punishment

/pun"ish meuhnt/, n.

1. the act of punishing.

2. the fact of being punished, as for an offense or fault.

3. a penalty inflicted for an offense, fault, etc.

4. severe handling or treatment.

[1250-1300; ME punysshement < AF punisement, OF punissement. See PUNISH, -MENT]

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(as used in expressions)

capital punishment

corporal punishment

strong and hard punishment

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▪ law

Introduction

      the infliction of some kind of pain or loss upon a person for a misdeed (i.e., the transgression of a law or command). Punishment may take forms ranging from capital punishment, flogging, forced labour, and mutilation of the body to imprisonment and fines. Deferred punishments consist of penalties that are imposed only if an offense is repeated within a specified time.

      In some premodern societies, punishment was largely vindictive or retributive, and its prosecution was left to the individuals wronged (or to their families). In quantity and quality such punishment bore no special relation to the character or gravity of the offense. Gradually there arose the idea of proportionate punishment, such as was reflected in the biblical dictum “an eye for an eye” (see talion). Eventually punishment by individuals came under the control of the community; later, with the development of codes of law, the state (state) took over the punitive function for the maintenance of public order. Under such a system, the state is viewed as the entity wronged by the crime, and the exaction of punishment by individuals acting on their own behalf (as in cases of lynching) is illegal.

      This article deals with theories and objectives of punishment and examines general systems of punishment in various countries and regions. For discussion of specific forms of punishment, see capital punishment, flogging, exile and banishment, and drawing and quartering. For additional general discussion, see torture.

Theories and objectives of punishment

 Punishment has been a subject of debate among philosophers, political leaders, and lawyers for centuries. Various theories of punishment have been developed, each of which attempts to justify the practice in some form and to state its proper objectives.

      Modern punishment theories date from the 18th century, when the humanitarian movement in Europe emphasized the dignity of the individual, as well as his rationality and responsibility. The quantity and severity of punishments were reduced, the prison system was improved, and the first attempts were made to study the psychology of crime and to distinguish between classes of criminals. During most of the 19th and 20th centuries, individuals who broke the law were viewed as the product of social conditions, and accordingly punishment was considered justified only insofar as (1) it protected society by acting as a deterrent or by temporarily or permanently removing one who has injured it or (2) it aimed at the moral or social regeneration of the criminal. By the latter half of the 20th century, however, many people in Western countries objected to this view of punishment, believing that it placed too little responsibility on offenders for their actions, undervalued the additional deterrent effect derivable from severe, as compared with moderate, punishment, and ignored society's ostensible right to retribution.

Retribution

      The retributive theory of punishment holds that punishment is justified by the moral requirement that the guilty make amends for the harm they have caused to society. Retributive theories generally maintain, as did the Italian criminologist Cesare Beccaria (Beccaria, Cesare) (1738–94), that the severity of a punishment should be proportionate to the gravity of the offense. Some retributive theories hold that punishment should never be imposed to achieve a social objective (such as law-abiding behaviour in the future by the offender or by others who witness his example), while others allow social objectives to be pursued as secondary goals. Many (but not all) retributive theories also claim that punishment should not be inflicted on a person unless he is found guilty of a specific offense (thus, they would prohibit collective punishment and the taking of hostages from the general population).

      Although retributive theorists do not base their justification of punishment on its possible deterrent or reformative effects, many of them agree that punishment can perform a salutary educational function. The enactment and implementation of the criminal law—including particularly the imposition of sentences—provides a concrete example of society's values and thereby reinforces them. Citizens whose moral values are reinforced by court judgments may feel more strongly committed to them than previously; by contrast, they may question or feel less constrained by values that the courts visibly ignore. Without this kind of reinforcement, some retributivists argue, the legitimacy of the legal system itself may be undermined, leading eventually to general moral decline and the dissolution of society.

      Retributivists also contend that punishment of offenders by the state satisfies the community's natural demand for justice and helps to prevent victims of crime and those close to them from seeking revenge through direct violence. A variation of this idea is that punishment is a kind of expiation: offenders should undergo punishment in their own interests to discharge their guilt and to make themselves acceptable to society again.

