Punishment is the practice of imposing something negative or unpleasant Suffering, or pain in a broad sense, is an individual's basic affective experience of unpleasantness and aversion associated with harm or threat of harm. Suffering may be qualified as physical or mental. It may come in all degrees of intensity, from mild to intolerable. Factors of duration and frequency of occurrence usually compound that of on a person or animal or property, usually in response to disobedience, defiance, or behavior deemed morally wrong by individual, governmental, or religious principles.

Etymology

The word is the abstract substantivation of the verb to punish, which has been recorded in English since 1340, deriving from Old French puniss-, an extended form of the stem of punir "to punish," from Latin punire "inflict a penalty on, cause pain for some offense," earlier poenire, from poena "penalty, punishment of great loss". Latin punire possibly was inspired by the Phoenician Phoenicia was an ancient civilization centered in the north of ancient Canaan, with its heartland along the coastal regions of modern day Lebanon, Syria and Israel. Phoenician civilization was an enterprising maritime trading culture that spread across the Mediterranean during the period 1550 BC to 300 BC. Though ancient boundaries of such city- method of execution by means of crucifixion Crucifixion is an ancient method of painful execution in which the condemned person is tied or nailed to a large wooden cross and left to hang until dead. The term comes from the Latin crucifixio ("fixed to a cross", from the prefix cruci-, "cross", + verb figere, "fix or bind fast".). Therefore the Carthaginian Carthage refers to a series of cities on the Gulf of Tunis, from a Phoenician colony of the 1st millennium BC to the current suburb outside Tunis, Tunisia crosses were called signae poenae "signs of the Phoenicians".

Colloquial use of "punish" for "inflict heavy damage or loss" is first recorded in 1801, originally in boxing; the meaning "hard-hitting" is from 1811. Just deserts no doubt reflects this in modern theories of punsihment.

Definitions

In philosophy

In common usage, the word "punishment" might be described as "an authorized imposition of deprivations — of freedom or privacy or other goods to which the person otherwise has a right, or the imposition of special burdens — because the person has been found guilty of some criminal violation, typically (though not invariably) involving harm to the innocent."

In psychology

Introduced by B.F. Skinner Burrhus Frederic Skinner was an American psychologist, author, inventor, social philosopher, and poet. He was the Edgar Pierce Professor of Psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his retirement in 1974, punishment has a more restrictive and technical definition. Along with reinforcement it belongs under the Operant Conditioning Operant conditioning is the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behavior. Operant conditioning is distinguished from classical conditioning in that operant conditioning deals with the modification of "voluntary behavior" or operant behavior. Operant behavior "operates" on the environment and is maintained category. Operant Conditioning refers to learning with either punishment or reinforcement. It is also referred to as response-stimulus conditioning. In psychology, punishment is the reduction of a behavior via application of a adverse stimulus ("positive punishment") or removal of a pleasant stimulus ("negative punishment"). Extra chores or spanking are examples of positive punishment, while making an offending student lose recess or play privileges are examples of negative punishment. The definition requires that punishment is only determined after the fact by the reduction in behavior; if the offending behavior of the subject does not decrease then it is not considered punishment. There is some conflation Conflation occurs when the identities of two or more individuals, concepts, or places, sharing some characteristics of one another, become confused until there seems to be only a single identity — the differences appear to become lost. In logic, the practice of treating two distinct concepts as if they were one does often produce error or of punishment and aversives In psychology, aversives are unpleasant stimuli that induce changes in behavior through punishment; by applying an aversive immediately following a behavior, the likelihood of the behavior occurring in the future is reduced. Aversives can vary from being slightly unpleasant or irritating to physically damaging (such as an electric shock). It is, though an aversive that does not decrease behavior is not considered punishment.

