Stable and successful government can only function by a system that implements laws reflecting the kind of society they want to be. To do this, punishment for breaking laws must be structured in a way that aims to decrease crime, whether it is by reforming how individuals act or physically restraining those that break the law. In this way, the aim of having punishments lined up for those that wish to commit a crime is to physically restrain them from offending again, teach them a lesson about reoffending, protect other citizens, and set an example for what will happen if the law is broken. Utilitarian philosopher Jeremy Bentham justified punishment using the pleasure-pain principle, based off the concept that people aim to maximize their pleasure and minimize their pain. Thus, to maximize overall happiness among the general population, criminals must experience a level of punishment that outweighs the pleasure they get from committing crime (Newburn, 2017). The aim of this paper is to assess potential flaws in how punishment is used, and examine whether it serves its function in reducing crime.
There are two types of punishment, which are reductivism and retribution. Reductivism is a forward looking perspective that evaluates the future result of punishment, while retributivism is a backward looking perspective that focuses on matching punishment with the severity of the crime. For the purpose of this essay, reductivism will be discussed in further detail, for it is the most commonly used form of punishment. One form of reductionism in the penal system that is used to reduce crime is deterrence. Hobbs, Beccaria, and Bentham hypothesized that people behave through rational decision making, weighing out the pros and cons of their choices (Cavadino, Dignan, & Mair, 2013). Accordingly, the theory proposes that if people are scared of being punished, they will rationalize the crime is not worth the punishment. This is done both through witnessing others get punished (general deterrence) and experiencing the punishment yourself (individual deterrence). In modern court cases such as Edward Woollard, general deterrence is used to justify harsher punishments on mild crimes. In the 1934 case of Duncan vs Jones, Duncan was arrested for addressing a group of people gathering to defend freedom of speech and public meeting in the wake of several recent arrests, with police claiming there was fear she would incite others to breach the peace (Hirsch, Bottoms, Burney, & Wikstrtm, 1999). The court failed to recognize that Duncan was within her rights to peacefully protest, and sought to make an example of her case to the public, much like what was done with Woollard.
While it is clear that deterrence has been used in the penal system for a long time now, there is still little evidence supporting its effectiveness on preventing crime. Although general deterrence can be effective in observational learning (Bandura, Ross, & Ross, 1961) it also assumes that people always use rational thought processes to make the decision to commit a crime. Hirsch et al. (1999) examines the effect of impulsivity in perceptual and contextual studies, concluding “[…] the risks of punishment affect more the manner in which offences are committed than whether offences are committed at all. The studies also tend to confirm […] that reductions in crime are only weakly associated with increases in penal severity but are more strongly associated with increases in the certainty of punishment.”
The “3 strike” policy passed in various states in America is just one example of how individual deterrence has been implemented in penal systems. This policy convicts felons of longer, more harsh sentences with each crime they commit, intending to keep criminals from reoffending in the future (Newburn, 2017). However, not only does the policy have little evidence supporting its effectiveness, but also it is not justified to hold an offender in prison longer than the normal sentence for the crime would be for a first time offender (Wood, 1997). In 2016, 48.3% of adult offenders released from custody reoffended within one year of being released, and 29.1% of adult offenders that served more than one year in prison reoffended in a one year follow up (Ministry of Justice, 2018). While prisoners with longer prison sentences had a lower rate of reoffending, a large portion of offenders are committing crimes within a year of being released, suggesting their longer prison sentence had no effect on them.
Incapacitation is another form of reductivism, including punishments like castration, license suspension, and prison for more severe offenses. The purpose of incapacitation is to prevent offenders from harming the public by removing their means of committing the crime. While incapacitation is logically sound, there are many problems with the way the system is carried out. One question raised by researchers is how reliable we are at placing the right people in prison. Offenders that are believed to be dangerous or likely to recommit a crime are often the ones put in jail, however, in the 1980s when Western Germany passed a policy to reduce their prison population, their crime rates did not go up (Hatcher, 2018). This is significant because if the number of people being locked up changes, yet the offense population isn’t changing, then it can be inferred that the penal system is locking up the wrong people.
One of the primary goals of incapacitation is to prevent offenders from doing so again in the future, however, this can be difficult for offenders that got in trouble with violence, drugs, or alcohol. There is a high rate of illegal activity that continues within prison, and 13% report developing a drinking or drug addiction as a result of their time in prison (Hatcher, 2018). In turn, when offenders are released, they are more likely to continue these patterns of behavior and commit another crime. Another reason criminals might reoffend after getting released from prison is due to the labeling theory. According to this theory, if you stick a label on someone, people in society will begin to treat them as that label, often leading the labeled person to act accordingly. Similarly, once a person is labeled as a criminal, they often get treated like one when they get out of prison, which only increases the chances that they incorporate these characteristics into their self concept (Scimecca, 1977). Perhaps the most famous psychological experiment demonstrating this affect is the Stanford Prison Experiment, in which simply giving participants the role of a prisoner or guard drastically effected both how the opposite group treated them and how they behaved (Zimbardo, 1984).
Rehabilitation programs in the penal system have the greatest potential for success out of all the techniques discussed so far, for it is designed to change how offenders think and behave so that they can avoid reoffending in the future. These programs often focus on employment, family, cognitive behavioral interventions, and can help offenders overcome challenges outside prison such as labeling bias. While rehabilitation offers promising results, it is necessary that programs have the appropriate resources and opportunities in order to work. In the 2017-2018 annual report for Prisons of England and Wales, it was reported, “20% of prisoners told us they were unlocked for less than two hours a day, and only 16% reached our expectation of being out of their cell for more than 10 hours” (HM Chief Inspector of Prisons for England and Wales Annual Report). With 84% of prisoners spending less than ten hours a day out of their cells, this drastically affects their access to reform programs and diminishes opportunities for them to make productive use of their time. Overall, there is too much emphasis put on making criminals suffer for their crime rather than preventing it from happening again. There is a globalized penal crisis in which severity is prioritized over certainty, and many offenders are not getting the help they need.
