Crime And Punishment

Answer : There may be a number of incontrovertible arguments against the death penalty. The most important one is the virtual certainty that genuinely innocent people will be executed and that there is no possible way of compensating them for this miscarriage of justice. There is also another significant but much less realized danger here. The person convicted of the murder may have actually killed the victim and may even admit having done so but does not agree that the killing was murder. Often the only people who know what really happened are the accused and the deceased. It then comes down to the skill of the prosecution and defense lawyers as to whether there will be a conviction for murder or for manslaughter. It is thus highly probable that people are convicted of murder when they should really have only been convicted of manslaughter.

A second reason, that is often overlooked, is the hell the innocent family and friends of criminals must also go through in the time leading up to and during the execution. It is often very difficult for people to come to terms with the fact that their loved one could be guilty of a serious crime and no doubt even more difficult to come to terms with their death in this form. One cannot and should not deny the suffering of the victim’s family in a murder case but the suffering of the murderer’s family is surely valid too. There must always be the concern that the state can administer the death penalty justly, most countries have a very poor record on this. It must be remembered that criminals are real people too who have life and with it the capacity to feel pain, fear and the loss of their loved ones, and all the other emotions that the rest of us are capable of feeling.It is easier to put this thought on one side when discussing the most awful multiple murderers but less so when discussing. There is no such thing as a humane method of putting a person to death irrespective of what the state may claim. Every form of execution causes the prisoner suffering, some methods perhaps cause less than others, but be in no doubt that being executed is a terrifying ordeal for the criminal. What is also often overlooked is the mental suffering that the criminal suffers in the time leading up to the execution. There may be a brutalizing effect upon society by carrying out executions. They still do today in those countries where executions are carried out in public.It is hard to prove this one way or the other - people stop and look at car crashes but it doesn’t make them go and have an accident to see what it is like.It would seem that there is a natural voyeurism in most people. The death penalty is the bluntest of “blunt instruments,” it removes the individual’s humanity and with it any chance of rehabilitation and their giving something back to society.In the case of the worst criminals, this may be acceptable but is more questionable in the case of less awful crimes. In the short term (say the next 10 years), there is no realistic chance of reinstatement, however, despite majority public support for such a move. Reintroduction of something that has been abolished is always much more difficult than introducing something entirely new. There is no doubt that capital punishment is a very emotive issue and there is a strong anti-death penalty lobby in many countries which would put every obstacle in the way of its return should it ever become likely.

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Answer : Sanctions permitting genocides are many and people or groups committing such heinous crimes try to authenticate it by putting up so many reasons. Most of these reasons revolve around social, economic, political, ethnic and racial considerations. But all these grounds for sanctioning the genocide are baseless and self styled notion to validate such mass murder. For genocide to happen, they put forward certain preconditions. Foremost among them is a national culture that does not place a high value on human life. A totalitarian society, with its assumed superior ideology, is also a precondition for genocidal acts. In addition, members of the dominant society must perceive their potential victims as less than fully human: as pagans, savages, uncouth barbarians, unbelievers, effete degenerates, ritual outlaws, racial inferiors, class antagonists, counterrevolutionaries, and so on. In themselves, these conditions are not enough for the perpetrators to commit genocide. To do that that is, to commit genocide the perpetrators need a strong, centralized authority and bureaucratic organization as well as pathological individuals and criminals. Also they start a campaign of vilification and dehumanization of the victims by the perpetrators, who are usually new states or new regimes attempting to impose conformity to a new ideology and its model of society. There is no valid logic behind racial sanction. In this age of developed medical science it has been proved again and again that no race is superior. In terms of ethnicity all races and therefore al men are equal because they all have one thing in common and that is dignity. Again religious sanction is also based on the false notion of superior and inferior religions. This is also a baseless claim. Religion itself is not good or bad or better to say inferior or superior. It is the human being that claims their religion superior due to the lack of true understanding of the spirit of religions. All religions have common element of ultimate supreme power with different names, the fact which is misinterpreted by the followers of different religions. Moreover economic and political sanctions are over emphasized. There is always a solution of the political and economic insecurity. Killing people in mass is not going to solve this problem. Rather it may aggravate the problem leading to counter violence.

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Answer : This statement is related to the theory of deterrence. Punishment is the practice of imposing something unpleasant or aversive on a person or animal or property, usually in response to disobedience, defiance, or behaviour deemed morally wrong by individual, governmental, or religious principles. 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.” Deterrence may be of three kinds.

General Deterrence: People will engage in criminal and deviant activities if they do not fear apprehension and punishment. Norms, laws, and enforcement are to be designed and implemented to produce and maintain the image that “negative” and disruptive behaviours will receive attention and punishment. Although specific individuals become the object of enforcement activities, general deterrence theory focuses on reducing the probability of deviance in the general population. Examples of control activities reflecting the concerns of this concept include: Drunk-driving crackdowns, special gang-related crime task forces and police units, publication and highly visible notices of laws and policies and the death penalty.

