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Essay On Why Criminals Should Be Punished

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Why We Punish & Different Ways Criminals are Punished Why does the criminal justice system of America punish criminals? The answer lies in the words “justice.” The term justice can be interpreted in many ways. Criminals are punished to: make people abide the laws of their country and state, put an end to illegal activity that could be harmful to themselves or the community, protect the public from evil, prevent crime from rising in certain areas. These are just some of the reasons why criminals are punished. There are also different approaches to punishing criminals such as: sentences that fit the crime, community service, the death penalty, and rehabilitation. All punishment is related to the idea of taking away the freedom of the lawbreakers. Punishment has an entire philosophy behind it. The idea of punishment comes from the necessity to establish a justice system. Some of the earliest recorded systems for punishment and law came from “The Code of Hammurabi” which comes directly from King Hammurabi himself. According to History.com,
“The Code of …show more content…

Selective incapacitation targets a specific type of offender, the type that is generally dangerous and more likely to continue offending outside of prison. Their prison sentences may be lengthier because of their unstable characteristics. There is a problem with selective incapacitation though; discrimination between races and ethnic minorities happen because they are more commonly found to be in the selective incapacitation approach. The other more expansionist approach is general incapacitation where the broad use of imprisonment is utilized “to achieve large gains in crime prevention by locking away even minor offenders” (Alarid & Reichel, 2017, p. 20). However, with this approach, the problem posed is overpredicting which results in avoidable long sentences for a population that would generally not

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