NationStates Jolt Archive

What do you believe is the purpose of the criminal justice system? Is it there to take vengeance against those who have done wrong or is it's purpose to protect society?

EDIT: I forgot to stick "Other" in there so feel free to post another viewpoint.

A good system should have two purposes - to protect the public at large from dangerous people, and to rehabilitate those people.

Vengeance need not apply.

to torture and kill people for my amusement

1. To punish the criminal
2. To deter other crimes
3. To remove the culprit from society at large
4. To make the victim/society whole
5. (last, and definitely least) To rehabilitate

So your poll questions are a bit limiting. :P

1. To punish the criminal
2. To deter other crimes
3. To remove the culprit from society at large
4. To make the victim/society whole
5. (last, and definitely least) To rehabilitate

So your poll questions are a bit limiting. :P
1 + 2 are covered by vengeance, 4 to 5 are covered by protection. 3 is dependent on whether the criminal is being removed to benefit society or simply to cause suffering.
(Although I did intend to add the option of "Other", I forgot.)

The other day there was a thread about a 22 year old man who impregnated and married an underage teenage girl (I can't find the thread now). There were various calls for his imprisonment.
To imprison him would have been vengeance, to punish him for his actions and instill fear of retribution in other members of society. However, it would have been detrimental to the wellbeing of his wife and child. This was considered of secondary importance to societal vengeance.

Now only 3 people have voted for vengeance as the purpose of the criminal justice system, so where is everyone who called for that man's incarceration?

What do you believe is the purpose of the criminal justice system? Is it there to take vengeance against those who have done wrong or is it's purpose to protect society?

EDIT: I forgot to stick "Other" in their so feel free to post another viewpoint.

As it should be :

Protect Society. By removing permanently those who offend against society in violent manner. (Murderers, rapists, child molesters, armed robbers, drug dealers,etc)

Rehabilitation is the the weak sister approach and it doesnt work. How many have been released after serving their time only to commit the crime again in a short period of time ?

To protect society by preventing the criminal from committing any further offences.

There's only one method that guarantees this, and it's generally frowned upon.

As it should be :

Protect Society. By removing permanently those who offend against society in violent manner. (Murderers, rapists, child molesters, armed robbers, drug dealers,etc)

Rehabilitation is the the weak sister approach and it doesnt work. How many have been released after serving their time only to commit the crime again in a short period of time ?
Rehabilitation can be very effective when dealing with certain types of criminal. Studies show that criminals who are educated in prison are less likely to reoffend (depending on their crime obviously).
However, very little is currently done to rehabilitate prisoners. Therefore, the purpose for their incarceration is vengeance. While this may make some people feel good or garner votes for a demagogue, it is of little value in the long term for society as a whole. So why do it?

To remove the culprit from society at large
Remove, or "remove"?

1 + 2 are covered by vengeance, 4 to 5 are covered by protection. 3 is dependent on whether the criminal is being removed to benefit society or simply to cause suffering.
(Although I did intend to add the option of "Other", I forgot.)


Prevention is not vengence. Its pre-emptiveion.

A Vengeance need not apply.

I disagree. While deterence and reforming criminal is important I still think that retrobution is also important. Put simply I still think we need to punish criminals

I remember this from debate...

Anyway, in the end, it's goal cannot be deterrence or retributive punishment (unless you're counting law enforcement as part of this, then deterrence is), because deterrence only has a very limited effectiveness, and true retributive punishment would require doing exactly what one did to another to the former (which is bot hard to measure and also would require chopping off the heads of ax murderers, or shooting someone in the exact places as they shot someone else. Not easy tasks.)

Prevention is not vengence. Its pre-emptiveion.
What kind of prevention are you talking about?

Retribution and deterance should be the only purposes of criminal justice. Make prison a place where people don't want to go and they won't commit crimes.

1 + 2 are covered by vengeance, 4 to 5 are covered by protection. 3 is dependent on whether the criminal is being removed to benefit society or simply to cause suffering.

Actually, I consider two a method of protection. I consider retribution for the sake of retribution kind of sadistic for society, but if it means that people are less likely to commit crime overall then I'm for it, within reason. I put protect society because I feel that segration, rehabilitation and deterence all fall under protecting society in one way or another. Only pure retribution has no benefits to society.

EDIT: Take someone who yells at/gets angry with/puts down his or her child for doing something wrong. If that person is yelling/getting angry/putting down to keep the child from doing it again, we deem it acceptable. If the person is yelling/getting angry/putting down just to make the child feel bad without any regard for whether or not it will stop the child from doing it again, we consider that cruel and abusive. I consider it weak of society to give into the urge to hurt someone out of frusturation at a scenario unless that hurt is reasonable in the sense that it is not out of proportion to the offense and more importantly, that it will actually do some good.

EDITA: Most people consider pedophiles diseased. We keep them out of society as a sort of quarantine in the hopes that we can cure them, though it is unlikely. It also sends the message to those with pedophilic urges that we want them to resist those urges as much as possible, and that if we can't we won't be able to let them stay in society. However, why should we actually punish pedophiles? Isn't just keeping them out of the way good enough?

I believe that in certain milieus, the criminal justice system is being used to criminalize certain socioeconomic groups, thus ensuring the erosion of electoral power among the lower lasses due to the widespread practice of refusing prisoners their right to vote... and in previous discussions on NS, it has been mentioned that the process to have an individual's right to vote reinstated is protracted and murky at best, giving rise to apathy and an electorate that increasingly does not refelcet the true will of the nation.

Of course, I'm just some foreigner - hey whadda I know anyway?