Determinate Sentencing Essay

Assault, murder and theft are all considered common committed crimes, but the way people were punished for committing these crimes are very different compared to today. Punishment is defined as penalty as justice for a wrongdoing. These penalties were more cruel and violent than they are today. The development of punishment can be traced from Greek and Roman times, through the Middle Ages and up to the Age of Enlightenment. To start things off, during the Greek and Roman Times, there was no such thing as a nice punishment.

Sentencing disparity within the American Judicial system is a problem that exists across the nation. According to Merriam Webster’s dictionary, disparity means the markedly distinct in quality or character. Many times, disparity is used in conjunction with discrimination as if the two words mean the same, but they do not. Disparity will include a difference in treatment or outcome but is not based on an opinion, bias or prejudice.

Death Penalty is a very ominous punishment to discuss. It is probably the most controversial and feared form of punishment in the United States. Many are unaware, but 31 of the 52 states have the Death penalty passes as an acceptable punishment. In the following essay, I will agree and support Stephen Nathanson's statement that "Equality retributivism cannot justify the death penalty. " In the reading, "An Eye for an Eye?", Nathanson gives objections to why equality retributivism is morally acceptable for the death penalty to be legal.

The death penalty has always been one of the most highly debated consequence in the United States. Although some people will say you get what you deserve, is it really necessary for the United States to go to this extreme? Or are they taking it too far? The death penalty is as follows per death penalty.procon.org "Also called capital punishment - Execution of an offender sentenced to death after conviction by a court of law of a criminal offense. Capital punishment should be distinguished from extrajudicial executions carried out without due process of law.

Ever since the outset of the American Constitution, capital punishment has existed as a crime sentence in the United States. However, in recent decades, this topic has become highly controversial, as many states have dictated against the death penalty. Although states with this position on capital punishment are increasing, some states, such as Texas, have continued to edict this practice in their provinces. In the State of Texas, the sentence to death upon a person should not be permitted due to the fact it can wrongly convict a person, its court trial is highly expensive, and it brings forth an unjust treatment.

The punishment fits the crime. That statement conforms to the ideas of a system know as retributive justice. Retributive justice is rooted in proportionality. This means that a punishment should be to the same degree of ones sin. This system appeals to me personally because it avoids giving people the chance to seak revenge.

The United States justice system is a complicated system. The justice system is the third branch of the government. This branch holds the responsibility to create and up hold laws. The justice system has a precise order of how things fall into place when a crime has been committed. The process to arrest an individual to the sentencing of that individual takes a bountiful amount of steps and procedures.

It can be noted that the way one is punished is often unjust. “The fundamental purpose of sentencing is to…. have one or more of the following objectives: to denounce unlawful conduct; to deter the offender and other persons from committing offenses; to separate offenders from society” (Pratt, January 26th, 2016). Even though there is a fundamental purpose of sentencing most of the time, the crime does not fit the offender (Pratt, January 26th, 2016).

In the United States, there are two primary models; Indeterminate and determinate sentencing. Indeterminate sentencing refers to blending decisions provided by the sentencing judge and later from a release authority so the actual time served can be determined. The judge will sentence offenders to indeterminate sentencing during the time of the sentence including the maximum or minimum amount of time that’s to be served. Once an offender serves the minimum amount of time they are qualified for a release by the parole board. However, the maximum sentence may have to be served by the offender if the parole board doesn’t grant an early release.

SENTENCING POLICYS AND CORRECTIONS The state and federal objectives for punishment have three main reasons as to why punishment is imposed on offenders, these being to punish the guilty, to protect the public and to rehabilitate the offender. Punishment being the most obvious goal of the correctional system, the guilty have to be punished for the crime they are found guilty of having committed. The theory behind punishment is that it is supposedly to serve as a deterrent against someone repeating the criminal activity, as well as set an example to others of why they should avoid committing the same acts. Incarceration is the most common form of punishment, but the death penalty and other lesser penalties such as probation are also designed

The death penalty is and has been one of the most controversial topics debated in the United States since its birth in the seventeenth century. Dating back to colonial times, the death penalty was influenced by European settlers who brought capital punishment with them to the new world. Similar to today’s laws regarding the death penalty, the laws for capital punishment varied from colony to colony (“Introduction to the Death Penalty”). Slowly, most states in the country have eliminated this cruel practice, however, in some states the death penalty persists. Florida is one of thirty-one states where the death penalty still exists (“States with and without the Death Penalty”).

In the U.S. criminal justice system, there are two basic sentencing models that the courts use to apply their judgments. These are determinate sentencing and indeterminate sentencing. Determinate sentencing can be referred as a set sentence imposed to an offender this model is based on the famous phrase “Do the crime and will do the time”; however, this model has a unique quality and that is that a parole board can’t overturn the length of the sentence that was imposed. On the other hand indeterminate sentencing can be describe as the length of a sentences that has not being defined yet like the term “25 to life” on this term you can see that the sentencing was not set to an specific time frame, that means that the offenders release date is

Utilitarianism is an ethical theory that states that the best action is the one that maximizes helpfulness. In this theory, punishment is warranted only if it promotes over-all happiness. C.S. Lewis refers to utilitarianism as humanitarian in his essay. Contrary to the general humanitarian viewpoint, which sees punishment as precautionary, Lewis believes that it denies criminals of their humanity. He states, "when we cease to consider what the criminal deserves and consider only what will cure him or deter others, we have tacitly removed him from the sphere of justice altogether; instead of a person, a subject of rights, we now have a mere object, a patient, a 'case."