believe that this can only be achieved through quick, harsh punishment.  Others believe that deterrence can take place only when we rehabilitate offenders so their behaviors will change and they will have an opportunity to become a productive part of the community they live in.  For that reason, it would seem the best way to move forward would be for us to look at how punishment and rehabilitation are currently effecting the deterrence of crime.

Punishment

          According to the late philosopher John Wilson, the very notion of a rule collapses unless there are unpleasant consequences for breaking them.  He went on to state some of the benefits of punishment as being cheap and easy to administer, it is adaptable, and it is an effective deterrent (Partington, 2013).

          In early times, public punishment was a common and necessary way to deal with crime. Incarceration was rare and public shame and redemption as well as whipping, branding, and mutilation, were considered to be the more common penalties.  Repeat offenders or those committing serious crimes such as murder or rape were usually sentenced to death by hanging.  The impulse to reform the law, and the mobility of American life defined the early republican period through the nineteenth century.  Thus leading to a more enlightened political philosophy.  This was evidenced by the drafting of the Bill of Rights for one example.  The desire for humane punishment replaced public retribution and the American penitentiary was created as a place of quiet, soulful penitence where wrongdoers could spend hours considering the wrong they had done.  This time also brought about the “social invention” of prosecutors and police, and during the urban riots (1830 to 1865) it became increasingly necessary to begin quasi-military police forces (Gade, n.d.).  Once the prisons were built it seemed there were no problems in filling them, but do they deter crime?