Part one: Punishment of offenders
The justice correction system pay an important role in the society. One significant role which the corrections systems undertakes is punishing offenders (Beccaria, 1996). The concept of punishment and retributions has been part of the American justice system for a while. In analyzing criminal punishment, a number of questions arise. First, what is criminal punishment? Criminal punishment or punishment of offenders is the imposition of hardship to counter some delinquent behavior. Some of the authorized punishments which can be imposed include monetary fines, community service, restitution, prison sentencing and even death. Secondly, what is the purpose of punishments? According to the moral theories of criminal justice, punishments are intended to deter crime and delinquent behavior.
What are the elements of punishment? A punishment consist of five elements. First, it should be unpleasant to the offender. A punishment should also be imposed on an offender. A punishment must also be of an actual or supposed offender. It should also imposed by personal agencies, it should not be the natural result of an action. Lastly, a punishment should be imposed by an institution whose rules have been violated by the offense. The next question is, why should offenders be punished? Offender should be punished because they deserve. Punishment will deter them from further commissions of crimes. Punishment also makes the offender realize that the society does not disapprove of the offense. Lastly it deter other individual from crime while protecting the society from mischievous people. Lastly, how much punishment should be imposed to deter crime? According to the utilitarian principles, a specific punishment is only justified it results less harm than that caused by the criminal act which would have taken place, had the punishment been not imposed (Spohn, 2002).
The analysis of criminal punishment has a lot of significance to existing research studies. It aids in examining the existing theories behind concept of criminal punishments. The issues surrounding the concept of criminal punishment are very essential as they inform the research on the effectiveness of correction systems in the US justice system.
Part two: the dark figure of crime
The concept, dark figure of crime refers to number of offenses which were committed though not reported, never discovered or wrongfully recorded. The concept infers doubts on the efficiency and effectiveness of the official recorded data on crimes. Among the offenses which occur within a given place at some specific time, some are never reported to the relevant law enforcement agencies and even in some case, when they are reported they are not recorded (Coleman & Moynihan, 1996).
Although data on crime cannot be effectively reported, there are way in which the police can mitigate it. Law enforcement may foster crime alert system to increase the prevalence that a crime will be reported. Secondly the police should fully engage the society in the crime reporting strategies as they are the victim of the crimes, thus experience crimes directly. Lastly the police should implement integrated intelligence and crime analysis system to control crime. Through effective policing and crime strategies the police may effectively and confidentially handle crime. The law enforcement agencies should implement incident based reporting strategies which eliminate the hierarchy imperative, to collect a significant volume of information on crime crime, such as property details, victim-offender relationship, other offender related information. The strategy should also be based on analyzing of crime incidents instead of calculating the prevalence of crime incidents.
References
Beccaria, C. (1996). Of Crimes and Punishments. New York: Marsilio.
Coleman, C., & Moynihan, J. (1996). Understanding crime data: haunted by the dark figure. Buckingham: Open University Press.
Mosher, C. (2002). The History of Measuring Crime, London: Sage.
Spohn, C. C. (2002). How Do Judges Decide?: The Search for Fairness and Justice in Punishment. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: Sage Publications.