Scope of application

Punishments are applied for various purposes, most generally, to encourage and enforce proper behavior as defined by society or family. Criminals Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction. Individual human societies may each define crime and crimes differently. While every crime violates the law, not every violation of the law counts as a crime; for example: breaches of contract and of other civil law may rank as " are punished judicially, by fines The most usual use of the term, fine, relates to a financial punishment for the commission of minor crimes or as the settlement of a claim. A synonym, typically used in civil law actions, is mulct, corporal punishment Corporal punishment is the deliberate infliction of pain as retribution for an offence, or for the purpose of disciplining or reforming a wrongdoer, or to deter attitudes or behaviour deemed unacceptable. The term usually refers to methodically striking the offender with an implement, whether in judicial, domestic, or educational settings or custodial sentences A custodial sentence is a judicial sentence, imposing a punishment consisting of mandatory custody of the convict, either in prison (incarceration) or in some other closed therapeutic and/or (re)educational institution, such as a reformatory, (maximum security) psychiatry or drug detoxication (especially cold turkey). For some crimes, such as such as prison A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Other terms are penitentiary, correctional facility, and jail (or gaol), although in the United States "jail" and "prison" refer to different subtypes of correctional facility. Jails are conventionally; detainees risk further punishments for breaches of internal rules. Children Biologically, a child is generally a human between the stages of birth and puberty. The legal definition[by whom?] of "child" generally refers to a minor, otherwise known as a person younger than the age of majority. "Child" may also describe a relationship with a parent or authority figure, or signify group membership in a, pupils and other trainees may be punished by their educators or instructors (mainly parents A parent is a caretaker of the offspring in their own species. In humans, a parent is the mother or the father figure of a child (NOTE: "child" refers to offspring, not necessarily age). Children can have one or more parents, but they must have two biological parents. Biological parents consist of the male who sired the child and the, guardians A legal guardian a person who has the legal authority to care for the personal and property interests of another person, called a ward. Usually, a person has the status of guardian because the ward is incapable of caring for his or her own interests due to infancy, incapacity, or disability. Most countries and states have laws that provide that, or teachers In education, a teacher is a person who provides schooling for others. A teacher who facilitates education for an individual student may also be described as a personal tutor. The role of teacher is often formal and ongoing, carried out by way of occupation or profession at a school or other place of formal education. In many countries, a person, tutors and coaches In sports, a coach is an individual involved in the direction, instruction and training of the operations of a sports team or of individual sportspeople) - see Child discipline.

Slaves Slavery is a system in which people are the property of others. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand wages. In some societies it was legal for an owner to kill a slave; in others it was a crime to kill a slave, domestic and other servants used to be punishable by their masters. Employees can still be subject to a contractual form of fine or demotion. Most hierarchical organizations, such as military and police forces, or even churches, still apply quite rigid internal discipline, even with a judicial system of their own (court martial, canonical courts).

Punishment may also be applied on moral, especially religious, grounds, as in penance Penance is repentance of sins as well as the proper name of the Roman Catholic, Orthodox Christian, and Anglican Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation/Confession. It also plays a part in non-sacramental confession among Lutherans and other Protestants. The word penance derives from Old French and Latin poenitentia, both of which derive from the (which is voluntary) or imposed in a theocracy with a religious police (as in a strict Islamic state like Iran or under the Taliban The Taliban, alternative spelling Taleban, is a Sunni Islamist political movement that governed Afghanistan from 1996 until it was overthrown in late 2001. It has regrouped since 2004 and revived as a strong insurgency movement governing mainly local Pashtun areas during night and fighting a guerrilla war against the governments of Afghanistan,) or (though not a true theocracy) by Inquisition The term Inquisition or inquisition can apply to any one of several institutions charged with trying and convicting heretics within the justice-system of the Roman Catholic Church. It may also refer to:.

History and rationale

The progress of civilization has resulted in a change alike in the theory and in the method of punishment. In primitive society punishment was left to the individuals wronged or their families, and was vindictive or retributive: in quantity and quality it would bear no special relation to the character or gravity of the offense^{[citation needed]}.

Gradually there would arise the idea of proportionate punishment, of which the characteristic type is an eye for an eye The phrase, "an eye for an eye", , is a quotation from several passages of the Hebrew Bible (Leviticus 24:19–21, Exodus 21:22–25, and Deuteronomy 19:21) in which a person who has injured the eye of another is instructed to give his or her own eye in compensation. At the root of this principle is that one of the purposes of the law is. The second stage was punishment by individuals under the control of the state, or community^{[citation needed]}; in the third stage, with the growth of law, the state took over the primitive function and provided itself with the machinery of justice Justice is the concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, fairness, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics for the maintenance of public order^{[citation needed]}. Henceforward crimes are against the state, and the exaction of punishment by the wronged individual is illegal (compare Lynch Law CERD · CEDAW · CDE · ILO C111 · ILO C100 · ILO C169 · Protocol No. 12 ECHR).

