Theories and Types of PunishmentThe human society is a cooperative endeavour secured by

coercion. There are various theories of punishment which are retributive, deterrent, preventive and reformative.
Punishment is a recognized function of states.

Punishment: The ConceptPunishment is a means of social control. H.L.A. Hart have defined “punishment”
in terms of five elements:1.It must involve pain or other consequence normally considered unpleasant.2.It must
be for an offence against legal rules.3.It must be intentionally administered by human beings other than the
offender.4.It must be an actual or supposed offenders for his offence.5.It must be imposed and administered by
an authority constituted by a legal system against which the offence is committed.Punishment according to
West Mark is limited to “such suffering as in inflicted upon the offender in a definite way by or in the name of
the society of which he is a permanent or temporary member.”Sutherland and Cressey have mentioned two
essential ideas while defining the concept of punishment: a)It is inflicted by the group in its corporate capacity
upon one who is regarded as a member ofthe same group. War is not punishment for in war the action is
directed against foreigners.b)It involves pain or suffering produced by design and justified by some value that
the suffering is assumed to have.Two purposes behind infliction of sentence:1.To create such atmosphere
which could become deterrence for the people who had inclination towards crime2.To work as a medium in
reforming the offenders

The Goals of Punishment and Criminal Sentencing

■Deterrence. By observing the punishment dished out toconvicted criminals, would-be offenders can see that
the“pains of punishment” outweigh the potential benefits ofcriminal behavior. The perception of future
punishmentsdeters crime. People are not punished merely for what theyhave done, but also for the effect their
punishment will haveon the future behavior of others

.■Specific deterrence. Experiencing harsh criminal punishmentsshould convince convicted offendersthat crime
doesnot pay and recidivism is not in their best interests. The“pains of punishment” should inhibit future law
violations

.■Incapacitation. By incapacitating a convicted offender ina secure facility, such as a prison or jail, the state
seeks toreduce or eliminate his or her opportunity to commit futurecrimes. In some instances, incapacitation
involves supervisingan offender while the person remains in the community.It is hoped that close monitoring
will restrict opportunities tocommit future crime without the necessity of secure lockup.Incapacitation involves
anticipating behavior patterns: offendersare confined not just for what they have done butfor what it is feared
they might do in the future.

■Rehabilitation. The purpose of sentencing is to reduce future criminality by treating and eliminating the
underlying cause of crime. Offenders are believed to have one or more emotional or behavioral deficits that
cause them to violate the law. Criminal behavior would cease if this problem could be successfully treated.
Rehabilitation efforts focus on emotional stress, vocational training, education, or substance abuse.
Rehabilitation also involves predicting future behavior: unlessthe offenders receive treatment, they will commit
future crimes; treatment reduces the likelihood of their reoffending

.■Diversion. In some instances, the court process is aimed at sparing nondangerous offenders from the stigma
and labeling of a criminal conviction and involvement with the justice process. Instead of being convicted and
sentenced to traditional forms of correction, such as a stay in a county jail,the judge may allow them to be
diverted into a community correctional program for treatment

.■Retribution. Because criminals benefit from their misdeeds,they deserve to be punished for their criminal
acts. Furthermore,if the state did not punish people for their misconduct(retribution), victims would be
encouraged to seek personal vengeance for their loss (revenge), creating a chaotic society.In a just society,
criminals are punished in a manner proportionateto the severity of their crimes. According to this view,it is only
fair that criminals who have committed the most serious crime, murder, receive the most severe penalty, death

.■Equity/restitution. Because criminals gain from their misdeeds,it seems both fair and just to demand that they
reimburse society for its loss caused by their crimes. The equity goal of punishment means that convicted
criminals must payback their victims for their loss, the justice system for the costs of processing their case, and
society for any disruption they may have caused. Ina so-called victimless crime,such as drug trafficking, the
social costs might include theexpense of drug enforcement efforts, drug treatment centers,and care for infants
born to drug-addicted mothers.In predatory crimes, the costs might include the services ofemergency room
doctors, lost workdays and productivity,and treatment for long-term psychological problems

.■Restoration. Defendants may be asked to confront their behavior,the damage they caused the victim, and the
shamethey brought to their family, friends, and community. Thegoal is to restore them to good standing in
society. Restorative justice advocates suggest a policy based on restoring the damage caused by crime and
creating a system of justice that includes all the parties harmed by the criminal act:the victim, the offender, the
community, and society.

