Ethics
Prison
Purpose of a Prison Sentence
Crimes are committed daily in our modern day society and can be loosely defined as any action, that by society's standard, equals the breaking or disobeying of some accepted rule, standard, statute or cultural opinion. Crimes can be committed by either or both adults and juveniles. There is no age requirement to committing a crime but age often does affect other aspects of how and when a perpetrator gets caught and/or treated by law information. Many things can get people incarcerated such as selling drugs, jaywalking and premeditated murder to name a few. That brings to light the topic of the system of jurisprudence and the criminal justice system. Even though crime continues to rise, our criminal justice system is underfunded, understaffed and most likely overwhelmed. So, if this is the case, what is the purpose of a
The objective of this essay is to suggest a viable definition and to provide some insights into that purpose. The real purpose of a prison sentence is to continue to support the notion that our prisons are founded on, an Old Testament idea of 'an eye for an eye.'
Our system is built on good old retribution, vengeance and blatant retaliation. The idea of retribution and vengeance built all of our prisons. Why else would we warehouse our criminals? The process is inefficient and pretty darn expensive. And if you think about it, it does not work and never puts in to perspective the human rights of our fellow human beings, even if they are lowlifes. There must be a reason to do all these things and still not truly ever reform a person who commits multiple murders for fun.
Some may say deterrence is the true motivator behind our prison system. As the New World Encyclopedia says, one notion may be "the idea of prisons as a deterrence involves the criminal being used as an "example to himself/herself and others." (New World Encyclopedia) The line of reasoning says that if we put these prisoners through the ringer by 'subjecting prisoners to harsh conditions,' the overseers will somehow convince them to stop doing bad things to…
