Purpose and Effectiveness of Criminal Sentencing

Purpose and Effectiveness of Criminal Sentencing

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The purposes and effectiveness of criminal sentencing for punishing a person or people for the crimes they have been convicted of committing involves different measures which can remove their freedom to move about in society for a certain period of time. People who break the law are punished and therefore, there are penalties which can range from small fines to something as serious as the death penalty. There are reasons for punishing the people who break the law and depending on the crime that has been committed the following need to be taken into consideration: deterrence, rehabilitation, incapacitation and retribution. Deterrence is a theory of punishment based upon the concept that criminal sanctions convince the public that they should not commit crimes because they could be punished. Fear of punishment is viewed as a primary deterrent to crime (Wallace, 2012). It is crucial to impose a penalty for a criminal act because this will hopefully deter the person from thinking about repeating the act furthermore, if the penalty is significant enough, the law breaker will think twice before doing it again. Also, when the penalties are well known and there is public dissemination of penalties for a particular crime, it is expected that others who might contemplate the crime would be deterred from engaging in the prohibited activity not to mention when there is a trial, sentencing and punishment imposed, there is often attendant publicity and the publicity is part of the factor in imposing a criminal penalty (Shestokas, 2009). For the reasons mentioned above, deterrence is an argument which is used in order to support the death penalty. Rehabilitation in criminal sentencing suggests that every human life has meaning and worth, that there is a spark of good in everyone, even those who have chosen to break the laws of society (Shestokas, 2009). When we speak of rehabilitation we must 2
Criminal Sentencing remember that within the justice system this particular method puts offenders thro

Purpose and Effectiveness of Criminal Sentencing