Jail Functions and ServicesJails are locally operated correctional facilities that:
■ Confine persons before or after adjudication. Inmates sentenced to jail usually have a sentence of one yearor
less

.■ Receive individuals pending arraignment and hold themawaiting trial, conviction, or sentencing

.■ Readmit probation, parole, and bail-bond violators and absconders

.■ Temporarily detain juveniles pending transfer to juvenile authorities.

■ Hold mentally ill persons pending their movement to appropriate mental health facilities.

■ Hold individuals for the military, for protective custody for contempt, and for the courts as witnesses.

■ Release convicted inmates to the community upon completion of sentence.

■ Transfer inmates to federal, state, or other authorities.

■ House inmates for federal, state, or other authorities becauseof crowding of their facilities.

■ Sometimes operate community-based programs as alternativesto incarceration

Correctional Treatment Program TypesT

herapy and CounselingThe most traditional type of treatment in prison involvespsychological counseling and
therapy. Counseling programsexist in almost every major institution. Some stress individualtreatment with
psychotherapy or other techniques. However,because of lack of resources, it is more common for group
methods to be used. Some groups are led by trainedsocial workers, counselors, or therapists; others rely on lay
personnel as leaders.

Therapeutic CommunitiesBecause drug abuse is so prevalent among inmates, some institutions have been
organized into therapeutic communities(TCs) in order to best serve their clientele. The TC approach to
substance abuse uses a psychosocial, experiential learning process that relies on positive peer pressure within
a highly structured social environment. The community itself, including staff and program participants,becomes
the primary method of change. They work together as members of a “family” in order to create a culture where
community members confront one another’s negative behavior and attitudes and establish an open, trusting,
and safe environment; TC relies then onmutual self-helpp. The TC approach encourages personal disclosure
rather than the isolation of the general prison culture

.Educational ProgramsAlmost all correctional institutions provide some type of educational experience. Some
prisonsallow inmates to obtaina high school diploma through equivalency exams or general educational
development (GED) certificates. Some prisons provide college courses, usually staffed by teachers who work
at nearby institutions. These services are extremely important because about two-thirds of all state prison
inmates did notreceive a high school diploma. Recent federal surveys indicate that about one-quarter of state
prison inmates were able tocomplete the GED while serving time in a correctional facility;more than half take
education courses while confined

.Vocational ProgramsMost prisons operate numerous vocational training programs designed to help inmates
develop skills for securing employment on their release. In the past, the traditional prison industries oflaundry
and license plate manufacture failed to provide theseskills. Today programs stress such marketable skills as
dental laboratory work, computer programming, auto repair, and radioand television work.

Private IndustryA new version of vocational rehabilitation is the development of private industry in prison. This
can take many different forms, including private citizens sitting on prison industry boards,private vendors
marketing goods from prison industry, inmates manufacturing and marketing their own goods, private
management of state-owned prison industry, franchising withinthe prison system in which manufactured goods
are marketedunder license from a private firm, and privately owned industries on prison grounds employing
inmate labor

.Self-Help GroupsRecognizing that the probability of failure on the outside is acute,inmates have attempted to
organize self-help groups to provide the psychological tools needed to prevent recidivism. Some arechapters of
common national organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Membership in these programs is designedto
improvee inmates’ self-esteem and help them cope with common problems such as alcoholism, narcotics
abuse, or depression.

Rehabilitation of CriminalsIt is increasingly understood the prisons have become a crime-generation

factor. Harsh conditions, the presence of gangs and criminal groups, and societal and psychological pressures
lead to socialization into lifestyle patterns which afford immediate survival but are inimical to a crime-free life
upon release-all these and a host of additional factors have combined to create what is popularlyknown as the
revolving door of recidivism.Ex-convicts or parolees face severe difficulties in obtaining adequately
remunerative employment and decent housing. They find little to no support for a crime-free life style. This can
be seen as an intractable dilemma where societal problems have created a criminal class and the necessary
incarceration of offenders hardens inmates into criminal life styles which both reinforce the underlying social ills
and create political pressures for harsher anti-crime policies. Essentially it is a closed feedback loop where the
problems generate further problems, which generate even more problems until society reaches a stage, such
as in Pakistan, where prisons are already overcrowded.

