This paper examines the five major goals of the corrections system: retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, incapacitation, and restorative justice. For each goal, the paper explains the underlying rationale and purpose, identifies the types of sentences and crime control strategies associated with it, and weighs its key advantages and disadvantages. Drawing on foundational criminal justice scholarship, the paper highlights tensions among competing correctional philosophies—from satisfying victims' impulses for revenge to helping offenders reintegrate into society—and evaluates the empirical and practical limitations of each approach.
The rationale behind retribution is simply to punish the offender, and it reflects the most basic natural impulse of human societies in response to individuals who deliberately break the established rules of society (Schmalleger, 2009). Its purpose is nothing more than to satisfy those impulses, particularly on the part of the victims of criminal acts. The types of penal sentences that reflect pure retribution are long terms of incarceration and even hard labor—forms of punishment expressly designed to be unpleasant for the offender. The types of crime control strategies dictated by this philosophy are those that make penal sentences as long and as unpleasant for offenders as is constitutionally permissible (Schmalleger, 2009).
In many respects, this was the approach taken in American criminal justice prior to the revolutionary ideas first introduced by William Penn (Schmalleger, 2009). The primary advantages of this approach are that it satisfies the need for revenge on the part of crime victims and, at least in theory, may deter others from perpetrating crime because of fear of the consequences. The disadvantages are that it caters to an unproductive, primitive impulse and does nothing to help offenders overcome whatever problems and influences may have led to their criminal behavior in the first place.
The rationale behind deterrence theory is that awareness of the consequences of criminal conduct will cause individuals contemplating criminal activity to consider those consequences and refrain from making those choices, consistent with the rational choice theory of behavior (Schmalleger, 2009). The purpose of deterrence is to prevent crime before it happens. Crime control strategies and sentences consistent with this approach would involve harsh penalties combined with publicizing them in advance of any choice to commit crimes.
The two primary suggested advantages of this approach are that it prevents crimes before they happen and that it helps reduce the cost of administering criminal justice for crimes that might otherwise be committed (Nagin, 1998; Visher, 1987). One disadvantage is that it requires harsh punishment to be effective. More significantly, the main disadvantage is that the evidence suggests it simply does not work (Lynch, 1999).
The rationale behind rehabilitation is that many offenders can be helped to become productive members of society by addressing the causes of their criminality during the penal phase of their involvement in the criminal justice system (Schmalleger, 2009). The purpose of this goal is to emphasize helping offenders re-enter society as non-offenders. The types of sentences most consistent with rehabilitation are those that de-emphasize retribution and provide as many options as possible for offenders to reform their behavior, sometimes in lieu of incarceration (Schmalleger, 2009).
Crime control strategies consistent with the rehabilitation approach would include mandatory education and drug treatment participation, supervised probation, and—more generally—a distinction between first-time and career offenders. This distinction aims to help those offenders capable of reforming avoid a life of crime, rather than reinforcing the criminal lifestyle by incarcerating them alongside career offenders for extended periods (Nagin, 1998). Two advantages of this approach are promoting the re-entry of offenders into normal society as productive citizens and reducing the societal costs of long-term incarceration where rehabilitation is possible. Two disadvantages are that it may deprive victims of the satisfaction of retribution and that it could expose society to additional offenses by the same offenders when the rehabilitation effort fails.
"Isolating offenders to prevent future crimes"
"Supporting victims and raising offender awareness"
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