Specific Deterrence: General deterrence strategies focus on future behaviours, preventing individuals from engaging in crime or deviant by impacting their rational decision making process. Specific deterrence focuses on punishing known deviants in order to prevent them from ever again violating the specific norms they have broken. The concern here is that motives and rationales that lie behind the original behaviour can, perhaps, never be delineated, but through the rational use of punishment as a negative sanction, problematic behaviour can be extinguished. Examples: shock sentencing, corporal punishment, mandatory arrests for certain behaviours (domestic violence), etc.

Incapacitation: Within the concept of specific deterrence is the idea that punishment must be effective. Most punishment in the modern societies involves imprisonment. Research demonstrates that recidivism amongst convicted felons following release from prison is as high as 63% and that most prison inmates had arrest records and convictions prior to their current offense. The conclusion, then, is incarcerated to incapacitate. Prison as punishment may not alter future behavior, but it certainly reduces the chances an individual has for engaging in any other crime or deviance, and at least reduces the threat they constitute to the general population. Lock them up and throw away the key.

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Answer : Support for the death penalty varies widely, and it can be a highly contentious political issue, particularly in democracies that use it. In many parts of Asia where it is maintained including Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia the death penalty appears to have large amounts of public support and there is little public movement to abolish it. In countries where it has been abolished, debate is sometimes revived by particularly brutal murders, though few countries have brought it back after abolition. However, some opinion polls in Europe and Canada suggest that the death penalty has similar support there to the United States. Others show that the support of the death penalty dropped significantly in the years after the abolition in Western European countries while in most former communist countries there is still a majority for the reintroduction.

There are two major debates on the death penalty. Utilitarian arguments are about the cost and the benefit of the death penalty to society. The Justice argument is concerned with the question about whether retribution (vengeance) can be regarded as just. It can be argued that a killing is justified if such an act could save another life. In the pre-modern period, authorities had neither the resources nor the inclination to detain someone indefinitely. For this reason, the death penalty was usually the only means to prevent a violent criminal from re-offending. Moreover, where there were no standing police forces, the rate of detection for some crimes, such as banditry, were low. In these instances, it was considered necessary to make examples of a few to discourage the rest. Opponents of the death penalty point out that capital cases usually cost more than life imprisonment due to the extra costs of the courts such as appeals and extra supervisions. Proponents counter this argument by stating that the severity and finality of death as punishment demands that the extra resources be expended. When some death row inmates are freed on appeal or their sentence is reduced, that is a demonstration that the system works thanks to the extra expense of the judicial appeal system. The opponents argue that such reversal is proof that the system doesn’t work, especially at the initial trial. For example, in the U.S.A., the accused is allowed to plead guilty so as to avoid the death penalty. This plea requires the accused to forfeit any appeal arguing innocence on material or procedural grounds. Furthermore, by waiving the threat of the death penalty, individuals can be encouraged to plead guilty, accomplices can be encouraged to testify against other defendants, and criminals can be encouraged to lead investigators to the bodies of victims.

It is not disputed that criminal proceedings are fallible. Some people facing the death penalty have been exonerated, sometimes only minutes before their scheduled execution. Others have been executed before evidence clearing them is discovered. For opponents of the death penalty, execution itself is a violation of human rights. It brutalizes society by sending out the message that killing people is the right thing to do in some circumstances and it denies the possibility of rehabilitation. In most Western nations, retribution, or any benefit to the victim, is not stated as a purpose of the criminal justice system. Similarly, proponents of the death penalty argue that people who have committed the most heinous crimes (typically murder) have no right to life and the abolition of the death penalty is a violation of the victim’s rights.

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Answer : 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.”The most common applications are in legal and similarly ‘regulated’ contexts, being the infliction of some kind of pain or loss upon a person for a misdeed, i.e. for transgressing a law or command (including prohibitions) given by some authority.

Punishments are applied for various purposes, most generally, to encourage and enforce proper behavior as defined by society or family. Criminals are punished judicially, by fines, corporal punishment or custodial sentences such as prison; detainees risk further punishments for breaches of internal rules. Children, pupils and other trainees may be punished by their educators or instructors (mainly parents, guardians, or teachers, tutors and coaches). Slaves, domestic and other servants used to be punishable by their masters. 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. Gradually there came the idea of proportionate punishment, of which the characteristic type is an eye for an eye.

The second stage was punishment by individuals under the control of the state, or community; in the third stage, with the growth of law, the state took over the primitive function and provided itself with the machinery of justice for the maintenance of public order. 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 improvement 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. 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 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.

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Answer : It is helpful in assessing various candidate justifications of punishment to keep in mind the reasons why punishment needs to be justified.

Punishment, especially punishment under law, by officers of the government — is (as noted above) a human institution, not a natural fact. It is deliberately and intentionally organized and practiced. Yet it is not a basic social institution that every conceivable society must have. It is a testimony to human frailty, not to the conditions necessary to implement human social cooperation. It also has no more than an historical or biological affinity with retaliatory harm or other aggressive acts to be found among nonhuman animals or (despite thinkers from Bishop Joseph Butler (1723) to Sir Peter Strawson (1962) to the contrary) with the natural resentment that unprovoked aggression characteristically elicits.