KINDS OF PUNISHMENT

Punishments have ranged from the most severe penalty—capital punishment—to the
present-day relatively painless use of fines, or money payments, for offenses
committed.
CAPITAL PUNISHMENT

The extreme penalty for crime is capital punishment, or death. Execution of criminals for
a great variety of offenses has been carried out by such methods as drowning, stoning,
hanging, and beheading. Modern executions are usually done by means of
electrocution, the gas chamber, or a lethal injection of a drug. Hanging is still used in
some places, as is execution by firing squad.

Some forms of execution were extremely brutal. In the Roman Empire, Persia, and in
medieval Japan, crucifixion for a variety of offenders was common. This involved
binding or nailing the offender to a crossbeam fixed on a vertical beam set in the
ground. Death eventually ensued—from exhaustion, suffocation, bleeding, or heart
failure.

Heinz-Dieter Falkenstein—imageBROKER/age fotostockHeinz-Dieter Falkenstein—

imageBROKER/age fotostock
In Europe during the Middle Ages hanging was used for persons of low status and
decapitation for members of the upper classes. Witches and heretics were burned at the
stake. One of the worst methods of execution, drawing and quartering, was used in
England. Victims were first partly strangled. Then, while still alive, they were
disemboweled—their intestines torn out and burned—and the body was hacked into
four pieces.

© Robert J. Daveant/Shutterstock.com© Robert J. Daveant/Shutterstock.com

The range of crimes for which execution was the punishment has varied greatly over the
centuries. In Greece during the 7th century BC, the lawgiver Draco issued a code that
punished nearly all crimes by death. The word draconian survives to describe unusually
harsh legal penalties. In modern times the use of capital punishment has declined
markedly in most societies, and the death penalty is inflicted only for the most serious
crimes—such as murder or treason. In much of western Europe capital punishment has
been abolished altogether, and it is seldom used where it is legal. (See also capital
punishment.)

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.

This type of punishment involves inflicting pain upon the body. (Corporal is derived from
the Latin corpus, meaning “physical body.”) Like capital punishment, it has been used
for centuries, but its use today is not common except in dictatorships. The means of
inflicting pain have included cutting off the hands of thieves; whipping and flogging;
branding with hot irons; amputating ears, tongues, and noses; eye gouging; deprivation
of food and water; locking in a sweatbox; and stoning that fell short of death. Sometimes
offenders were placed in stocks in a public place and pelted with stones and otherwise
humiliated. Modern varieties of corporal punishment are usually regarded as torture,
and governments that use torture are reluctant to admit it. Most frequently torture is
used on individuals not convicted of any crime.

RETRIBUTION

For centuries, retribution was a basic part of the law in many cultures. The legal term
is lex talionis, which means “law of retaliation.” It has been most frequently described as
the principle of “an eye for an eye,” which originated in ancient Babylonian law. From
there it spread throughout the Middle East. Frequent mention of it is made in the early
books of the Bible. The principle was used as a rationalization for corporal punishment
until the 18th century, though as early as the 5th century BC it was replaced by fines in
Rome. It is still used as a basis for assessing fines, or damages, in many criminal and
civil cases.

EXILE

Exile has been a common practice since the ancient world. It was considered the
equivalent to the death penalty because the individual would be cut off from home and
family permanently. Actually, however, many exiles proved temporary. Greek city-
states often punished political offenders—such as generals who had failed to win a
battle—with ostracism. The word comes from the pieces of broken pottery—ostraka—
that were used to cast votes for or against exile.
Exile, either internal or external, was used by Russia and the Soviet Union from at least
the 19th century. Internal exile usually meant sending a political dissident to Siberia, a
punishment Lenin endured early in his career. In the 1980s the Soviet physicist Andrei
Sakharov was temporarily exiled to what is now the city of Nizhni Novgorod. The Soviet
Union also expelled a limited number of individuals from the country. The Nobel
prizewinning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn was exiled in 1974.
© Gordeev20/Dreamstime.com
Transportation of regular criminals outside national boundaries did not become a
common practice until the 17th century. It was then that England began shipping
offenders to the North American colonies. In the next century a new dumping ground for
criminals was found in Australia. France established overseas penal colonies in Africa,
New Caledonia, and French Guiana. Devil’s Island, off the coast of South America, was
the most notorious. Russia’s penal colonies were in Siberia.

FINES

Fines have become a substitute for corporal punishment and retribution. The word is
from the Latin finis, meaning “end” or “conclusion,” as in a final payment. Fines are
normally used for minor offenses such as traffic violations. But they are also imposed for
more serious crimes that involve money—such as embezzlement and stock-market
fraud. In some cases these white-collar crimes are also punished by imprisonment.

