21 Jun Identify the three Goals of Punishment identified in the textbook for this course and explain each of them. 2.? Select ONE of the Goals of Punishment listed in your textboo
Respond to the following questions below. Please, delineate your responses to the questions by separate paragraphs.
1: Identify the three Goals of Punishment identified in the textbook for this course and explain each of them.
2. Select ONE of the Goals of Punishment listed in your textbook that makes logical sense to you as a punishment strategy and explain why.
Punishment and the Death Penalty
Vocabulary
Vocabulary
Crime
Punishment
Deterrence
General deterrence
Specific deterrence
Rehabilitation
Retribution
Abolitionism
Retentionism
Crime
Behavior that a society has judged to be intolerable and against which it has devised codified sanction.
Moral Turpitude
Punishment
From the Latin word for (poena) penalty
The intended infliction of non-pleasurable feelings or activity upon a person by an appropriate authority, sometimes including acts of pain, denial of liberty, or the taking of life (capital punishment) as a result of an act that violated a law, code, or other set of standards
Goals of Punishment
Deterrence (Consequential) -General Deterrence -Specific Deterrence
Rehabilitation (Consequential)
Retribution (Nonconsequential) -Strong Retribution -Proportional Retribution
Deterrence
Punishment aimed at preventing future crimes. So, what needs to happen to prevent future crimes?
For Deterrence, whether General or Specific, to work will require the following three components:
Requires-
Certainty of getting caught (Most important Deterrence.)
Swiftness of punishment (How soon after committing a crime does the perpetrator receive punishment)
Severity of punishment
Some believe the death penalty or the “three strikes- get life” policy deters crime.
Example: Sending a child to a time out chair every time they hit a sibling. The idea is that they will come to think they’ll end up in time out if they want to hit a sibling. The idea of time out will then prevent them from hitting a sibling.
General deterrence
Punishment aimed at preventing future crimes by persons other than the individual being punished
This is punishing one person to prevent future crimes by others.
The goal is to scare others into compliance.
This can be unjust as it may be disproportional to the crime.
Example: Making an example of someone to prevent others from committing a crime. A high school teacher will write up a recommendation for suspension for the first student to disrespect him or her. The hope is that the teacher sets a firm limit early and it will prevent other students from acting up for fear of suspension.
Specific deterrence
Punishment aimed at preventing future crimes by the person being punished by making him or her associate punishment with law breaking. Example, Dr. Odutola’s car license plate.
Punishment should be strong enough to remind the criminal not to commit the crime just by thinking about the punishment.
The punishment is only on the criminal and no one else.
Example: One child eats all the fresh baked cookies before anyone else gets one. Mom/Dad continues to bake cookies for the kids every day. The punishment for the child (who ate all the cookies) is that for a full month, that one child gets no fresh baked cookies although the rest of the family can eat them. The hope is that by the end of the month, when the child smells fresh baked cookies, he/she will ask permission and leave enough for other family members.
Rehabilitation
Punishment aimed at preventing future crimes by the person being punished by attempting to change that person so he or she will be less likely to commit crimes in the future
Programs meant to restore the perpetrator to a state where they can have a useful life and be a productive member of society.
Rehab programs are available for all types of addiction but programs have varying quality, costs, and recidivism rates. Programs may be very limited by age, location, and health care insurance.
Can prison time actually rehabilitate a criminal?
Retribution
View of punishment that states that people who do evil deserve to be punished, independent of whether the punishment will produce good consequences or prevent future crimes
If someone kills another person, society should kill the criminal.
Problems-
What if it’s an accidental death?
Does killing bring the dead back?
What if someone steals something of great value from you but they own nothing of value?
Retribution
Strong Retribution: Retributive punishment must be equal to the crime committed (i.e., “an eye for an eye”)
Proportional Retribution: States that wrongdoers deserve to be punished in proportion to what they did wrong.
Death Penalty
Death penalty is a highly contested issue in the United States. There are two camps to this issue:
Retentionism: Argue for death penalty.
Abolitionism: Argue against the death penalty.
Retentionism
Point of view that the death penalty is morally justifiable and is an acceptable form of punishment.
Why should we keep the death penalty?
Gives closure to the family of the victim
Makes certain that the offender will not re-offend.
Sends a message to the larger social contract.
Abolitionism
The point of view that the death penalty is NOT morally justifiable and is not an acceptable form of punishment.
Why should we discard the death penalty?
The death penalty does not deter future crimes.