The practice or institution of punishment is not necessary, conceptually or empirically, to human society. It is conceivable even if impracticable that society should not have the practice of punishment, and it is possible — given the pains of punishment — that we might even rationally decide to do without it. Not surprisingly, some radical social thinkers from time to time (and even today) have advocated its abolition.

Punishment under law, and especially in a liberal constitutional democracy, incurs considerable costs for everyone involved in carrying it out, whatever the benefits may be. Some rationale must be provided by any society that deliberately chooses to continue to incur these costs. The matter is aggravated to the extent that society prefers to incur these costs rather than those of alternative social interventions with personal liberty that might result in preventing crime in the first place and healing the wounds of its victims.

By way of expansion on some of the considerations alluded to above, we must not forget or obscure the importance of the fact that punishment by its very nature involves some persons (those who carry out punitive acts) having dominant coercive power over others (those being punished). To seek to be punished because one likes it, is pathological, a perversion of the normal response, which is to shun or endure one’s punishment as one might other pains, burdens, deprivations, and discomforts. To try to punish another without first establishing control over the guilty is doomed to failure. But the power to punish as distinct from merely inflicting harm on others cannot be adventitious; it must be authoritative and institutionalized under the prevailing political regime.

Finally, because the infliction of punishment is normally intended to cause, and usually does cause, some form of deprivation for the person being punished, the infliction of punishment provides unparalleled opportunity for abuse of power. To distinguish such abuses both from the legitimate deprivations that are essential to punishment and from the excesses of punitive sentences that embody cruel and inhumane punishments, one must rely on the way the former are connected to (and the latter disconnected from) whatever constitutes the sentence as such and whatever justifies it. This is especially true where punishment through the legal system is concerned, since the punishments at the system’s disposal as well as the abuses are typically so severe.

The general form of any possible justification of punishment involves several steps. They start with realizing that punishing people is not intelligibly done entirely or solely for their own sake, as are, say, playing cards or music, writing poetry or philosophy, or other acts of intrinsic worth to their participants. Nietzsche and Foucault are among those who would dispute this claim, and they may have history on their side. They think that human nature is such that we do get intrinsic even if disguised satisfactions out of inflicting authorized harm on others, as punishment necessarily does. Others will regard this satisfaction, such as it is, as a perversity of human nature, and will say that we retain the practice of punishment because it enables us to achieve certain goals or results.

Although punishment can be defined without reference to any purposes, it cannot be justified without such reference. Accordingly, to justify punishment we must specify, first, what our goals are in establishing (or perpetuating) the practice itself. Second, we must show that when we punish we actually achieve these goals. Third, we must show that we cannot achieve these goals unless we punish (and punish in certain ways and not in others) and that we cannot achieve them with comparable or superior efficiency and fairness by non-punitive interventions. Fourth, we must show that striving to achieve these goals is itself justified. Justification is thus closed over these four steps; roughly, to justify a practice of punishment, if not everywhere then at least in a liberal constitutional democracy, it is necessary and sufficient to carry out these four tasks.

Unsurprisingly, no matter what actual society we find ourselves in, we can contest each of these four steps, especially the last. Just as there is no theoretical limit to the demands that can be made in the name of any or all of these tasks, there is also no bedrock on which to stand as one undertakes either a critique of existing systems of punishment or the design of an ideal

There are, however, constraints in the use of penal threats and coercion even to preserve a just social system. Four are particularly important for a liberal theory of punishment.

Punishments must not be as severe as to be inhumane or (in the familiar language of the Bill of Rights) “cruel and unusual.”

Punishments may not be imposed in ways that violate the rights of accused and convicted offenders (“due process of law” and “equal protection of the laws”).

Punitive severity must accord with the principle of proportionality: The graver the crime, the more severe the deserved punishment. (The deserved punishment so defined might legitimately not be imposed in cases where a slight excess over deserved severity promises to yield considerable reduction in the crime in question, thanks to the elasticity of the crime relative to the severity of the punishment.)

Punitive severity is also subject to the principle of minimalism (less is better), that is, given any two punishments not ruled out by any of the prior principles and roughly equal in retributive and preventive effects for a given offense and class of offenders, the less severe punishment is to be preferred to the more severe.

Conviction of an accused offender under laws that satisfies the foregoing criteria establishes an individual’s eligibility for punishment.

Finally, that the entire argument for the justification of punishment unfolds in the belief that alternative, non-punitive methods of social control have been examined and rejected (or severely limited in scope) on the ground that they will not suffice or will not work as well as punitive methods in securing compliance with just laws. Philosophy can, of course, help supply certain desiderata of the theory, such as specification of the quality and quantity of deprivations (the modes of punishment) appropriate to include in the penalty schedule; construction of the schedule coordinate with the class of crimes; identification of subordinate norms to supplement those already mentioned, which serve as constraints on the schedule and the imposition of sanctions on any given offender; and specification of the norms that make it appropriate to reduce or even waive punishment in favor of some non-punitive alternative response in a given case. But philosophy alone cannot provide the necessary details; philosophical argument by itself would underdetermine a penal code and has no means to administer one. Yet the heart of a liberal theory of punishment in practice lies in its code of sanctions and their fair administration. Further development of this theory, and its full policy implications, must take place in another forum.

