Limit and Justice of Punishment (essay editing)

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[Gillnetter]

This is my essay about punishment. There are mainly two views about punishment that i explained them in my essay and I took a stand for the retributive theory.
What do you think about my essay? I'm waiting for comments.



Limit and Justice of Punishment

Punishment is a penalty imposed in response to a misconduct such as breaking of rules, regulations, policies or laws. Punishment is given by authority the authorities to a person who breaks the law and it is based on the evidence associated with a particular case. Punishment is a way to repay what you have done wrong. There are mainly two theories to determine the functions, limits and reasons of punishment. One of them is the Retributive Theory which aims to punish offender in the dimension they deserved and the other one is the Utilitarian Theory which tries to discourage future crimes by punishing offenders. The Retributive Theory ensure attempts to maintain the order in society and to protect the rights of both victims and criminals with by punishing all crimes justly.


A person who makes a choice consciously to constitute an imbalance in the social order should be punished. However, an offender who is pyschologically ill so that he loose his control occasionally or is otherwise incompetent, such as being a child, should not be punished. The Retributive Theory emphasizes that the retribution should be proportional between the crime and the punishment, while minor crimes should have mild punishments, major crimes should have severe punishment. The Retributive Theory evaluates punishment as a form of vengeance: the criminals should be forced to suffer because they have caused other people to suffer. The theory is often associated with harsh punishment. The principle is expressed commonly as the phrase eye for eye, tooth for tooth. According to the Retributive Theory, punishing under secret laws or retroactive laws, collective punishment, using corrupt police methods, determining a scapegoat and punishing innocent people, are not indefensible definsible. The Retributive Theory respects and protects the legitimate rights of both society and the offender. If someone commits a crime by its his free will, after punishment he repays the crime that he committed and returns to society as free of guilt and with a healthy soul.


In contrast to it,the Utiliatiarian Theory takes into account the consequences for both the offender and society. The Utiliatarian people could be called as consequentialists. The limit of punishment is determined with respect to the total good produced by punishment. In the Utilitarian Theory, the aims are typically: healing victims, public protection, deterring others from crime, rehabilitation of criminals or holding criminal far from the society. These aims are undisputedly useful for the people in a society. But the dependence on opinions and estimates makes the Utilitarian Theory subjective and changeable, it does not result in general (General what?). The Utilitarian theory works for only for victims and does not protect the rights of criminals, as well as it restricts their liberty. Moreover, it makes the criminal to be a victim due to the fact that the criminal could does not have a chance to defend himself or to have the punishment he deserved. Furthermore, the Utilitarian Theory is mainly based on rehabilitation of criminals and deterrence the others. In the first point, rehabilitation treats the criminals who have mental illness or chemical dependency by health programs and the criminals who have chronic violent behaviour or tendency to crime by using educational programs. But the main problem with this part of the Utilitarian Theory is how much it could be possible to decide the (You need something here - mental, physical, enviromental...) condition of criminals. Criminals could pretend to be like that they do not need to rehabilitation rehabilitate or reform. Sentencing people for an uncertain time, based on just estimates, drags society into disturbance and chaos. In the second point, it is commonly believed that punishment is expected to act as a deterrent. Utilitarian Theory commonly uses the media to announce the punishment given to a criminal. Expressing this in three columns causes to punishes the family and friends of the criminal rather than to detering other people. In Utilitarian Theory wants to present an example to the rest of the society. Therefore, every crime must receive its punishment. In a such cases when that the criminal could not be caught up, a scapegoat is chosen from innocent people in order to make deterrence. But the Retributive Theory ensures deterrence of others by that criminal behavior is punished while providing general trust and confidence in society and without punishing innocents.


Moral consciousness is important as a point of view of society to crime. Moral consciousness supports Retributive Theory suggesting just crime. It emphasizes that punishment must not be given to the people that are not responsible for their acts and it is opposed to excessive punishment. For instance, in an example wherein a college has a fund given to it for encouragement of a subject which is not expiring, but there are great needs in other areas for that money, according to moral consciousness, the thing to do is to keep the promise and not to divert the money to another subject as in Retributive Theory. But, conversely, Utilitarian people support that the notion to divert the money but keep dark quite about it(Mabbott 113). It’s more like to occur that people, especially benefactors, could hear it and this breaks down the confidence of people in the society and, more importantly, holds back the benefactors from endowing. Consequently, Utilitarian Theory is in contradiction with moral consciousness and cannot meet the welfare of a society.

In conclusion, taking into account all these factors above, we can safely conclude at that Retributive Theory provides the aims of Utilitarian Theory without damaging the order of society. It generally meets moral consciousness, ensures the deterrence of others by in that all crimes have a punishment while providing deserved punishment. Just punishment maintains the confidence of a society to justification and government.

Here are some suggested changes. You should rewrite this and resubmit it as it still needs some work.