Utilitarian (Utilitarianism) theories

 According to utilitarian (Utilitarianism) theories, punishment is justified by its deterrence of criminal behaviour and by its other beneficial consequences for individuals as well as for society. Among several utilitarian theories recognized by criminologists, some stress general deterrence and some individual deterrence.

General deterrence

      The approach based on general deterrence aims to dissuade others from following the offender's example. Less concerned with the future behaviour of the offender himself, general deterrence theories assume that, because most individuals are rational, potential offenders will calculate the risk of being similarly caught, prosecuted, and sentenced for the commission of a crime. Deterrence theory has proven difficult to validate, however, largely because the presence of many intervening factors makes it difficult to prove unequivocally that a certain penalty has prevented someone from committing a given crime. Nevertheless, there have been occasional examples showing that some sentences can have a strong deterrent effect. Laws designed to prevent driving under the influence of alcohol (e.g., by setting a maximum legal level of blood alcohol content) can have a temporary deterrent effect on a wide population, especially when coupled with mandatory penalties and a high probability of conviction.

      Proponents of capital punishment have claimed that it serves as an effective deterrent against murder (see homicide). Research in the United States, however, has shown that some jurisdictions that use the death penalty have higher murder rates than those that do not. There are several interpretations of this pattern. Some argue that use of the death penalty is a response to, but not a cause of, high murder rates, while some maintain that it has a brutalizing effect on society that increases the incidence of murder by instilling a lower regard for human life. (See below Effectiveness of punishment (punishment).)

      Another form of deterrence, known by the term denunciation, utilizes public condemnation as a form of community moral education. In this approach, a person found guilty of a crime is denounced—that is, subjected to shame and public criticism. Although denunciation is closely associated with general deterrence through fear—and many courts have imposed sentences designed to achieve both objectives simultaneously—there is an important distinction between them. Education through denunciation is generally aimed at discouraging law-abiding citizens from committing criminal acts. Its object is to reinforce their rejection of law-breaking behaviour. Most people do not steal because they believe that stealing is dishonest; a sentence imposed on a thief reinforces that view. General deterrence through fear is aimed at those who avoid law-breaking behaviour not on moral grounds but on the basis of a calculation of the potential rewards and penalties involved.

Individual deterrence

      Individual deterrence is directed at the person being punished: it aims to teach him not to repeat the behaviour. It is also the rationale of much informal punishment, such as parental punishment of children. Theoretically, the effectiveness of individual deterrence can be measured by examining the subsequent conduct of the offender. Such studies often have been misleading, however, because in most cases the only basis for proving that the offender repeated his crime is a further conviction. Because a high proportion of crimes do not result in convictions, many offenders who are not reconvicted after being punished may have committed additional crimes. Furthermore, the general pattern of “aging out” of crime (i.e., the fact that criminal behaviour peaks in the late teens and early 20s and declines rapidly thereafter) contributes to the difficulty of measuring the effectiveness of particular deterrence strategies.

      Theories of deterrence and retribution share the idea that punishments should be proportionate to the gravity of the crime, a principle of practical importance. If all punishments were the same, there would be no incentive to commit the lesser rather than the greater offense. The offender might as well use violence against the victim of a theft if the penalty for armed robbery were no more severe than that for larceny.

Incapacitation

      Incapacitation refers to the act of making an individual “incapable” of committing a crime—historically by execution (capital punishment) or banishment (exile and banishment), and in more modern times by execution or lengthy periods of incarceration. Most instances of incapacitation involve offenders who have committed repeated crimes (multiple recidivists) under what are known as habitual offender statutes, which permit longer-than-normal sentences for a given offense. Incapacitation is also utilized, for example, in cases involving offenders who are deemed dangerous (such as those guilty of murder) and likely to commit grave and violent crimes unless restrained. Given the difficulty of identifying such offenders with certainty, the principle of incapacitation is controversial. It has also been difficult to reconcile with other principles, especially those advocating equal retribution.