The cost of having people on death penalty is too high
Jury selection takes longer and final jury is larger -Regular jury consists of Six people, Capital Punishment Jury is 12 people
More minorities are on death row
Wrongful conviction
States With and Without Death Penalty – 2021
States with Death Penalty: 27 State and U.S. Government and U.S. Military
States without Death Penalty: 23 States and the District of Columbia
States with Governor Imposed Moratorium: 3 California (2019) Oregon (2011) Pennsylvania (2015) U. S. Government (2021)
States With AND WITHOUT the Death Penalty – 2021
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/state-and-federal-info/state-by-state
Number of Executions by State, 2015-2021
| 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021* | |
| U.S. government | – | – | – | – | – | 10 | 3 |
| Texas | 13 | 7 | 7 | 13 | 9 | 3 | 0 |
| Georgia | 5 | 9 | 1 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Missouri | 6 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| Alabama | 0 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| Tennessee | – | – | 0 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 0 |
| California | – | – | – | – | – | 1 | 0 |
| South Dakota | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Florida | 2 | 1 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Ohio | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Arkansas | – | 0 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Virginia | 1 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Nebraska | – | – | – | 1 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Compensating Wrongful Conviction
States with Compensation: The federal government, the District of Columbia, and 35 states have compensation statutes of some form.
States without Compensation: The following 15 states do not: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Wyoming.
Video on Wrongful conviction
Life after Wrongful Conviction for 3 Men:
The Ultimate Application: Capital Punishment
Moral Theories and Goals of Punishment
Egoism
Act Utilitarianism
Rule Utilitarianism
Virtue Ethics
Natural Law
Natural Rights
Deontology
Contractarianism
Egoism
We must choose what is in our own long-term best interest based on our thoughtful consideration of most likely consequences.
Considering that any decision must be made with all known facts and using rational thought for a long term solution…
The death penalty has not been shown to be a deterrent and studies actually show that states without the death penalty actually have lower rates of capital offenses
Act Utilitarianism
We need to take the action that provides the greatest possible good for the greatest number of people.
The greatest number of people would be satisfied/happy if society is safer.
As we know the death penalty is not a deterrent, the best action for the greatest satisfaction for all may be…
Rule Utilitarianism
What moral rule has the highest net utility and can be universalized? Perhaps it’s The Golden Rule: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.
The death penalty does not follow The Golden Rule. If I somehow caused the death of another, I would hope to be forgiven and have the opportunity to improve myself and give back to my community if you agree with Deterrence and Rehabilitation.
How about Retribution? Can this be universalized?
What course of action might you choose?
Virtue Ethics
We must always strive for excellence in all we do by living a life of intention and balance and avoiding extremes of any virtues needed in the situation.
Even if we only consider a virtue of justice, the death penalty would be an extreme action of justice. In this theory, extremes cannot lead to a moral life.
Natural Law
We must uphold (and not interfere with) the universal human goods (Primary Precepts) – life, health, procreation, welfare of children, knowledge and the avoidance of ignorance, relationships and the consideration of other people’s interests.
The death penalty would interfere with all the human goods. They went against Natural Law when they committed the crime. This does not allow us to take their life.
What option can you come up with that respects life, health, procreation, welfare of children, knowledge and the avoidance of ignorance, and relationships and consideration of other people’s interests? With this theory, something that would improve health and education of young people and helping the family to become stronger would be ethical.
Natural Rights
We cannot impose on the rights of others, Equal Liberties Principle. We must consider Negative Rights and Positive Rights.
The Death Penalty will violate our basic human rights to Life, Liberty and Property.
One of the interesting things with criminals is that once they are arrested and in police custody, they now have positive rights to food, clothing, shelter and with Miranda Rights they have a right to legal counsel and due process rights.
Deontology
Kant prohibits killing in his Perfect Duties.
Categorical Imperatives of “Universality” and “Respect for Person”.
We must respect all people. We use disinterested rationality- we cannot take any particular side in an issue, we must be rational in our decision. We cannot use people. We must also consider universality and reversibility.
If it’s morally wrong to kill a person [also codified in the statutes] then, under reversibility, we cannot kill the criminal. If it is morally right to NOT take a life, then it’s always right in all circumstances NOT to take a life.
Contractarianism
We must be fair. We need to consider that our decision will be good for future generations. We must be fair and protect the rights of others but not to a point that it puts undo burden on maintaining the social contract. We also must put ourselves in the place of all stakeholders as we consider our actions. We must also be willing to stand up for our decision in the media.
Under the veil of ignorance, we don’t know who we are in the social contract. We could be killed or we could be the criminal or a family member. We would not want to get the death penalty.
If this Topic Interests You, Please review the links.
Think about this:
Should free high-quality rehabilitation programs be available to all who are willing to go?
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