Fines in early England were called blood money because they related to the value of an
individual’s life—the amount of money a murderer was forced to pay. There were also
fines for injuries and theft. As crimes came to be viewed as offenses against the state
instead of against individual persons, fines became a frequent substitute for punishment
as well as a reliable source of revenue. In Sweden fines are adjusted to the individual’s
income, and they may be paid in installments. In the United States, because each state
sets its own policies, there are no standard procedures. Wisconsin, for example, allows
offenders to work off fines by holding jobs outside the penal institution.

Prisons must be distinguished from such other places of confinement as dungeons and
concentration camps. During the Middle Ages many castles had dungeons, usually
underground vaults, in which political prisoners, or enemies of a king or noble, were
incarcerated for indefinite periods—sometimes for life. Occasionally prisoners were held
until a ransom was paid. The concentration camp is a 19th-century invention for
confining large groups of people, most of whom are not criminals. During wartime
prisoners of war are often confined in such camps.

In the United States there are four main divisions in the prison system: local jails, county
jails, state prisons, and federal prisons. Nearly every community has a jail, or lockup,
and county jails are found in nearly every county in all the states. Jails are chiefly for
holding persons for trial after they have been arrested. Each state has its own prisons
and reformatories for convicted felons, and the national government maintains prisons
for felons who have been convicted of breaking federal laws. The prisons range from
maximum-security institutions for very dangerous criminals to minimum-security
institutions for individuals such as white-collar criminals—those whose crimes are
generally financial, such as embezzlers, swindlers, and bribe-taking politicians. Today’s
prisons segregate offenders by sex and age, a practice that was started in the 19th
century.

Because of extreme overcrowding and the huge costs of operating prisons, a form of
punishment called house arrest was introduced in the early 1980s. It is the confinement
of offenders inside their own homes. The offender is allowed to leave the house only for
certain activities, such as work, school, religious services, or medical treatment. House
arrest is often enforced by placing an electronic device on the offender’s ankle. Law
enforcement officers monitor signals sent out by the device to ensure that the offender
is following the rules of the house arrest.

FROM SENTENCING TO RELEASE

Persons convicted of crimes are sentenced by a judge, often in consultation with a jury.
The sentence—apart from the death penalty—is the period of time the felon is to be
imprisoned. Individuals convicted of lesser offenses pay a fine or are sent to a
workhouse for a short period of time. Workhouses are basically local, minimum-security
lockups.

The first step in a well-run prison is classifying newcomers. This means that a trained
staff decides what sort of work or study program is best for each prisoner. The
classification staff may include psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, guidance
counselors, and chaplains.

One of the greatest problems for prisoners is boredom. Unless convicts have
meaningful work to do, they become restless and uncooperative. To combat this
problem, the Federal Prison Industries, Incorporated, was formed in 1934 to provide
training and work for federal prisoners. State systems have similar programs. Many
prisons also provide educational opportunities. Grade school and high school courses
enable dropouts to receive diplomas and qualify for work after they are released.

Most prisons now provide a wide array of recreational opportunities, including sports
and entertainment. Prisoners may organize their own activities. Prisons generally have
libraries, and radios and televisions are available.

Prison sentences are usually indeterminate. A fixed time is stated, but the felon may be
released early for good behavior. Often there is a specific time at which the prisoner is
eligible for parole. Because of overcrowding it is quite common for prisoners to be
released well ahead of the end of their sentences.

When a parole board releases prisoners, they must agree to abide by several
regulations: they must remain in the same state, report at specific intervals to parole
officials, and not associate with known criminals. The term conditional release applies to
a parole granted for good behavior.

Sometimes a sentence is commuted. This means that a governor’s review board

lessens the period imposed by a judge. A governor or president may also pardon
criminals. A pardon excuses a felon from the penalty imposed by the court. Amnesty is
a mass pardon applied to a group of prisoners by a country’s head of state. It is seldom
used in the United States except with conscientious objectors or political prisoners.

Rehabilitation
The most recently formulated theory of punishment is that of rehabilitation—the idea
that the purpose of punishment is to apply treatment and training to the offender so that
he is made capable of returning to society and functioning as a law-abiding member of
the community. Established in legal practice in the 19th century, rehabilitation was
viewed as a humane alternative to retribution and deterrence, though it did not
necessarily result in an offender receiving a more lenient penalty than he would have
received under a retributive or deterrent philosophy. In many cases rehabilitation meant
that an offender would be released on probation under some condition; in other cases it
meant that he would serve a relatively longer period in custody to undergo treatment or
training. One widely used instrument of rehabilitation in the United States was
the indeterminate sentence, under which the length of detention was governed by the
degree of reform the offender exhibited while incarcerated.

