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Utilitarian Approach To Punishment

Decent Essays

Utilitarianism is an approach to punishment, founded by Jeremy Bentham and it’s the idea that the morality of an individual’s (good) actions is benefited by a great number, that it affects the overall happiness. There are four philosophies that are operated for prison systems and these are retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation. Retribution is more commonly understood as the saying, “an eye for an eye”, and it’s the oldest form of prison justification; retribution is about vengeance, and the state is given the authority to punish the perpetrator as “they see fit” with the victims (or not) able to watch and see the judgement. Another philosophy is ‘incapacitation’ which is the practice of removing the ability for the perpetrator to partake in further crimes and by doing so it protects the civilians and creates limitations for the individual who committed the crime. Normally, incarceration is used as a tool to restrain the offender but other systems are in place such as tagging, house arrest, and monitoring their movements/not allowing them to travel. …show more content…

being sent to a prison is a bigger deterrent than say a warning or fine), and partial (punishment doesn’t deter the criminal as they may make alterations in the way the crime is

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