Punishment Research Paper

Punishment Research Paper
Erica Hutchinson
SOC/120
January 8, 2012
Christine Teramoto

Punishment Research Paper
When thinking of a crime being committed, people often think of why? But as the same time people is also already thinking of what kind of punishment can be given. People ask these questioned every time and every day that crimes are being committed. As people are committing these crimes, the person committing the crimes are going to be categorized in one of the four justification types of punishments and they would be deterrence, societal protection, retribution and rehabilitation. People ask what kind of punishment determines crime in the U.S. society. Over the years these questions have been answered and they have also been debated on and either way you look at it, the answer is still unresolved.
When it comes to the four types of punishment you have Deterrence which means “The attempt to discourage criminality through the use of punishment.” Deterrence comes from the eighteenth century. When it comes to committing a crime, people can decide rather to committee the crime or not. Deterrence determines rather to punish the person who is committing the crime to keep other from doing the same crime. (Collins, 2005). In the early days, this was the way to try to keep people from breaking the law, if they thought the punishment over ruled the pleasure of the crime being committed (Macionis, 2006). There are 16 states out of 50 that do not carry out the death penalty; the death penalty is also called the capital punishment.
Being punished is another way to keep future crime happening, but since it doesn’t always work, then the punishment does not keep the person from committing the crime. Some people thinks that the thought of not getting caught committing the crime may cause them to continue with committing a crime over and over and then accept the punishment at a later time. When it comes to determining what kind of punishment to hand down to the...