Retribution, Rehabilitation, Deterrence, Containment
 

Which of these do you consider to be the most important functions of the criminal justice system and why?

Re: Retribution, Rehabilitation, Deterrence, Containment
 

By criminal justice system do you mean the police as well or just courts, jails, the probation system, etc?

I think it depends on what type of crime were talking about

Containment, deterrence, rehabilitation, in that order. There's no place for retribution in a civilized society.

If the police are part of the definition, I'd have to go with Deterrance, containment, rehab, retribution. By retribution I mean that there is punishment as a result of crimes not that there is revenge for the crimes.

rehabilitation, Containment, deterrence
I think deterrence doesn't work. and I agree with lurkette, there should be no room for retribution.

Containment, Rehabilitation, Deterrence and Retribution. Though I don't think that deterrence works, and I have to echo lurkette's sentiments on retribution. I think that the number one priority is protecting the general population from criminal activity. If the criminal can be rehabilitated, then so much the better.

In a perfect world the criminal justice system (ie Jail) should be all about rehabilitation. but I feel that in this day in age it is all about containment (ie warehousing).

I just want to point out that criminologists differentiate between general deterrence (punish one crook, the rest of the population is afraid to steal) and specific deterrence (punish one crook, he or she becomes afraid to steal again).

I believe the consensus is that specific deterrence works when people believe they are likely to be caught and general deterrence only "works" in that it prevents crimes for a short period of time.

For example, death penalty studies show that murders do decrease after an execution, but they only do so for a few weeks. After that, they tend to increase in rate.

My order: Specific deterrence, Containment of those most likely to recidivate (this means releasing one-time murderers and non-violent sex-offenders to extremely strict home monitoring; drug users and property criminals (usually linked to drug abuse) to heavily monitored drug programs), containment of the 6-8% of rest in prison (only 6-8% of criminals comprise nearly all of the crime and are repeat, violent offenders), our containment centers ought to focus on Rehabilitation, and no retribution in terms of punishment for the sake of punishment (this includes making prisons "worse" to make sure people don't want to come back--FYI, most don't already).

One selling point of "shall issue" CCW laws is that it acts as a [general] deterrant. This is reinforced each time that a mugger/home invader/rapist is shot during an attempted crime.

..increase in rate back up to pre-execution rates, or do you mean that they end up higher than ever before?

I consider deterrence to be the most important function of the criminal justice system. Detterence, which leads to the protection of the entire community, is much more important than rehabilitation, which assumes that the criminal is a good person at heart, and blames the surroundings on his misdeeds.

However, personally I am very spiteful. Civilization or not, I love to see people get punished for their misdeeds. I hope there's no argument about this, as this is just a description of my feelings, not a political statement.

I completely agree with Lurkette.

The disturbing part is that they actually increase to a higher level than before.

We have yet to indentify the cause of this, but suggestions range from time differences (it's difficult to do a controlled experiment with murder rates ;)) to a desenstization due to media portrayals of the execution (necessary for deterrence to work).

perhaps it's some kind of spring effect, like all the potential murderers who repress themselves for a few weeks after the death penalty case all snap at the same.


One reason I posted this thread is that normally, I would pretty much have agreed with Lurkette about this, but yesterday I started thinking about this slightly differently.

While there is no room in civilised society for retribution, neither is there any for crime. Yet both still exist and always will in one way or another. These things are hardwired.

We couldn't run society if we simply ignored crime, so we find ways of keeping it to a minimum instead. I think the same goes for retribution.

Imagine some psychopath breaks into your house and murders your family blah blah blah. You're going to be pretty pissed off, right? Now lets imagine, Clockwork Orange stylee, that there is some system in place whereby criminals can be 'cured' of all criminality within a week, without suffering, thus fulfilling the need for rehabilitation and personal deterrence and negating the need for containment. This process wipes all recollection of their crime from the criminal's mind (I say this because I think guilt and shame, for the 25% who are capable of feeling it, are probably a large part of what the criminal suffers for their crime) Lets also imagine there is a fairly effective social mechanism in place to act as a a general deterrant.

Consequently you see the same guy wander down your street, whistling a week later.

Quite simply put, you're going to want to fuck him up...

...Oh dear I've just negated my own argument. I thought I was arguing the need for retribution, but this looks like the argument for containment: If the guy had been contained for long enough, then by the time you saw him, your desire for retribution might have died down. I'll leave this in, because it seems relevant anyway.

D'oh!