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Answer : When and why should we punish? Though easy to state, this question is difficult to answer. Numerous philosophers and legal thinkers have attempted to answer this question, and their answers have lead to a variety of models of punishment. The two most common models are those of utilitarianism and retributivism. In many ways these two models seem to stand in direct opposition to one another. Several interesting and important models arise from attempting to reconcile the differences between utilitarianism and retributivism. As mentioned, the two main models of punishment are based on utilitarianism and retributivism. The difference between these two can be roughly described as a difference between punishment with an eye toward the future and punishment for the sake of the past. That is, in brief, utilitarianism is a consequentialist theory and, as such, is concerned with future consequences of punishment. In contrast, retributivism sees punishment as the direct and deserved response to already committed crimes.

As utilitarianism is a form of consequentialism, the utilitarian must look to the consequences or outcome of possible punishment to determine when punishment should be applied. As utilitarianism aims at maximizing utility (or happiness), it follows that punishment should be applied when it leads to an improved situation. Even though punishment decreases the happiness of the person being punished (by depriving him of rights, money, time, etc.) utilitarians claim that punishment, and/or the threat of punishment, often increases the happiness of the society as a whole.

According to the utilitarian, punishment can be beneficial in any or all of the following ways: general deterrence, special deterrence, rehabilitation, and incarceration. General deterrence refers to the belief that the threat of punishment (as presented by punishing offenders) has a deterrent effect on other members of the society. Although this is difficult to show empirically, there does seem to be some truth to the claim that rational beings who wish to avoid punishment and perceive a threat of punishment as associated with committing crimes will have some motivation to avoid committing crimes. The argument that punishment deters generally relies on a perceived threat of punishment; for punishment to deter generally prospective offenders must believe that they are likely to be punished if they break the law. Punishment, however, may also be especially deterrent; that is, one who has been punished for a previous offense may be deterred from committing future crimes. For him, the threat of punishment is real.

Even if one does not believe that punishment deters, punishment seems to maximize happiness in other ways. It is certainly possible that one who is punished can receive moral education and be rehabilitated. Or he may be in some way asked to make reparations or restitution for his crime. Someone who has been locked up is (hopefully) unable to commit further crimes. Punishment in the form of incarceration, then, benefits society as a whole because happiness is maximized when individuals are protected from becoming future victims of a known past offender. In summary, the utilitarian believes that people should be punished when, and only when, it maximizes happiness to do so. While happiness is the goal of utilitarian, it may be pursued in different ways. Additionally, non-utilitarian consequentialists consider other consequences than happiness. Act consequentialists focus on the utility of specific acts of punishment. In contrast, rule consequentialism is concerned with the utility of the system of principles which can be extrapolated from particular acts.

Retributivism, on the other hand, offers a model that is not about consequences at all. Instead, retributivism is about punishing offenders because they deserve punishment. Kant words this argument in terms of guilt. According to Kant and other retributivists, the guilty deserve punishment; punishment is their just desert. Punishment is proportional to guilt. People are punished because they are guilty, and for no other reason. The retributivist does not concern himself with consequences; in fact, he finds it offensive that one might let the consequence interfere with deserved retribution. Kant, in particular, argues against consequentialism because he believes that it is never right to use individuals, even criminals, as means to an end. Retributivism seems to be based on fairness - punishing people when (and as much as) it is deserved. Retributivism can actually refer to any or all of three different claims: minimal, permissive, and maximal retributivism.

According to minimal retributivism, it is always wrong to punish someone who is not guilty. This is the most mild and commonly accepted form of retributivism. Permissive retributivism claims that it is never wrong to punish someone who is guilty. Maximal retributivists take retributivism further, claiming that not only is punishment of the guilty permissible, but it is required; it is wrong not to punish the guilty.

According to Kant, people should be punished because they are guilty (or to rephrase the retributivist argument without reference to guilt, because certain actions are deserving of punishment). The consequences of punishment are irrelevant to determining when and how much to punish. Kant believes that even if society were about to be dissolved (i.e., there were no future with which we could be concerned), the guilty must still be punished. But this seems intuitively absurd. We can’t undo the past, so why punishment should be so focused on the past? Empirically, it seems that a major motivation for punishment is the belief that punishment is likely to bring about some good in the future. We do not punish merely because there is a guilty party, but because we are trying to avoid or shape certain future consequences. If there is no future to prepare for, no consequences to be enjoyed, what is the good of punishing? Such punishment seems pointless, futile, and needlessly costly.

However, the retributivist does make one objection to utilitarianism that leaves me worried. It is compatible with utilitarianism, says the retributivist, that innocent people may be punished. For suppose that making someone a scapegoat, using them as an example, brings about a decrease in crime. Then utilitarianism seems to sanction such undeserved punishment. As a less extreme example, utilitarianism allows for someone who is guilty of a crime to be punished more than his guilt and the weight of his crime merit.