      A particularly controversial example of incapacitation is the so-called “chemical castration” of sex offenders with hormonal drugs that supposedly reduce or eliminate the sex drive. In 1996 the U.S. state of California adopted a law requiring this treatment for those convicted of sex offenses against children. The results were mixed, however, as the drug therapies achieved their intended purpose principally when they were used on a voluntary basis in connection with psychological treatments intended to help the offender understand and control his actions. That is, the drugs alone usually did not make the offender “incapable” of committing sex crimes.

Rehabilitation

      The most recently formulated theory of punishment is that of rehabilitation—the idea that the purpose of punishment is to apply treatment and training to the offender so that he is made capable of returning to society and functioning as a law-abiding member of the community. Established in legal practice in the 19th century, rehabilitation was viewed as a humane alternative to retribution and deterrence, though it did not necessarily result in an offender receiving a more lenient penalty than he would have received under a retributive or deterrent philosophy. In many cases rehabilitation meant that an offender would be released on probation under some condition; in other cases it meant that he would serve a relatively longer period in custody to undergo treatment or training. One widely used instrument of rehabilitation in the United States was the indeterminate sentence, under which the length of detention was governed by the degree of reform the offender exhibited while incarcerated.

      Although rehabilitation was widely criticized in the United States in the 1970s, it gained greater acceptance once research in the 1980s and '90s demonstrated that a carefully implemented rehabilitation program could reduce recidivism. Critics nonetheless objected to rehabilitation and sentencing programs that gave significant discretion to the prison administrator, who could decide to release or further detain an offender depending on his assessment of the offender's progress (which could itself be vaguely defined). At issue were cases in which this authority led to gross abuses, such as the lengthy detention of an offender guilty of only a minor crime, simply because of his inability or refusal to adopt a subservient attitude toward prison officials or other persons in positions of authority.

Theories in conflict

      In the practical operation of a sentencing (sentence) or penal system, theories of punishment often come into conflict. A lenient sentence (such as probation) designed to rehabilitate an offender may fail to express society's rejection of the behaviour or to provide an effective deterrent to others; a sentence that requires the offender to submit to a compulsory program of treatment or training for a long period may conflict with the idea of retribution as a limiting principle (a constraint on excessive or unfair punishment); a sentence of unusual severity, designed to make an example of the offender as a warning to others, conflicts with the principles of rehabilitation and proportionality; and a sentence whose object is incapacitation may fail to satisfy those who favour rehabilitation and proportionality. The operation of any sentencing system requires officials to choose between different theories in different cases; no single theory provides a system suitable for all cases.

Punishment in non-Western societies

Punishment in Islamic law

      Starting in the 19th century, most Muslim countries adopted Western criminal codes patterned after French, Swiss, or English systems of justice. Traditional Islamic law ( Sharīʿah) divides crimes into two general categories. Several serious offenses, known as ḥadd crimes, are specifically mentioned, along with their appropriate penalties, in the Qurʾān; the ḥadd punishment for theft, for example, was amputation of a hand. In practice, however, many such punishments are mitigated by social and political constraints. Thus, a person who is caught stealing might negotiate a lenient punishment by offering to pay for the item in question, often at a much higher price.

 Most other offenses in Islamic law are called taʿzīr crimes (discretionary crimes), and their punishment is left to the discretion of the qāḍī (qadi) (judge), whose options are often limited to traditional forms (imprisonment or corporal punishment) but who may also feel obliged to enforce punishments dictated by local customs and mores. The imposition of fines is a traditional punishment that has grown more common in some areas.

      Murder within Islamic societies has traditionally been treated not as a crime against the people but as a dispute between family or tribal groups. The murdered man's kin might demand the death of the malefactor (they might even carry out the execution themselves), but they may also settle for diyah ( wergild; literally, “man payment”) at a rate determined by social convention. Such arrangements reflect the general belief in Islamic societies that the life of the individual belongs to the group rather than to the individual himself or to society as a whole.

      Within many Islamic countries the extra-judicial killing of persons by members of their own families for real or perceived moral infractions has been relatively common. Such “honour killings” are in fact violations of both civil and Islamic law, but perpetrators frequently use religious reasons to defend their actions, thereby giving the crime a veneer of justification. Murders of this type are seldom punished, particularly when they involve the alleged sexual transgressions of a female, but when punishment is mandated, the sentences are generally light.

