Eight Philosophies Of Corrections

Corrections have an important place in society. There are eight philosophies of punishment in which humanity adhere. The theories of punishment are retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, isolation, incapacitation, reintegration, restitution, and restoration. This essay will explain the philosophies and how it is applied in corrections today. First, the oldest form of punishment is retribution. Retribution is essentially revenge. There is evidence revenge occurred in 18 B.C.E. in the Code of Hammurabi. According to our textbook, the retribution philosophy is similar to revenge. The punishment to an offender would be as “if a man destroys another man's eye, then they shall destroy his eye” or an “eye for an eye” (Mays & Winfree, 2009).
Deterrence is used to discourage an offender or others from committing future crimes. There are two types of deterrence; specific deterrence and general deterrence. Specific deterrence is a punishment which is designed to deter an individual offender from committing the same or any future crimes; whereas, general deterrence is a penalty that will stop an offender and others in society from committing the same or any other crimes (Mays & Winfree, 2009). An example of specific deterrence would be if a person convicted of simple possession or casual exchange of marijuana in Tennessee and as part of their sentence, they were required to attend drug rehab. Taking off from work to go to rehab would be embarrassing for the average person. This action would deter a person who used marijuana once or twice in their lifetime. It would make them not want to go through the judicial system again. An example of general deterrence would be if a person convicted of murder received the death penalty. The death sentence would deter others in society from committing the same
Isolation is used as a punishment in the medieval days. The purpose is to stop an offender from having contact with others. The second is separation is separating the offender from society as to ensure the community is protected (Mays & Winfree, 2009). Today, in America isolation is still used and another term used for isolation is solitary confinement. Data supplied by the Bureau of Statistics estimate each day, approximately 80,000 American inmates are held in some form of isolation in state and federal correctional institutions (Solitary Confinement, n.d.). In contemporary corrections, prisoners placed in isolation occurs as punishment for various reasons. Those reasons include not following prison rules; it could be for an inmate's protection, or due to an inmate having clinical or therapeutic mental health problem (Solitary Confinement,