Such a model is unacceptable to the retributivist because it treats people as means to an end. But it is also objectionable for reasons which are not necessarily retributivist. Utilitarianism appears to inadequately respect individual rights; it leaves individuals with no protection from a tyrannical. Now the question is (1) Are there instances when criminals should be punished more leniently than the offense alone merits, or not at all? (2) Are there instances when offenders (or innocents) should be punished more harshly than would be prescribed by the offense alone? These questions highlight the tension between utilitarian and retributivist models of punishment. Retributivism as a theory answers both questions negatively. Utilitarianism seems to answer both questions affirmatively. But must consequentialism answer both questions affirmatively? The answer is no.

There are many consequentialist models of punishment which offer protection against the objection raised by question (2). For example, if the goal of a model of punishment is to minimize crime, then a society which punishes innocents may not effectively deter crime. Additionally, any theory which places a high value on individual rights will not sanction the punishment of innocent people. It seems that any utilitarian theory that incorporates the belief that the preservation of individual rights leads to happiness would also have to reject the claim that the punishment of an innocent is justified. It maximizes happiness neither to punish one undeserving individual, nor to have a society in which people can be wrongly punished. Then it may be that a society is generally happier in which only those who deserve punishment are punished. It seems plausible, then, that the retributivist has drawn the wrong conclusion in claiming that the utilitarian would allow for excessive punishment, much less the punishing of an innocent. If this is the case, then I am satisfied by utilitarianism. That is, I am satisfied by a consequentialist model which places high value on the retributivist notion of just deserts. It seems that it may be then, that the models of retributivism and consequentialism are more similar than they first appear.

However, if the utilitarian model of punishment does not have this built-in protection of individuals against the majority and can provide examples in which such over-punishment is allowed, I must then reject utilitarianism. This does not mean that, however, that I must reject consequentialism entirely and accept pure retributivism. Nor does it mean that I must abandon punishment. What I would like is a model that allows offenders to sometimes be punished more leniently than their offense alone merits, but never permits punishing more than is deserved.

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Answer : Political philosophy begins with the question: what ought to be a person’s relationship to society? The subject seeks the application of ethical concepts to the social sphere and thus deals with the variety of forms of government and social existence that people could live in – and in so doing, it also provides a standard by which to analyze and judge existing institutions and relationships. Political philosophy has its beginnings in ethics: in questions such as what kind of life is the good life for human beings. Since people are by nature sociable – there being few proper anchorites who turn from society to live alone – the question follows as to what kind of life is proper for a person amongst people. The philosophical discourses concerning politics thus develop, broaden and flow from their ethical underpinnings.

To take a few examples: the ethical utilitarian claims that the good is characterized by seeking (that is, attempting to bring about) the greatest amount of happiness for the greatest number of people. Accordingly, in the political realm, the utilitarian will support the erection of those institutions whose purpose is to secure the greatest happiness for the greatest number. In contrast, an ethical deontologist, who claims that the highest good is served by our application of duties (to the right or to others), will acknowledge the justification of those institutions that best serve the employment of duties. This is a recognizable stance that merges with human rights theorists’ emphasis on the role of rights (to or from actions and/or things). In turn an ethical relativist will advocate a plurality of institutions (within a nation or around the world), whereas an ethical objectivist will condemn those that are seen to be lacking a universally morally proper purpose (for example, those that support certain inalienable rights). As ethics is also underpinned by metaphysical and epistemological theories, so too can political philosophy be related to such underlying theories: theorizing on the nature of reality and of how we know things logically relates to how we do things and how we interact with others.

The greatest and most persistent ethical-political issue that divides philosophers into a host of schools of thought is that concerning the status of the individual: the ethical ‘person’. Although the variety and subtleties of this area of thought cannot be examined here, suffice it to say that philosophers divide between those who deem the individual person as sacrosanct (that is, ethically and thus politically so) and those who consider the individual to be a member of a group (and accordingly for whom the group takes on a sacred status). Others consider political institutions to be sacred in their own right but this is hardly a tenable position; if humanity did not play its role such institutions would be meaningless and hence can only gain their meaning from our existence. The key question that divides political philosophers returns to whether it is the group or the individual that should be the political unit of analysis.

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Answer : Each society has its own way of social control for which it frames certain laws and also mentions the sanctions with them. These sanctions are nothing but the punishments. ‘The first thing to mention in relation to the definition of punishment is the ineffectiveness of definitional barriers aimed to show that one or other of the proposed justifications of punishments either logically include or logically excluded by definition.’ Punishment has the following features:

• It involves the deprivation of certain normally recognized rights, or other measures considered unpleasant
• It is consequence of an offence
• It is applied against the author of the offence
• It s applied by an organ of the system that made the act an offence

The kinds of punishment given are surely influenced by the kind of society one lives in. During ancient period of history punishment was more severe. But with change in time and development of human mind the punishment theories have become more tolerant to these criminals. Debunking the stringent theories of punishment the modern society is seen in loosening its hold on the criminals. The present scenario also witnesses the opposition of capital punishment as inhumane, though it was a major form of punishing the criminals earlier. But it may also be observed till recently the Taliban used quite a harsh method for suppression. The law says that it does not really punish the individual but punishes the guilty mind. As punishment generally is provided in Criminal Law it becomes imperative on our part to know what crime or an offence really is. Thus it becomes very important on behalf of the society to punish the offenders. Punishment can be used as a method of educing the incidence of criminal behavior either by deterring the potential offenders or by incapacitating and preventing them from repeating the offence or by reforming them into law-abiding citizens. Theories of punishments contain generally policies regarding theories of punishment namely: Deterrent, Retributive, Preventive and Reformative.