Even at this stage the vindictive or retributive character of punishment remains, but gradually, and specially after the humanist movement under thinkers like Beccaria Cesare, Marquis of Beccaria-Bonesana was an Italian philosopher and politician best known for his treatise On Crimes and Punishments (1764), which condemned torture and the death penalty, and was a founding work in the field of penology and Jeremy Bentham Jeremy Bentham was an English jurist, philosopher, and legal and social reformer. He became a leading theorist in Anglo-American philosophy of law, and a political radical whose ideas influenced the development of welfarism. He is best known for his advocacy of utilitarianism and animal rights, and the idea of the panopticon, new theories begin to emerge. Two chief trains of thought have combined in the condemnation of primitive theory and practice.

On the one hand the retributive principle itself has been very largely superseded by the protective and the reformative; on the other punishments involving bodily pain have become objectionable to the general sense of society. Consequently corporal and even capital punishment occupy a far less prominent position, and tend everywhere to disappear.

It began to be recognized also that stereotyped punishments, such as belong to penal codes, fail to take due account of the particular condition of an offence and the character and circumstances of the offender. A fixed fine, for example, operates very unequally on rich and poor.

Modern theories date from the 18th century, when the humanitarian movement began to teach the dignity of the individual and to emphasize his rationality and responsibility. The result was the reduction of punishment both in quantity and in severity, the appearance of the prison system, and the first attempts to study the psychology of crime and to distinguish between classes of criminals with a view to their improvement (see criminology Criminology is the scientific study of the nature, extent, causes, and control of criminal behavior in both the individual and in society. Criminology is an interdisciplinary field in the behavioral sciences, drawing especially upon the research of sociologists (particularly in the sociology of deviance), social anthropologists and psychologists,, crime Crime is the breach of rules or laws for which some governing authority can ultimately prescribe a conviction. Individual human societies may each define crime and crimes differently. While every crime violates the law, not every violation of the law counts as a crime; for example: breaches of contract and of other civil law may rank as ", juvenile delinquency Juvenile delinquency refers to children who act against the law. Most legal systems prescribe specific procedures for dealing with juveniles, such as juvenile detention centers. There are a multitude of different theories on the causes of crime, most if not all of which can be applied to the causes of youth crime. Youth crime is a major issue and).

These latter problems are the province of criminal anthropology and criminal sociology, sciences so called because they view crime as the outcome of anthropological viz. social conditions. The law breaker is himself a product of social evolution and cannot be regarded as solely responsible for his disposition to transgress. Habitual crime is thus to be treated as a disease. Punishment can, therefore, be justified only insofar as it either protects society by removing temporarily or permanently one who has injured it, or acting as a deterrent, or aims at the moral regeneration of the criminal. Thus the retributive theory of punishment with its criterion of justice as an end in itself gives place to a theory which regards punishment solely as a means to an end, utilitarian or moral, according as the common advantage or the good of the criminal is sought.

In his 1975 book Discipline and Punish, Michel Foucault Michel Foucault , born Paul-Michel Foucault (15 October 1926 – 25 June 1984), was a French philosopher, sociologist, and historian. He held a chair at the prestigious Collège de France with the title "History of Systems of Thought," and also taught at the University at Buffalo and the University of California, Berkeley describes in detail the evolution of punishment from hanging, drawing and quartering To be hanged, drawn and quartered was the penalty for high treason in medieval England, and remained on the statute book but seldom used in the United Kingdom[citation needed] and Ireland until abolished under the Treason Act of 1814. It was a form of torture and execution reserved for the most serious crimes, those deemed more heinous than murder of medieval times to the modern systems of fines The most usual use of the term, fine, relates to a financial punishment for the commission of minor crimes or as the settlement of a claim. A synonym, typically used in civil law actions, is mulct and prisons A prison is a place in which people are physically confined and, usually, deprived of a range of personal freedoms. Other terms are penitentiary, correctional facility, and jail (or gaol), although in the United States "jail" and "prison" refer to different subtypes of correctional facility. Jails are conventionally. He sees a trend in criminal punishment from vengeance Revenge is a harmful action against a person or group as a response to a real or perceived grievance. Although many aspects of revenge resemble the concept of justice, revenge connotes a more injurious and punitive focus as opposed to a harmonious and restorative one. Whereas justice generally implies actions undertaken and supported by a by the King to a more practical, utilitarian concern for deterrence Deterrence is a theory from behavioral psychology about preventing or controlling actions or behavior through fear of punishment or retribution. This theory of criminology is shaping the criminal justice system of the United States and various other countries and rehabilitation Penology is a section of criminology that deals with the philosophy and practice of various societies in their attempts to repress criminal activities, and satisfy public opinion via an appropriate treatment regime for persons convicted of criminal offenses. Penology is concerned with the effectiveness of those social processes devised and adopted.

