Punishment Too Much or Not Enough Term Paper

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Punishment: Too Much or Not Enough

The purpose of the punitive measures effected by the criminal justice system has changed over time, especially as that system operates in America. There are several ideological stances to consider in regards to such punishment, which largely incorporate criminal, sociological, and moral viewpoints. The ebbing and swaying of various tenets espoused at different times and with varying popularity have largely resulted in today's criminal justice system in which punishment is largely viewed as a means of retribution. As such, punishment levied upon those convicted of criminal offenses is decidedly lengthy, resulting in a climate in which there appears to be a surfeit of punishment resulting in a system in which authors argue that "we are indeed ill" (Rose, no date, p. 978). Certain other factors intrinsically related to the criminal justice system, such as the imminence of plea bargaining and the lucrative business of building prisons (some of which are financed and owned by private interests) underscores the fact that there is too much punishment taking place within the U.S. criminal justice system. Unfortunately, the aforementioned trends indicate that this fact will only increase in the future.

One of the factors significantly contributing to lengthy prison sentences and an overwhelming number of people sentenced for punitive measures has to do with the way the criminal justice system currently operates. Specifically, there are several mechanisms in place that ensure that plea bargaining is the principle means of dealing with the many members of society that are accused of transgressing the law, which explains why "academic literature…calls for the system's abolition" (Zacharias, 1998, p. 1122). In this respect plea bargains are both a cause and effect of the surplus of punishment in the U.S. On the one hand, plea bargaining is frequently chosen by an accused person because of the lengthy sentence that a conviction in a trial has. On the other hand, there are so many individual who are involved in various stages of the criminal justice system -- particularly in trials -- that both prosecution and public defenders are encouraged to attempt plea bargains as a means of saving money and time associated with lengthy trials. The remunerative effects of plea bargaining should not be underestimated, and are a significant contributor to the surplus of punishment issued in the criminal justice system. With all of the individuals involved in this system, the costs associated with bringing everyone to trial would be exorbitant, and would require paying lawyers, judges, bailiffs -- even basic fees such as the power and electricity required to utilize a facility for such a purpose. These costs are incurred at the municipal, county, state and federal levels, which mean that the government is required to remunerate these expenses. From a financial perspective, it is more beneficial to the government to forgo these costs and sentence individuals without these lengthy proceedings -- especially when one considers that once imprisoned, prisoners are a vital cog in the thriving prison industry. Thus, plea bargains are the most desired form of dealing with individuals accused of crimes, regardless of the dearth of justice involved or the lack of fair consideration in a trial of one's peers. Even if a defendant is innocent, it is sometimes more financially advantageous to both parties for the defendant to plea bargain and endure punishment than to go to trial and lose the case.

One of the factors that is closely linked to plea bargaining is the relatively that building and maintaining prisons has become quite a profitable business in the 21st century and well beforehand (Miller, 2010), resulting in a climate in which "one out of a hundred American adults is in prison or jail, 100,000 are in the juvenile justice system, and many more are economically dependent on the penal state (Dzur, 2012, p. 21)." Plea bargaining functions as a mechanism to expediently route individuals to prison; there is a plethora of evidence that indicates that housing and quartering individuals in prison is a fairly lucrative industry. In many respects, prisoners are the most preferred form of labor in the country, and perhaps even outside of it as the proclivity to outsource business processes to 'third world' country implies. Prisoners are forced to work while incarcerated for wages so pithy (mere pennies an hour) that they are essentially functioning as slaves. While working they are employed in a number of different industrial pursuits including the building of license plates and agricultural work as well. The burgeoning prison population, which stems in large part due to the surplus of punishment in the criminal justice system, is responsible for the construction of several new prisons within the last several years.

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Moreover, this population boom is also the reason for the projected growth of even more prison construction in the future. Whereas conventionally prisons were entities that were owned and maintained by the state, the lucrative nature of the industry surrounding the virtually free labor that prisons produce has resulted in numerous private organizations financing and taking ownership in prisons. Such a situation is akin to a catch 22 -- because of the surfeit of punishment in prisons, private corporations are investing in this industry and the construction of more prisons, while at the same time the fact that so many capitalists are funding prisons contributes to the social, political, and even moral climate in which accused persons are punished via imprisonment.

One may argue that it is due to the pecuniary benefits of incarceration and the degree of excess punishment which facilitates them that the shift in punishment ideology has occurred within this country. Regardless of whether the relationship between the ideological transformation for the goal of punishment and the financial benefits associated with incarceration is causal or not -- and there are certain factors which allude to the notion that it is -- it is extremely relevant to this paper that the current focus of punishment "has led to a return of punishment based on the notion of retribution and just deserts" (Banks, 2012, p. 2). Both of these ideologies related to imprisonment take the focus of punishment away from the offender and instead center it upon the society that has suffered from the actions of the transgressor. This distinction is key, because it means that the focus of punishment is not to assist or help those that have broken the law, but is rather to help those who have not broken the law, and who conceivably have a lesser quality of life because of the actions of others.

The predominant problem with this viewpoint is that it considers criminal behavior from a highly narrow scope in which moral and social factors are not involved. Issues of morality are merely reduced to a blanket 'right' -- that which the law sanctions -- and a blanket wrong -- that which the law forbids. All transgressors are deserving of punishment for a retributive means (just deserts is just one of the many forms of retribution theory related to punishment and imprisonments), simply because their crimes mean they need to suffer. This sort of limited ideology coincides very nicely with the various aspects of sentencing and issuing of punishment that have resulted in overcrowded prisons and rush to capitalize from building more prisons and leveraging the free labor of convicts. It does not have to consider the overarching reasons for criminals creating acts that brand them as such -- disparities in a capitalist economy which requires individuals to have nothing and be poor so that others can have something and remain wealth, disparities in education and health care and all the other sorts of benefits and neglects that money creates. It simply has a bottom line: those that break the law are wrong and need to suffer for doing so, regardless of the reason for their breaking the law.

With an emphasis on retribution, just deserts, and incapacitation -- in which criminals are made to remain incarcerated because they are viewed as too dangerous to operate in society and are therefore "punished based on a prediction of what they might do in the future" (Banks, 2012, p. 21) --, the propensity to overly punish offenders is inevitable. The preoccupation with this ideology is why future trends in the criminal justice department will more than likely continue with the surplus of punishment that occurs at present. Moreover, it is worth noting that the resolution that punishment is issued to make offenders suffer, reflecting the critical shift of the basis of punishment as a means of verify and preserving the needs of the public law abiders rather than on assisting the infringers with whatever problems led them to transgress the law, was engendered due to a perceived failure of the attempt to help criminals. Punishment was once viewed as a deterrent or a way to keep individuals from acting on negative impulses and committing egregious offenses. In this respect, the focus of punishment was viewed as a means of helping potential offenders. For the….....

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