Although rehabilitation was widely criticized in the United States in the 1970s, it gained
greater acceptance once research in the 1980s and ’90s demonstrated that a
carefully implemented rehabilitation program could reduce recidivism. Critics
nonetheless objected to rehabilitation and sentencing programs that gave significant
discretion to the prison administrator, who could decide to release or further detain an
offender depending on his assessment of the offender’s progress (which could itself be
vaguely defined). At issue were cases in which this authority led to gross abuses, such as
the lengthy detention of an offender guilty of only a minor crime, simply because of his
inability or refusal to adopt a subservient attitude toward prison officials or other
persons in positions of authority.

RecidivismDe-radicalisation is the process of de-programming radical individuals and reintegrating them

into the society as normal and useful citizens. Intrinsically linked with de-radicalisation are the risks of
recidivism. According to National Institute of Justice, recidivism is the most essential concept in criminal justice.
It refers to a person’s relapse into a criminal behaviour after undergoing an intervention for a previous crime.
Recidivism is measured by criminal acts that probably resulted in re-arrest, reconviction or going back to
prison. But some individuals face difficulty in reintegrating into society, sometimes because society does not
accept them as “normal” people.48,794 neglected inmates languishing in 40 Punjab prisons according to the
Punjab Prisons Department. These statistics, though hard to make peace with in a practical sense, indeed
depict that the country in shambles. The Crisis Group in a 2011 report also described the “overpopulated,
understaffed and poorly managed” prison system of Pakistan as a “fertile breeding ground for criminality and
militancy, with prisoners more likely to return to crime than to abandon it.”

Retribution versus RehabilitationRetributionIt allows the government to not only punish

criminals, but to remove them from society. A prison sentence means that, without a doubt, the individual will
be committing no more crimes for the duration of the sentence, which can be anywhere from two years to one
hundred and fifty.It allows the government to scale punishments more effectively. A man who steals a loaf of
bread gets five years, while a man who robs a bank gets fifty. The disincentive to commit crimes increases
drastically as the crimes get more severe. With corporal punishment, there is only so much physical violence
you can do to a person. How much more would you flog a bank robber than a bread stealer? Perhaps you
would flog him repeatedly over a period of days? Still, it is simply easier to add more years with the severity.It
allows for programs of "rehabilitation” and “re-education” to be administered to convicts. While these programs
are ineffective in their current incarnation, they could be improved and made far more effective if prisons were
restructured. Corporal punishment, while effective as a deterrent, cannot rehabilitate anyone.It allows for
punishment that is consistent and long term. Corporal punishment, for its benefits, only lasts for at most a few
hours; prison lasts for years. The convict emerges at theend of the sentence having experienced punishment
as a lifestyle, and can be significantly changed by the experience if done properly. RehabilitationThe prison
environment is often conducive to criminalization rather than rehabilitation. However, a reformation of prisons
could fix this.Prisons are very expensive.Prisons become difficult to manage as the number of prisoners in
the same institution increase. Whereas taking four thousand men and flogging them before returning them to
their homes is not so different from flogging ten thousand, taking four thousand men and providing for their
food, clothing, guarding, and shelter for years is far easier than increasing the number being imprisoned to ten
thousand.Prisons require centralization, which at its core is inefficient and costly. Floggings can be done
individually and anywhere, so to be most efficient the convict would probably be
flogged right outside the courthouse then let go. This only requires paying a couple officers for a half hour of
guarding and then beating the convict.Prison is glorified by many criminal and semi criminal cultures. It is
doubtful any criminals glorify being flogged.Prisons can easily become corrupt when they form an isolated
culture among the guards andadministration. Floggings are public and one-time things, and are in no way
conducive to corruption

ConclusionOur prison system needs to be more therapeutic and social rather than give rise to demeaning acts
such as harassment, sexual abuse or increased crime rate. The system needs to identify the trend that could
otherwise be stopped through the implementation of legal instruments and morally acceptable approaches. It
would not only result in an opportunity to make the law more effective but also develop more skilled citizens
who could benefit the society as a whole instead of harming it further.