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Punishment in Criminal Justice

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Punishment In Criminal Justice
CRJ 301 Juvenile Justice
Iesia Mitchell
Instructor: Diane Williams
April 30 2012
Punishment In Criminal Justice
CRJ 301 Juvenile Justice
Iesia Mitchell
Instructor: Diane Williams
April 30 2012 |

|

There are five general aims or functions or justifications of punishment. The first being Deterrence There is a belief that punishment for crime can deter people from offending. There are two forms where deterrence is concerned with punishing an individual offender in the expectation that he will not offend again, and General deterrence is related to the possibility that people in general will be deterred from committing crime by the threat of punishment if they are caught. There is also the theory that criminal laws are passed with well-defined punishments to discourage individual criminal defendants from becoming repeat offenders and to discourage others in society from engaging in similar criminal activity. Deterrence is one of the primary objects of the Criminal Law. Its primary goal is to discourage members of society from committing criminal acts out of fear of punishment. The most powerful deterrent would be a criminal justice system that guaranteed with certainty that all persons who broke the law would be apprehended, convicted, and punished, and would receive no personal benefit from their wrongdoing this aim is effective by long prison sentence and heavy fines (Criminal Deterrence and Sentence Severity, 1999).

The second aim at justification of punishment is Rehabilitation this involves offering an offender help to overcome problems which he faces, thereby attempting to make it easier for him or her to avoid future offending. This can include various types of assistance provided in prison or in the course of a probation order which are intended to help the offender to improve his

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