In our society’s criminal justice system, justice equals punishment. You do the crime, and you do the time. Once you have done the time, you have paid your debt to society and justice has been done. Because our society defines justice in this manner, the victims of crimes often seek the most severe possible punishment for their offenders. Society tells them this will bring justice, but it often leaves them feeling empty and unsatisfied after getting what they wanted. Punishment does not address the other important needs of victims. It cannot restore their losses, answer their questions, relieve their fears, and help them make sense of their tragedy or heal their wounds. Regardless of their particular view, most people agree that crime and violence are blowing up out of control in the streets of our towns and cities. Most also agree that what we are doing about it is not working. We are fearful and we have good reason.
We know our criminal justice system is broken and we don’t know how to fix it. Crime always goes down when the economy is good. That is because there is more money for police, but more importantly because there are less people who are desperate for money, or could not make money in a legal way. One of the dominant principles of justice is the principle of proportionality . The punishment should always be proportional to the crime. That makes it needed to describe a range for the harshness of crimes.
The Term Paper on Significance of individual cases in changing attitudes towards crime and punishment
Since the 19th century, law enforcement and punishment has developed rapidly into the justice system we rely on today. Obscure laws that had become irrelevant in an industrial and post-industrial era were fast being replaced, and despite its lack of existence at the beginning of the 1800’s, policing standards are, today, high. The necessity for this drastic change in approach to crime has stemmed ...
It allows an evaluation of several crimes between each other, and provides a quick suggestion of what the punishment should be in a perfect, fair, and real world. A crime is an action considered to be wrong and punishable by the law. A sin is an act of breaking the rules which goes against the will of God. People do wrong for a variety of reasons. Most people will commit small crimes and if not caught and punished the gains become a routine and tradition. Some of the reasons for committing crimes are social pressure, personal problems, greed and other circumstances. Social pressures are people who need to have lots of wealth so therefore they commit crime.
Personal problems cause a difficult life which can lead to a life of crime as payback, an expression of anger or as a method of escape. Greed is someone wanting possessions that others have and will commit a crime to get it, and circumstances are people who are more likely to commit crimes if they come from areas of high unemployment, bad housing or are underprivileged. Christians also believe that laws should be just. Some people are victims of unjust laws like rejection of religion, freedom of speech, or politics. These people are called prisoners of conscience. Christians today realize that the fight against crime also means the fight against unreasonable and unfair laws.
Most churches and Christians agree that we need to look at the causes of crime as well as how to deal with existing crime. Many of the crimes come about because of poverty, unfair distribution of wealth, poor housing and bad social conditions. If we could spend money on reducing these things then maybe there would not be so much crime. We also need to look closely at the lifestyle that we are encouraged to lead. It is considered normal to have a house, car, stereos, TVs, videos, computers, designer clothing, shoes, microwaves, holidays etc. However even with promoting this as the standard society prevents some people from achieving this by creating economic structures which keep millions of people in unemployment or low paid jobs.
The Essay on Hate Crimes People Commit Person
"Hate Crimes" There are many different hate crimes going on in the world today, most people don't know this. Hate crimes are violent acts against people, property, or organizations because of the group which they belong to. A hate crime can range from a simple assault with no weapon to aggravated assault, rape, and sometimes even murder. There are laws against hate crimes, but yet people still act ...
The church accepts that, in a present society, criminals need to be put off but we need to look at the root causes of crime as well as methods of punishment. But if a person has broken the law they need to be punished. The aims of punishment are protection, deterrence, reform, vindication and retribution. Protection is putting a person into prison which keeps them away from the chance to commit a crime and so it protects society. Deterrence is if a person is caught and punished they will not commit the crime again, and it will put others off from committing crimes. Reform is people who do crimes and need help. Connected to the punishment will be help that will stop them from offending again. Vindication is people who must be punished so that the laws will be respected.
The last aim of punishment is retribution which is if you do something wrong you deserve to be punished in a way that is fitting for the crime you’ve committed. Most Christians believe that punishment and forgiveness can go together. They also put great pressure on working to stop the causes of crime. Over the last 150 years many Christians have worked towards the idea of reforming criminals as they see the idea of reform as being the most important reason for punishment. Many Christians are involved in prison visiting . A culture of punishment is a culture of suffering and this may only be with a culture of forgiveness.
A victim who suffers criminal offence gains nothing through the infliction of further suffering upon the offender and not even satisfaction which is even though that is what he thinks he gets. But this requires understanding of the deepest and highest kind because it is not easy to say that an evil crook is coming to a horrible and gruesome end is not all right. The culture of punishment needs to be set in reverse. And it needs to be set in reverse by what is actually a harder, more severe, tougher stand. A stand which gives effect to a culture of forgiveness. Only forgiveness can heal. The most shattered victim, the worst kind of offender and both have deep experience of this.
In the early world the most common type of punishment was crucifixion. Death was caused by suffocation, heart failure or exhaustion. Crucifixion was stopped in the west in about 400 but carried on in Japan until the late 19th century . Other forms of capital punishment have included stoning, decapitation which is having your head chopped off, being burnt alive, hanging, being fed alive to wild animals, being ripped apart by horses, being drowned, being thrown off a high place, being shot, electrocuted or poisoned. There is arguments for having capital punishment and they are that it puts off possible murderers, it protects people, it shows that we think murder is very bad, it allows the term A life for a life to come in effect , and it helps the victims family knowing that a person who committed the crime is now gone. Therefore there are also arguments against capital punishment and they are that it is murder in itself, it is merciless, all life is sacred and killing a person would be a sin, mistakes are made and innocent people are executed, and no one is going to carry out the execution.
The Essay on Capital Punishment States Person Society
In 1972 the Supreme Court Case Furman v. Georgia outlawed the death penalty. The Supreme Court declared the death penalty to be cruel and unusual punishment, which is in violation of the Eighth Amendment. The Eighth Amendment states that "excessive bail shall not be required nor excessive fines imposed, not cruel and unusual punishments inflicted." Four years later that decision was overturned by ...
Consequently Christians believe that giving and receiving of life is in God’s hands, and not humans. In most societies the typical way of dealing with lawbreakers is imprisonment. There would seem to be four reasons for jailing someone which are punishment, protection of the innocent, deterrence and rehabilitation. Punishment is the community’s example of revenge for injury. It may seem to be necessary when someone has done an evil act, especially a violent sin. But from another persons understanding there is no need at all for society to inflict revenge.
Protection of the Innocent is rare cases of shameful people who need to be segrated from society for everyone’s protection. Very few lawbreakers fall into this group, and even here we should increase our sympathy. They are already living in a private hell and there is no need to make their lives any more miserable. Deterrence is the risk of imprisonment that can prevent some criminal acts, but the success of harsher punishment as a stronger prevention has time and again been questioned. Rehabilitat ….