A particularly harsh punishment is sometimes said to be draconian, after Draco Draco was the first legislator of ancient Athens, Greece, 7th century BC. He replaced the prevailing system of oral law and blood feud by a written code to be enforced only by a court. Because of its harshness, this code also gave rise to the term "draconian", the lawgiver of the classical polis of Athens. But as the adjective Spartan still testifies, its wholly militarized rival Sparta was the harshest a state of law can be on its own citizens, e.g. crypteia Krypteia or crypteia was a tradition involving young Spartans, part of the agoge (classical Greek ἀγωγή) regime of Spartan education. Its goal and nature are still a matter of discussion among historians (including flogging for being caught when stealing as ordered).

In operant conditioning Operant conditioning is the use of consequences to modify the occurrence and form of behavior. Operant conditioning is distinguished from classical conditioning in that operant conditioning deals with the modification of "voluntary behavior" or operant behavior. Operant behavior "operates" on the environment and is maintained, punishment is the presentation of a stimulus contingent on a response which results in a decrease in response strength (as evidenced by a decrease in the frequency of response). The effectiveness of punishment in suppressing the response depends on many factors, including the intensity of the stimulus and the consistency with which the stimulus is presented when the response occurs. In parenting, additional factors that increase the effectiveness of punishment include a verbal explanation of the reason for the punishment and a good relationship between the parent and the child. There are also parent/child relations that never acquire punishment, cause nothing wrong has been done.

Possible reasons for punishment

There are many possible reasons that might be given to justify or explain why someone ought to be punished; here follows a broad outline of typical, possibly contradictory, justifications.

Rehabilitation

Some punishment includes work to reform and rehabilitate The assumption of rehabilitation is that people are not permanently criminal and that it is possible to restore a criminal to a useful life, to a life in which they contribute to themselves and to society. A goal of rehabilitation is to prevent habitual offending, also known as criminal recidivism. Rather than punishing the harm out of a criminal, the wrongdoer so that they will not commit the offence again. This is distinguished from deterrence, in that the goal here is to change the offender's attitude to what they have done, and make them come to see that their behavior was wrong.

Incapacitation / societal protection

Incapacitation is a justification of punishment that refers to when the offender’s ability to commit further offenses is removed. This is a forward-looking justification of punishment that views the future reductions in re-offending as sufficient justification for the punishment. This can occur in one of two ways; the offender’s ability to commit crime can be physically removed, or the offender can be geographically removed.

The offender’s ability to commit crime can be physically removed in several ways. This can include cutting the hands off a thief, as well as other crude punishments. The castration of offenders is another punishment that can be justified by incapacitation, furthered by recent media coverage in Britain of the proposed chemical castration of sexual offenders. Incapacitation, in this sense, can include any number of punishments including taking away the driving license of a dangerous driver but can also include capital punishment.

Despite this, incapacitation is predominately thought of as incarceration. Imprisonment has the effect of confining prisoners, physically preventing them from committing crimes against those outside, i.e. protecting the community. Before the widespread use of imprisonment, banishment was used as a form of incapacitation. Nowadays courts have a flexible array of sentence options available to them that can restrict offender’s movements, and subsequently their ability to commit crime. Football hooligans can, for example, be required to attend centres during football matches.

