everywhere. Now that we have these legal rules and consequences in place, what's their purpose?
The purposes for punishments falls under two prongs, retributive justice, and utilitarian justice. Retributive justice relates to “punishment is justified because people deserve it.”(Acker & Brody, 2010, p. 7) Utilitarian Justice believes in the purpose punishment serves.
Retributive justice is when you violate the rights of another; then you should be penalized. These punishments restore order in the community. When offenders not getting punished, then there is an unbalance in society and guilt is now placed on the policy makers. Retributive justice becomes an issue when the individual committing the offenses is a victim as well. This person has been affected by outside entities, therefore lacks moral fiber, and will not endanger the rest of the community. Utilitarian justification has been the model for the American justice system for the most of the twentieth century. It utilizes different strategies for punishment, one being general deterrence. The knowledge of the penalty to follow the crime will reduce the violations. Individuals observed the consequences through another offender, who has committed a violation of rules and therefore are not interested in criminal
activity. Some juveniles that do not participate in delinquency are examples “norm reinforcement.” Their belief that the behavior is wrong, which helps them accepts the standards that society has set. Individual deterrence is installing a deep fear so that they do not repeat the actions. When you have experienced the incident personally, the consequences will deter efforts. The practical approach of punishment justifies reasons for incapacitation as an attempt to prevent as well. When a person is imprisoned, they removed from society temporarily and can no longer continue their deviant behavior. After incapacitation, there is a reform which allows the offender to be more thankful for being a part of society. They have learned from the time imprisoned. There is also the purpose of punishment went it is relating to victims. Vengeance is handed down to the offender by the authority figure in the legal system. The family of a victim could feel a sense of happiness seeing the offender received a considerable amount of time. There are many purposes for punishment with the possibility of more good coming out than bad.