9- PUNISHMENT AND ITS INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

What was the historical relationship between criminology and punishment?

• Early criminology was closely linked to penology (study of punishment)

• Criminology began with a correctional focus

• Punishment and its institutions (prisons, sanctions) were central concerns

Why did criminology move away from punishment and penology?

• 1970s critiques showed:

• Rehabilitation often did not work

• Claims of humanitarian reform masked power and control

• “Nothing works” debate (overstated, but influential)

• Led to scepticism about institutions acting “in the name of reform”

What fear emerged within criminology regarding punishment?

• Fear of a “penal society”

• Expansion of:

  • Disciplinary institutions

  • Imprisonment

  • Surveillance

• Concern about excessive institutional control

What is the purpose of the philosophy of punishment?

• To provide rational justifications for punishment

• To offer normative guidance on when and why the state may punish

• To impose logical structure on the power to punish

How did classical philosophers define punishment?

• Hobbes and Bentham:

• Punishment is an evil

• It is deliberate pain

• Inflicted by the state after legal adjudication

How do utilitarians justify punishment?

• Punishment is an instrument of government

• Justified only if it promotes the greater good

• Future-oriented (focus on outcomes)

What was Marx’s critique of punishment?

• Denied any moral right to punish in capitalist societies

• Only an absolutely just society could morally punish

• Punishment reflects class power, not justice

What ideas dominated classical criminology?

• Retribution (just deserts)

• Deterrence (prevent future crime)

• Punishment justified either:

  • Regardless of consequences (retribution)

  • Because of future benefits (deterrence)

How did positivism change thinking about punishment?

INTRODUCED

• Determinism

• Pathology / illness model

How did positivism change thinking about punishment?

FOCUSES ON..

• Reform

• Rehabilitation

• Sought to replace punishment with treatment

Why is rehabilitation not a true justification of punishment?

• Rehabilitation aims to make punishment redundant

• Focuses on treatment, not punishment

• Crime seen as a sickness, not moral wrongdoing

SEVEN OFFICIAL PURPOSES OF PUNISHMENT

What is restraint / incapacitation?

• Prevents the offender from repeating the behaviour

• Removes capacity to offend (e.g. imprisonment)

What is individual (specific) deterrence?

Punishment discourages that offender from reoffending

What is general deterrence?

• Punishing one person to deter others

• Example-making

What is reform or rehabilitation?

• Sanction imposed as:

• Treatment

• Corrective measure

• Aims to change the offender

What is moral affirmation / symbolic punishment?
Punishment:

• Affirms social values

• Defines acceptable vs unacceptable behaviour

• Draws moral boundaries of society

What is retribution?

• Punishment should:

• Match the harm done

• Restore moral balance

• Backward-looking justification

What is restitution or compensation?

• Restores loss to the victim

• Rebalances harm through repayment

PHILOSOPHICAL VS SOCIOLOGICAL ACCOUNTS

How do philosophical accounts view punishment?

• Abstract

• Normative

• Concerned with:

  • Moral justification

  • Logic

  • Principles

How do sociological accounts view punishment?
Focus on:

• Social foundations

• Cultural meaning

• Power relations

• Punishment reflects society and culture

What does Garland argue about punishment?

• Punishment:

• Does not just control society

• Helps create it

• Part of penal culture

• Reflects dominant social values

How does H.L.A. Hart justify punishment?

• Punishment justified by crime prevention

• Not by:

  • Moral desert

  • Rehabilitation

• Institution justified, not individual acts

What is Wasserstrom’s critique of deterrence?

• Deterrence justifies:

• Threat of punishment

• Not punishment itself

• Actual punishment needed only to make threat believable

What did Bentham say about justice and deterrence?

• “Apparent justice is everything”

• Real justice is irrelevant if deterrence works

What two extreme positions exist on deterrence?

• Benthamite rational actor

• Non-rational offender model (emotion, norms, subculture)

What is the key ethical problem with general deterrence?

• Offender is used as a means to an end

• Violates Kant’s principle of human dignity

What is Kant’s principle relevant to punishment?

• Humans must be treated as ends in themselves

• Not merely as means

How do Bittner and Platt defend punishment?

• Punishment essential to law’s meaning

• Offenders suffer:

  • For what they did

  • In legislated measure

What does Hart say about punishment and freedom?

• Law announces standards + penalties

• Individuals are free to choose compliance

What is the abolitionist critique (De Haan)?

• Penal control is unethical

• Punishment:

  • Reproduces crime

  • Demonstrates power and domination

What did Durkheim believe was the true function of punishment?

• Maintain social solidarity

• Express collective moral outrage

• Not deterrence or reform

What is the “collective conscience”?

• Shared moral values of society

• Punishment reinforces it

How did Durkheim view punishment emotionally?

• A collective emotional response

• Cathartic

• Reaffirms moral order

What is punishment as “moral education”?

• Two figures?

• Braithwaite & Pettit

• Punishment:

  • Reproaches

  • Educates society

  • Strengthens duty

How does Garland describe punishment culturally?

• A cultural institution

• Reflects:

  • Sensibilities

  • Values

  • Historical change

What trend since the late 1970s supports the idea of a penal society?

• Sharp rise in imprisonment

• UK and USA

Why has formal social control strengthened?

• Decline of informal social control

• Political reliance on police and punishment

What is Garland’s “culture of control”?

• Shift away from welfare model

• Return of punitive, expressive punishment

• Emphasis on surveillance and exclusion

What are the costs of mass punishment (Garland)?

• Racial and social division

• Criminogenic effects

• Alienation

• Authoritarianism

• Weakening liberal democracy

What alternatives does Garland suggest?

• Devolved power

• Community involvement

• Less reliance on state command

What is the overall conclusion of Chapter 9?

• Punishment is:

• Morally contested

• Socially constructed

• Culturally embedded

• Its expansion raises serious ethical and political concerns