Punishment, whether legal or divine, needs justification, because the justification of legal punishment has been given greater consideration by philosophers than has the justification of divine punishment by theologians, the philosophical concepts and ‘theories of punishment’ (i.e. the justifications) will be used as a basis for considering divine punishment. Many a time this punishment has been termed as a mode of social protection. The affinity of punishment with many other measures involving deprivation by the state morally recognized rights is generally evident. The justifiability of these measures in particular cases may well be controversial, but it is hardly under fire. The attempt to give punishment the same justification for punishment as for other compulsory measures imposed by the state does not necessarily involve a particular standpoint on the issues of deterrence, reform or physical incapacitation. Obviously the justification in terms of protection commits us to holding that punishment may be effective in preventing social harms through one of these methods.

As punishments generally punish the guilty mind it becomes very important on the part of the researcher to what crime really is. But it is quite difficult on the part of the researcher to say whether or not there must be any place for the traditional forms of punishment. In today's world the major question that is raised by most of the penologist is that how far are present 'humane' methods of punishment like the reformative successful in their objective. It is observed that prisons have become a place for breeding criminals not as a place of reformation as it was meant to be. It may be clearly said that the enactment of any law brings about two units in the society- the law-abiders and the law-breakers. It is purpose of these theories of punishment to by any means transform or change these law-breakers to the group of abiders.

Proportionality is a principle in law which although related covers two distinct concepts. Within municipal (domestic) law it is used to covey the idea that the punishment of an offender should fit the crime. Under international humanitarian law governing the legal use of force in an armed conflict, proportionality and distinction are important factors in assessing military necessity. The foundations of proportionality have been taken from German Law. Retributive justice maintains that proportionate punishment is a morally acceptable response to crime, regardless of whether the punishment causes any tangible benefits. Proportionality requires that the level of punishment be scaled relative to the severity of the offending behaviour. However, this does not mean that the punishment has to be equivalent to the crime. A retributive system must punish severe crime more harshly than minor crime, but retributivists differ about how harsh or soft the system should be overall. Traditionally, philosophers of punishment have contrasted retributivism with utilitarianism. For utilitarians, punishment is forward-looking, justified by a purported ability to achieve future social benefits, such as crime reduction. For retributionists, punishment is backward-looking, and strictly for punishing crimes according to their severity. Depending on the retributivist, the crime's level of severity might be determined by the amount of harm, unfair advantage or moral imbalance the crime caused.

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Answer : One of the primitive methods of punishments believes in the fact that if severe punishments were inflicted on the offender would deter him form repeating that crime. Those who commit a crime, it is assumed, derive a mental satisfaction or a feeling of enjoyment in the act. To neutralize this inclination of the mind, punishment inflicts equal quantum of suffering on the offender so that it is no longer attractive for him to carry out such committal of crimes.

Pleasure and pain are two physical feelings or sensation that nature has provided to mankind, to enable him to do certain things or to desist from certain things, or to undo wrong things previously done by him. It is like providing both a powerful engine and an equally powerful brake in the automobile. Impelled by taste and good appetite, which are feelings of pleasure a man over-eats. Gluttony and surfeit make him obese and he starts suffering disease. This causes pain. He consults a doctor and thereafter starts dieting. Thus the person before eating in the same way would think twice and may not at all take that food. In social life punishment introduces the element of ‘pain’ to correct the excess action of a person carried out by the impulse (pleasure) of his mind. We all like very much to seize opportunities, but abhor when we face threats. But in reality pain, threat or challenges actually strengthens and purifies a man and so an organization. Also known as Bentham’s theory it was based on a hedonistic conception of man and that man as such would be deterred from crime if punishment were applied swiftly, certainly, and severely. But being aware that punishment is an evil, he says, if the evil of punishment exceeds the evil of the offence, the punishment will be unprofitable; he will have purchased exemption from one evil at the expense of another.

The basic idea of deterrence is to deter both offenders and others from committing a similar offence. But also in Bentham’s theory was the idea that punishment would also provide an opportunity for reform. While a person goes on seeking pleasure, he also takes steps to avoid pain. This is a new system of political philosophy and ethics developed by Jerome Bentham and John Stuart Mill in the 19th century called Utilitarianism. It postulates human efforts towards “maximization of pleasure and maximum minimization of pain” as the goal. “The main ethical imperative of utilitarianism is: the greatest good for the largest number of people; or the greatest number of goods for the greatest number of people” The fear of consequent punishment at the hands of law should act as a check from committing crimes by people.

