Ethics Prison Purpose of a Prison Sentence

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 prison sentence? There are many schools of thought about the true and underlying purpose of a prison sentence. 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 good people. Avoid some crime at a later date after serving a few years in a prison of someone else's choosing. But how many criminals go into prison and actually become worse. There are actually rap songs that suggest that school and prison serve a similar purpose, to teach a way of crime to those who are enrolled. This does not sound like a deterrent because the threat of execution does not even stop some from committing murder. No, prison sentencing is not an attempt to deter.

As the New World Encyclopedia also says, prison sentencing was founded on the "eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth" idea. This philosophy says that 'if one person harms another, then an equivalent harm should be done to them.' "One goal here is to prevent vigilantism, gang, or clan warfare, and other actions by those who have an unsatisfied need to "get even" for a crime against them, their family, or their group. It is, however, difficult to determine how to equate different types of "harm." A literal case is where a murderer is punished with the death penalty, the argument being "justice demands a life for a life." (As the New World Encyclopedia)