Following the American Psychological Association’s Guidelines
Punishment in the United States has a lengthy history. It began has a system that allowed individual to know exactly what would meet them if they disobeyed the law. This acted a deterrent until the government and its people began to feel power over crime was being lost. The philosophy began to change. Fear tactics were instigated and today punishment is administered on a sliding scale in an effort to force individuals to obey the law, rather than persuade them. Whether this philosophy is right or not remains to be seen, but I cannot say I agree with it. The former philosophy is more effective.
Crime would run rampant throughout the streets of the streets of the United States if it were not for punishment. We are taught this primary philosophy as children, and as adults. If one commits a crime, they will be held accountable for said crime. There are rules to follow in accordance with the crime, of course. Everybody is allowed a lawyer, a trial, and will be tried in front of a jury of their peers. One must also be found guilty, and the judge will deliver a sentence for the crime. This is where the deeper philosophies of crime begin to deviate from one another. According to, “Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory,” punishment began in the United States as an eye-for-eye mechanism . For example, if one man stole another man’s land, a part of his land would be taken as penance or punishment. This would act as a deterrent for crime. Many people commit crimes in order to create a gain for themselves or come out on top. Eye-for-an-eye suggested to the commonwealth that if you committed a crime, the same would be perpetrated against you, with the only difference being legalities.
As time wore on, the philosophy of eye-for-an-eye gradually began to shift. It became less of effective deterrent for several reasons. Primarily, criminals were caught less often, or sometimes released on technicalities. The philosophy on punishment gradually shifted from being an affair of checks and balances, to being a battle of wits, solely involving fear. Essentially, where punishment was once used to punish the guilty, it is now used in an attempt to scare potential criminals by using current ones to set an example. For instance, if a criminal is convicted of drug possession, they could receive probation and a fine. However, they could also get lost in the system, fall victim to the wrong judge, and be sentenced to a lengthy stint in a federal prison. Today, one rolls the dice with their freedom and, sometimes, the rest of their lives even when committing the smallest of offenses. Once an individual has this information, they become afraid to step outside of the law at all, allowing punishment on a sliding scale to act as a more effective, if also completely erratic deterrent.
My personal philosophy on punishment relies on checks and balances. Times have changed of course. We are not stealing one another’s land anymore. If a criminal breaks into a citizen’s home, burglarizes their items, and is convicted, it would be ineffective to release the individual back into the free world just to take from him or her the things he or she took from the victim. In short, I am in favor of jail, prison, and rehabilitation programs. However, in some cases I believe it would be prudent to deny prisoners certain amenities while in prison. For example, in an individual stole a television, he should be denied television while serving his time. If a criminal commits murder, supposing it was outside the definition of self-defense, capital punishment may be instigated. If the criminal stole a car, they can be denied a license upon release. There are trickier crimes to use this philosophy on, of course. For example, if the criminal commits arson, it would be unsafe to burn a building down for the sake of proving a point. Furthermore, in the case of capital punishment, we can hardly expect a court to approve of drowning an individual who committed an act of drowning, or experience vehicular manslaughter because they did, and so forth.
In many ways, I do believe the public should accept my philosophy on punishment. The current punishment philosophy is erratic and, while it is frightening, it does not appear to be an effective deterrent because many people will take their chances in order to commit a crime. They might get a severe sentence, but they might not, and they are willing to find out in order to commit arson, murder, tax evasion, etc. If the punishment was exact, and if the criminal understood precisely what they were in for, perhaps it would be more of a deterrent. There would be instances of crime so heinous or strange that the punishment must be altered, but principally the punishments would remain similar to the crime committed. In effect, it could subconsciously teach the population to treat others, as they would want to be treated. Would the public accept my view of punishment is entirely different. I do not believe they would accept it. Punishment has given people too much power. If a criminal does something wrong or offensive (to anybody, anywhere), it is no longer enough to punish the individual; we must come together as a nation and teach the criminal and all others like them a lesson. We must make them an example. Whether we dangle them as bait in front of others like them with a light punishment, or we sentence them harshly, making them a cautionary tale, we have become a pack of jackals who no longer deliver justice, but instead a message: it could be you. The trade-off for this philosophy and this power? Nobody feels safe doing anything because any punishment can be doled out at any time. Would the public trade it for fairness and justice? No they would not; they have grown too comfortable sentencing first-time offenders to prison, and third-time offenders to probation.
In sum, the history of punishment and the philosophy therein throughout the United States is sordid and tawdry. We began the nation just and true. If a criminal acted unjustly, we paid them in kind. This acted as a deterrent. A man would not want his crops stolen, and so would not steal another man’s crops. Over time, this became less of a deterrent. The people lost a grip on crime. In order to retain power, they induced fear. It appears to have only been more effective at allowing the public to think the government maintains power over crime when, in truth, crime is more rampant than it has ever been. Punishment throughout the U.S.’s history has decayed.
References
Garland, D. (2012). Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