The law violator not merely gets punishment, but he has to undergo an obnoxious process like arrest, production before a magistrate, trial in a criminal court etc. that bring about a social stigma to him as the accused. All these infuse a sense fear and pain and one thinks twice before venturing to commit a crime, unless he is a hardcore criminal, or one who has developed a habit for committing crimes. Deterrent theory believes in giving exemplary punishment through adequate penalty.” But in spite of all these efforts there are some lacunae in this theory. This theory is unable to deter the activity of the hardcore criminals as the pain inflicted or even the penalties are ineffective. The most mockery of this theory can be seen when the criminals return to the prisons soon after their release, that is precisely because as this theory is based on certain restrictions, these criminals are not effected at all by these restrictions rather they tend to enjoy these restrictions more than they enjoy their freedom.

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Answer : An eye for an eye would turn the whole world blind is a famous saying of Mahatma Gandhi. The most stringent and harsh of all theories retributive theory believes to end the crime in itself. This theory underlines the idea of vengeance and revenge rather than that of social welfare and security. Punishment of the offender provides some kind solace to the victim or to the family members of the victim of the crime, who has suffered out of the action of the offender and prevents reprisals from them to the offender or his family. The only reason for keeping the offender in prison under unpleasant circumstances would be the vengeful pleasure of sufferer and his family. J.M.Finnis argues in favour of retribution by mentioning it as a balance of fairness in the distribution of advantages and disadvantages by restraining his will. Followers of this theory believe that considerations under social protection may serve a minimal purpose of the punishment. Traditional retribution relied on punishing the intrinsic value of the offence and thus resorts to very harsh methods. This theory is based on the same principle as the deterrent theory, the Utilitarian theory. To look into more precisely both these theories involve the exercise of control over the emotional instinctual forces that condition such actions.

This includes our sense of hatred towards the criminals and a reliance on him as a butt of aggressive outbursts. The utilitarian theories are forward looking; they are concerned with the consequences of punishment rather than the wrong done, which, being in the past, cannot be altered. A retributive theory, on the other hand, sees the primary justification in the fact that an offence has been committed which deserves the punishment of the offender.” As Kant argues in a famous passage: “Judicial punishment can never be used merely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or civil society, but instead it must in all cases be imposed on him only on the ground that he has committed a crime; for a human being can never be manipulated merely as a means to the purposes of someone else... He must first of all be found to be deserving of punishment before any consideration is given of the utility of this punishment for himself or his fellow citizens.”

“Kant argues that retribution is not just a necessary condition for punishment but also a sufficient one. Punishment is an end in itself. Retribution could also be said to be the ‘natural’ justification”, in the sense that man thinks it quite natural and just that a bad person ought to be punished and a good person rewarded. However ‘natural’ retribution might seem, it can also be seen as Bentham saw it, that is as adding one evil to another, base and repugnant, or as an act of wrath or vengeance.

Thus this theory closely related to that of expiation as the pain inflicted compensates for the pleasure derived by the offender. Though not in anymore contention in the modern arena but its significance cannot be totally ruled out as fear still plays an important role in the minds of various first time offenders. The basis of this theory i.e. vengeance is not expected in a civilized society. This theory has been severely criticized by modern day penologists and is redundant in the present punishments.

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Answer : Political philosophy can be defined as philosophical reflection on how best to arrange our collective life - our political institutions and our social practices, such as our economic system and our pattern of family life. Political philosophers seek to establish basic principles that will, for instance, justify a particular form of state, show that individuals have certain inalienable rights, or tell us how a society’s material resources should be shared among its members. This usually involves analyzing and interpreting ideas like freedom, justice, authority and democracy and then applying them in a critical way to the social and political institutions that currently exist. Some political philosophers have tried primarily to justify the prevailing arrangements of their society; others have painted pictures of an ideal state or an ideal social world that is very different from anything we have so far experienced.

Political philosophy has been practiced for as long as human beings have regarded their collective arrangements not as immutable and part of the natural order but as potentially open to change, and therefore as standing in need of philosophical justification. It can be found in many different cultures, and has taken a wide variety of forms. There are two reasons for this diversity. First, the methods and approaches used by political philosophers reflect the general philosophical tendencies of their epoch. Developments in epistemology and ethics, for instance, alter the assumptions on which political philosophy can proceed. But second, the political philosopher’s agenda is largely set by the pressing political issues of the day. In medieval Europe, for instance, the proper relationship between Church and State became a central issue in political philosophy; in the early modern period the main argument was between defenders of absolutism and those who sought to justify a limited, constitutional state. In the nineteenth century, the social question - the question of how an industrial society should organize its economy and its welfare system - came to the fore.

When we study the history of political philosophy, therefore, we find that alongside some perennial questions - how can one person ever justifiably claim the authority to govern another person, for instance? - There are some big changes: in the issues addressed, in the language used to address them, and in the underlying premises on which the political philosopher rests his or her argument. One question that immediately arises is whether the principles that political philosophers establish are to be regarded as having universal validity, or whether they should be seen as expressing the assumptions and the values of a particular political community. This question about the scope and status of political philosophy has been fiercely debated in recent years. It is closely connected to a question about human nature. In order to justify a set of collective arrangements, a political philosophy must say something about the nature of human beings, about their needs, their capacities, about whether they are mainly selfish or mainly altruistic, and so forth. But can we discover common traits in human beings everywhere, or are people’s characters predominantly shaped by the particular culture they belong to?

