Thursday, September 4, 2008

Why punishment?

To put it into a literal and concise manner, punishment is imposed in order to deter or imposed a retribution to prevent the repetition of the alleged crime by the offender in the future. If you take a look at it in a morally point of view, punishment is there for the reason to serve you with a dire lesson that hopefully will warn a first time offender about the consequence that entails in the event repetition of alleged crime took place. On the other hand if you look at it in a social context, punishment plays a critical role in sending out a strong and robust message to the world at large as a pre-warning to all not to emulate what this particular offender has committed as the consequence will impartially served upon you as well.

Lets put the general understanding of the essence of punishment being imposed aside, we need to accede that punishment ought to be in sufficient severity which should be proportionate to the crime committed and also it must be swift and certain in order to effectively deter criminal behaviour.

There's no dispute arising saying punishment should be expunged but definitely one question crucially need to be addressed is whether the sufficiency of severity was adequate enough because based on global studies, crimes rate has yet to reduce however is gradually increasing by year at a grave concern rate. So does this implicit that punishment is not adequate to deter criminal behaviour?

The answer would be severity of the punishment is more than adequate. At coming to such a conclusion is because the sentencing policy has been amended countlessly to be adaptive to the changing of era and evolution that took place.In other words sentencing policy has been refurbished and revamped to obtain the ultimate sanction to curb crime yet the crime rate has hardly reduced. The reason simply because the ultimate deterrence of criminal behaviour shouldn't lies merely on the effort of sentencing policy(punishment) because criminal behaviour at times doesn't rest upon the imperviousness of an individual against the law but rather the behaviour was due to an inevitable pressure socially generated or forces that drive people to commit crimes.

We shouldn't be rigid in solving the matters, to impede criminal behaviour by merely relying on the criminal processes, as we should be liberalistic and analytical in scouring out the contributing factor towards the steady increase of crime rate other than blaming the inadequacy of the sentencing policy.

One of the contributing factors towards criminal behaviour is sociology. The rampant availability of drugs in the street is responsible for all the social ills that occurs in our society today whereby an excessive addiction of it could make an individual to lose its self-inhibition and also will appear more bold compared to pre-inebriated state. By consuming drugs, people would have greater courage to commit crime such as snatch theft,burglary and murder because their mind no longers able to control their subsequent action. Therefore as indentified contribution towards criminal behaviour at this level, it is safe to say that the law enforcement and the local authority should also play a pivotal part in helping to curb criminal behaviour.

Beside the availability of illicit chemical products that could erode the human brain, the pressure compelled by the society towards imperfect or with criminal record individual is deplorable. The society is sadly I would say has become less incline to be sympathetic and supportive towards its own kind. They no longer keen to lend a hand to help the needy to stand on their own feet again but instead perpetuately degrade the imperfect or with criminal record individual with ill-treatment and avoidance. Like for an example, a kid who was born in a less fortunate family background will always be the victim of bully because he picked for his inferiority or he might be picked based on his severely slow respond towards anything that he encounters,aka dumb,whereby then the constant prying and condescending stare the flimsy kid receive daily by bullies will create a bubble of fear inside of him that indirectly weakens his self-esteem which then might affect him pyschologically. A troubled kid is more likely to steal, to inflict grievous bodily harm and commit suicide because they personally feel that they have no ample space to breath ,what more to live hence the only way to release the angst within themself is to commit crime because that's the only moment people will pay attention to them.

When it comes to dealing a troubled kid's issue, punishment may not always be the right answer because rehabilitation is not the key to solving a pyschological issue. It's the support and encouragement by his close one ,the relative and family members , that will greatly alter the result of invoking the criminal behaviour inside the troubled kid in the first place. Therefore, the society also plays a pivotal part in helping to curb criminal behaviour from critically arising. A good moral value always start from the family. The parent shouldn't expect that their prodigy will turn out to have a qualitative characteristic by just divest the responsibility to the education system to make them one as such philosophy carries no truism in it because the greatest character building process starts at home. The parents firstly have to make a good example for the children such as not to indulge into social-ills. Besides that parent is advisable to undergo a course to understand children pyschology to apprehend the knowledge in nurturing a kid in a healthy manner. Once the children has been well brought up, although there is no qurantee that they will not commit crime in the future but such education back at home will minimise or diminish the high likelihood of the younger generation to indulge into any crime. In concern of domestic education, domestic punishment is one of the crucial deciding factor of creating a criminal behaviour as the severity of domestic punishment indeed will affect the child to be more aggressive and more bold if it was misused.

Children has to be nurtured since they are young because children absorb knowledge much easier compared to teenagers due to their inherent inquisitive growing up nature. In relation to this, therefore the education feed to them at their younger years must be precise and morally incorporated because whatever things we teach them now will instil forever in their mind and used to build their prospect character.

Despite above extrinsic factor that contribute to criminal behaviour, at the end of the day we still have to concede that there's a need to preserve punishment as a form of deterrence of criminal behaviour as it is able to partly contribute to the rehabilitation if not ultimately, as it might be effective towards offender who commit crime without contemplating the consequence. As for those repeat offender, they are naturally immune to punishment process hence the solution for this matter is best solve by revert back to the roots of the problem, to educate society to play a supportive role in providing beloved encouragement that can help to rebuild back offender's trust against the society whereby lending a hand to them so that they can stand up again as everyone deserve a second chance.

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