Bentham's Theory Of Punishment

Man’s mental attitude towards crime and punishment, has been indeed, always so greatly influenced by its reflex actions that clear thinking on these subjects has never been an easy matter even after having a codified law like Indian Penal Code, 1860. Indian Penal Code, 1860 describes about the offence and its punishment. When Lord MacCaulay, made this Act he followed the Bentham’s Theory of Alarm. Punishment is fixed keeping in mind about the fact that how much alarm has been created in the society through that crime. For every crime there is a corresponding punishment. Punishment normally means, suffering for some offence. The ordinary dictionary meaning of the word ‘punish’ is “to cause the offender to suffer for the offence” or “inflict

THEORIES OF PUNISHMENT

The traditional theories of punishment in which classical concept of punishment are as follows:- 1. RETRIBUTIVE: This theory is probably the oldest one. As the name “Retributive”, itself indicates that this theory is vengeance and aims at taking the revenge. The theory is based on the maxim of tooth for tooth or eye for eye. When Jesus Christ said in the Sermon on Mount, that the measure by which you judge others, with the same measures shall you be judged, and the statement epitomized the retributive theory of punishment. The theory is unscientific and unsocial. Salmond also says “conception of retributive justice still remains a prominent place in popular thought”. 2. DETERRENT: The deterrent theory of punishment aim at deterring the criminal from committing similar or other offences. The deterring effect of punishment is exhibited in the infliction in public gaze. This theory basically aims at severity of punishment. Judicial minds doubted on the efficacy of this theory, because the severity of punishment on the wrongdoer fails to produce a deterrent effect on the

But what I think is that there is nothing to do neither with the crime nor with the criminal. We must move towards the Victimological Reformative Theory, that means due consideration must be given to victims of the crime as well as to Reformative theory because no man born as a criminal, but made by the Society. The human mind, even at infancy, is no blank sheet of paper. We are born with predisposition and the process of education, formal and informal, and, our own subjective experiences create attitudes which affect us in judging situations and coming to decisions. A simple example for this is that a son of a prostitute while living in such an environment can’t be a Saint, but as according to the conduct of society around him. After the accused is convicted, the environment of jail itself is such that the convicted person start turning as a criminal. Thus, the environment of jail should be also improved and it should be made Open Prison. The sentence should bring home the guilty party the consciousness that the offence committed by him was against the interests of the society of which he happens to be a member. With this Court must make it sure that it is not the society who had given a push to the criminal to commit such crime and now crying and asking to give him death penalty. Every person by birth is same and changes by the inheriting the view of the section of