If we examine the main works of political philosophy in past centuries, they can be divided roughly into two categories. On the one hand there are those produced by philosophers elaborating general philosophical systems, whose political philosophy flows out of and forms an integral part of those systems. Leading philosophers who have made substantial contributions to political thought include Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Hobbes, Locke, Hume, Hegel and J.S. Mill. On the other hand there are social and political thinkers whose contribution to philosophy as a whole has had little lasting significance, but who have made influential contributions to political philosophy specifically. In this category we may include Cicero, Marsilius of Padua, Machiavelli, Grotius, Rousseau, Bentham, Fichte and Marx. Two important figures whose work reflects non-Western influences are Ibn Khaldhun and Kau?ilya. Among the most important twentieth-century political thinkers are Arendt, Berlin, Dewey, Foucault, Gandhi, and others.

What are the issues that, historically and today, have most exercised political philosophers? To begin with, there is a set of questions about how political institutions should be arranged. Today we would think of this as an enquiry into the best form of state, though we should note that the state itself is a particular kind of political arrangement of relatively recent origin - for most of their history human beings have not been governed by states.

Since all states claim Authority over their subjects, two fundamental issues are the very meaning of authority, and the criteria by which we can judge forms of political rule legitimate. Connected to this is the issue of whether individual subjects have a moral obligation to obey the laws of their state, and of the circumstances under which politically-inspired disobedience is justifiable. Next there is a series of questions about the form that the state should take: whether authority should be absolute or constitutionally limited; whether its structure should be unitary or federal; whether it should be democratically controlled, and if so by what means. Finally here there is the question of whether any general limits can be set to the authority of the state - whether there are areas of individual freedom or privacy that the state must never invade on any pretext, and whether there are subjects such as religious doctrine on which the state must adopt a strictly neutral post. Beyond the question of how the state itself should be constituted lies the question of the general principles that should guide its decisions.

What values should inform economic and social policy for instance? Part of the political philosopher’s task is to examine ideas that are often appealed to in political argument but whose meaning remains obscure, so that they can be used by politicians from rival camps to justify radically contrasting policies. Political philosophers try to give a clear and coherent account of notions such as Equality, Freedom and liberty, Justice, Needs and interests, Public interest, Rights and Welfare. And they also try to determine whether these ideas are consistent with, or conflict with, one another - whether, for instance, equality and liberty are competing values, or whether a society might be both free and equal at once.

The last quarter of the twentieth century has seen a powerful revival of political philosophy, which in Western societies at least has mostly been conducted within a broadly liberal framework. Other ideologies have been outflanked: Marxism has gone into a rapid decline, and conservatism and socialism have survived only by taking on board large portions of liberalism. Some have claimed that the main rival to liberalism is now communitarianism; however on closer inspection the so-called liberal-communitarian debate can be seen to be less a debate about liberalism itself than about the precise status and form that a liberal political philosophy should take - whether, for example, it should claim universal validity, or should present itself simply as an interpretation of the political culture of the Western liberal democracies. The vitality of political philosophy is not to be explained by the emergence of a new ideological revival to liberalism, but by the fact that a new set of political issues has arisen whose resolution will stretch the intellectual resources of liberalism to the limit.

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Answer : The most recent and the most humane of all theories of punishment are based on the principle of reforming the legal offenders through individual treatment. Not looking to criminals as inhuman this theory puts forward the changing nature of the modern society where it presently looks into the fact that all other theories have failed to put forward any such stable theory, which would prevent the occurrence of further crimes. Though it may be true that there has been a greater onset of crimes today than it was earlier, but it may also be argued that many of the criminals are also getting reformed and leading a law-abiding life all-together. Reformative techniques are much close to the deterrent techniques. Reform in the deterrent sense implied that through being punished the offender recognized his guilt and wished to change. The formal and impressive condemnation by society involved in punishment was thought to be an important means of bring about that recognition. Similarly, others may be brought to awareness that crime is wrong through another’s punishment and, as it were, ‘reform’ before they actually commit a crime. But, although this is indeed one aspect of rehabilitation, as a theory rehabilitation is more usually associated with treatment of the offender.

A few think that all offenders are ‘ill’ and need to be ‘cured’ but the majority of criminologists see punishment as a means of educating the offender. This has been the ideal and therefore the most popular theory in recent years. However, there is reason to believe this theory is in decline and it has been noted that if public opinion affects penal policy, as they think it does, then there will be more interest shown in retribution in the future. This theory aims at rehabilitating the offender to the norms of the society i.e. into law-abiding member. This theory condemns all kinds of corporal punishments. These aim at transforming the law-offenders in such a way that the inmates of the peno-correctional institutions can lead a life like a normal citizen. These prisons or correctional homes as they are termed humanly treat the inmates and release them as soon as they feel that they are fit to mix up with the other members of the community. The reformation generally takes place either through probation or parole as measures for reforming criminals. It looks at the seclusion of the criminals from the society as an attempt to reform them and to prevent the person from social ostracism. Though this theory works stupendously for the correction of juveniles and first time criminals, but in the case of hardened criminals this theory may not work with the effectiveness. In these cases come the importance of the deterrence theories and the retributive theories.

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