Selective incapacitation is a modified form of incapacitation that rationalises the practice of giving only dangerous and persistent offenders long, and in some case indefinite, prison sentences. The approach adopts a utilitarian viewpoint that regards the protection, and subsequent happiness, of the majority as justification of giving excessive and indefinite prison sentences. There is, however, strong moral opposition to this concept.

Deterrence / prevention

To act as a measure of prevention to those who are contemplating criminal activity. This deterrence is intended to prevent a re-offence by the offender by imposing a punishment that he/she wouldn't want to experience again. The aim is also to deter others in the community from committing the same or a similar offence by making an example of the offender. If this is the chief reason for punishment, the sentence may appear over-harsh when assessed against some of the other reasons.

Restoration

For minor offences, punishment may take the form of the offender "righting the wrong"; for example, a vandal might be made to clean up the mess he/she has made.

In more serious cases, punishment in the form of fines and compensation payments may also be considered a sort of "restoration".

Some libertarians Libertarianism is support for liberty. Libertarians have come to embrace a variety of beliefs about social structures, with some libertarians striving for minimization of the state,[not in citation given][unreliable source?] and others desiring to achieve complete elimination of any hierarchical imposition of authority to include an opposition to argue that full restoration or restitution on an individualistic Individualism is the moral stance, political philosophy, ideology, or social outlook that stresses "the moral worth of the individual". Individualists promote the exercise of one's goals and desires and so independence and self-reliance while opposing most external interference upon one's own interests, whether by society, or any other basis is all that is ever just Justice is the concept of moral rightness based on ethics, rationality, law, natural law, religion, fairness, or equity, along with the punishment of the breach of said ethics, and that this is compatible with both retributivism and a utilitarian Utilitarianism is the idea that the moral worth of an action is determined solely by its utility in providing happiness or pleasure as summed among all sentient beings. It is thus a form of consequentialism, meaning that the moral worth of an action is determined by its outcome. The most influential contributors to this ideology were Jeremy degree of deterrence.[1]

Retribution

Retribution is the practice of "getting even" with a wrongdoer — the suffering of the wrongdoer is seen as good in itself, even if it has no other benefits. One reason for modern centrally-organized societies to include this judicial element is to diminish the perceived need for "street justice", blood feud and vigilantism. However, some argue that this is a "zero-sum game", that such acts of street justice and blood revenge are not removed from society, but responsibility for carrying them out is merely transferred to the state.

Retribution sets an important standard on punishment — the transgressor must get what he deserves, but no more. Therefore, a thief put to death is not retribution; a murderer put to death is. Adam Smith, who is credited as the father of Capitalism, wrote extensively about punishment. In his view, an important reason for punishment is not only deterrence, but also satisfying the resentment of the victim. Moreover, in the case of the death penalty, the retribution goes to the dead victim, not his family. (So, to extend Smith's views, a murderer can be spared the death penalty only by the victim's express wish, made when he was alive.) One great difficulty of this approach is that of judging exactly what it is that the transgressor "deserves". For instance, it may be retribution to put a thief to death if he steals a family's only means of livelihood; conversely, mitigating circumstances may lead to the conclusion that the execution of a murderer is not retribution.

Education

From German Criminal Law, Punishment can be explained by positive prevention theory to use criminal justice system to teach people what are the social norms for what is correct and acts as a reinforcement. It teaches people to obey the law and eliminates the free-rider principle of people not obeying the law getting away with it.

Denunciation / condemnation

Punishment can serve as a means for society to publicly express condemnation of a crime. This serves the dual function of curbing public anger away from vigilante justice, while concurrently stigmatizing the condemned in an effort to deter future criminal activity.[2] This is also known as the "Expressive Theory."[3] Punishment, viewed in this way, helps to give society a sense of moral uprightness, tending to confirm its moral right to have a justice system that exacts punishment on those who do not confirm to society's norms. Such a purpose can be readily accused of being hypocritical.

See also

• Telishment

References

• This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Punishment
• Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Legal Punishment
• Etymology Online
• Zaibert, Leo (2006). Punishment and retribution. Aldershot, Hants, England: Ashgate. ISBN 0-7546-2389-0.

External links

• The Punishment is the Crime

Categories: Punishments | Core issues in ethics | Social philosophy | Sociology | Criminal justice

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• Punishment (Psychology): Encyclopedia

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