Asia

      After the communists took power in China (Chinese law) in 1949, the chief goal of criminal punishment in the country became reform. This policy was founded, according to authoritative Chinese criminal-law textbooks, on the historical mission of the proletariat to reform society and humanity. The notion that an offender incurs a debt to society that can be paid merely by serving a prison term was alien to Chinese penology. Because the state was keenly interested in changing the offender's thinking, imprisonment was generally accompanied by labour and political study.

      The primacy of reform over deterrence changed in the 1970s, when China began to decentralize sectors of its economy. The resulting economic liberalization was accompanied by substantial increases in crime, to which the government responded with a series of deterrence campaigns based on swift, certain, and public punishments. Notwithstanding these efforts, which had limited success, China's imprisonment rate remained moderate. The country applied the death penalty widely, executing thousands of people every year—far more than the combined annual sum of executions occurring in other countries.

 Other Asian countries exhibited very different patterns. Japan (Japanese law) maintained a very low crime rate and one of the lowest imprisonment rates in the world, though some moderate increases in the severity of punishments, including incarceration, created conditions of overcrowding in its prisons starting in the 1990s. Singapore maintained a severe criminal code and a very high imprisonment rate despite having a very low crime rate. Indonesia, the most populous country in Southeast Asia, also imposed harsh penalties for many crimes, including the death penalty for drug trafficking. South Korea (Korea, South) had a low crime rate and a moderate imprisonment rate, and it placed some emphasis on thought reform in its prisons. In the early 21st century Hong Kong was unique in housing the largest proportion of female prisoners worldwide: more than 20 percent of the total prison population was female, compared with a global average of about 5 percent.

Effectiveness of punishment

 There is considerable controversy over the effectiveness of punishment in reducing crime. For example, most researchers have failed to find any systematic relationship between crime rates and imprisonment rates: it is equally probable for regions with high imprisonment rates to have high or low crime rates, while increases or decreases in rates of imprisonment are equally likely to be followed by increases or decreases in crime, and so on. Thus, the “three strikes” legislation passed in many U.S. states in the 1990s, which imposed mandatory prison sentences after three convictions, was found to have no effect on crime rates. Even the death penalty, as noted above, appears to do little to reduce murder rates, since most jurisdictions that use it (including several U.S. states and various other countries) have substantially higher murder rates than jurisdictions that do not. Among Western industrialized countries, the United States has the highest murder rate and is virtually alone in using the death penalty. The state of Texas accounts for a very high proportion of all executions within the country (roughly half in the early years of the 21st century), yet it has continued to experience relatively high rates of murder and violent crime. In general, criminologists believe that severe punishments are not particularly effective in reducing high crime rates.

David A. Thomas Antony Nicolas Allott Ian David Edge Donald C. Clarke Thomas J. Bernard

Additional Reading

General coverage of punishment can be found in Joshua Dressler (ed.), Encyclopedia of Crime and Justice, 2nd ed., 4 vol. (2002); and Mike Maguire, Rod Morgan, and Robert Reiner (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Criminology, 3rd ed. (2002).Works examining sentencing include Michael Tonry and Kathleen Hatlestad (eds.), Sentencing Reform in Overcrowded Times: A Comparative Perspective (1997); Norval Morris and Michael Tonry, Between Prison and Probation: Intermediate Punishments in a Rational Sentencing System (1990); and Peter H. Rossi and Richard A. Berk, Just Punishments (1997).Studies of rehabilitation are the subject of Francis T. Cullen and Brandon K. Applegate (eds.), Offender Rehabilitation: Effective Correctional Intervention (1997); Rudolph Alexander, Jr., Counseling, Treatment, and Intervention Methods With Juvenile and Adult Offenders (2000); Glenn D. Walters, Changing Lives of Crime and Drugs: Intervening with Substance-Abusing Offenders (1998); and Todd R. Clear and Harry R. Dammer, The Offender in the Community, 2nd ed. (2003).Thomas J. Bernard

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