Ideological influence on professional practice
The severity of each sentencing differs and is designed to achieve a different goal. Five different purposes of criminal sentencing help the attaintment of the different goals of criminal sentencing. The goals are retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, rehabilitation and restoration. Retribution, which is premised on repatriation or harming the criminal for their actions in harming society, punishes the crime because it is fair and right to do so. This method of punishment is backwards-looking as it looks at the crime committed and matches the sentence to the wrongful act. Critics to retribution argue that the mode of punishment assumes that criminals are free to choose their actions an that they should be held responsible for their actions and discounts laws that do not require any intentional doing to warrant punishment, for instance statutory rape.
The other four goals of punishment fall under prevention which punishes offenders as a way to stopping future crimes. Unlike retribution, these four goals are forward looking. Incarparciation is premised on the ideology that getting criminals off the streets can reduce the severity of crime by making it physically impossible or difficult for the offender to commit further crime while srving a sentence. Despite being expensive, incapracitation reduces crime. Equally, deterrence, when administered with celerity, certainty and severity, is an effective means to deter crime. There are two types of deterrence, specific deterrence that punishes offenders with the aim of dissuading them from commiting crime and general deterrence which occurs when a person is convicted of a crime to set n example for others to refrain from commiting similar offenses. Meanwhile, rehabilitation and restoration call for a change in behavior.(HireEssayWriter for a similar paper)
Despite a diminishing trend in the commitment to treatment and rehabilitation programs in American correctional facilities, systematic data reveals rehabilitation progrmansare effective and result to institutional order compared to the other four goals of sentencing. The process involves examining the offense and the criminal and developing conern for the criminal’s social backgournd and punishment (Banks, 2013).According to Banks, the method, which is based on the utilitarian theory that punishment should have rehabilitative or reformative effects on the offender, shouldbe tailored to fit the oddenderandhis or her needs. These needs reflect on the various programs available in correctional facilities that include education and work programs, psychological and counseling programs, and community based treatment.
Education and work programs are extensive used in rehabilitative programs in correctional systems in the U.S. The prevalence of these programs is premised on the bilief that work skills and education as well as the positive attributes acquired in acquiring these skills are integral to gaining employment and contributing positively to the society. Arguably, the results of these progams are unequivocal; however, studies suggest that the programs positively reduce recidivism especially among certain demographics of inmates (Pompoco et al., 2017). The authors argue that developing marketable skills in prison can reduce the inmate misconduct and prison returns. Given this success, prison programs can be structured to achieve rehabilitation of inmates. The programs can be structured in a manner that they educate and provide inmates with skills that will enable them acquire meaningful employment after their release. According to Duwe (2017), educational programming in prisons is achieves a moderate criminogenic need since most prisoners are unducated. A study by Duwe and Clark (2014) revealed that the “roughly two-fifths of offenders entering
Minnesota prisons had neither a high school diploma nor a General EducationalDevelopment (GED) degree.” Structuring rehabilitative programs to be educative can thus reduce recidivism and empower prisoners to aquire jobs after completing their sentence.
