Kinds of Retributive Justice

There are two distinct kinds of retributive justice. The classical definition embraces the idea that the amount of punishment must be proportional to the amount of harm caused by the offense. A more recent version, supported by Michael Davis, discharges this idea and replaces it with the idea that the amount of punishment must be proportional to the amount of unfair advantage gained by the wrongdoer. Davis introduced this version of retributive justice in the early 1980s, at a time when retributive justice was making a recovery within the philosophy of law community, maybe due to the multiple failures of reform theory in the previous years.

In the early period of all systems of law the redress of wrongs takes precedence over the enforcement of contract rights, and a rough sense of justice demands the infliction of proportionate loss and pain on the aggressor as he has inflicted on his victim. Incapacitation in the context of sentencing philosophy refers to the effect of a sentence in terms of positively preventing (rather than merely deterring) future offending. Imprisonment incapacitates the prisoner by removing them from the society against which they are deemed to have offended.

Cutting off a hand of a thief is also an example; this acts to prevents further thefts in a drastic manner, in addition to its having a deterrent effect on others. Like deterrence, incapacitation can be specific to an individual and/or specific to a particular crime, or can be general in either respect. Deterrence is one of the primary objects of the Criminal Law. Its primary goal is to discourage members of society from committing criminal acts out of fear of punishment.

The most powerful deterrent would be a criminal justice system that guaranteed with certainty that all persons who broke the law would be apprehended, convicted, and punished, and would receive no personal benefit from their misconduct. United States policy of deterrence during the Cold War underwent significant variations. The early stages of the Cold War were generally characterized by ideology of Containment, an aggressive stance on behalf of the United States especially regarding developing nations under their sphere of influence.

Rehabilitation means to restore to useful life, as through therapy and education or To restore to good condition, operation, or capacity. The assumption of rehabilitation is that people are not natively criminal and that it is possible to restore a criminal to a useful life, to a life in which they contribute to themselves and to society. Rather than punishing the harm out of a criminal, rehabilitation would seek, by means of education or therapy, to bring a criminal into a more normal state of mind, or into an attitude which would be helpful to society, rather than be harmful to society.

Although the importance of inflicting punishment on those persons who breach the law, so as to maintain social order, is retained, the importance of rehabilitation is also given priority. Humanitarians have, over the years, supported rehabilitation as an alternative, even for capital punishment. Restoration is to return what has been unjustly taken; to place the owner of a thing in the state in which he formerly was. By restitution is understood not only the return of the thing itself, but all its accessories. It is to return the thing and its fruits. Retributive justice began to replace this system following the Norman invasion of Britain.

William the Conqueror's son, Henry I, issued laws detailing offenses against the “king’s peace. ” In the 20th century, restorative justice started becoming more popular. In my personal opinion I just think we need to let them all ROT in prison depending on the crime of course. If I had to choose from all of the choices I think that rehab is one of the better choices because it is trying to make the person a constructive part of society and gives them another chance but I think that their should be a limit to how many times someone can try to be rehabilitated, like two.

I think two is a good number because the first time is on them and pretty much everyone deserves a second chance, and then if they mess up a again after their first chance try again cause everyone makes mistakes and everyone has those days, if they mess up again they apparently won’t learn their lesson. [pic]A Law Dictionary, Adapted to the Constitution and Laws of the United States. By John Bouvier. Published 1856. Martin, Jacqueline (2005). The English Legal System (4th ed. ), p. 176. London: Hodder Arnold. ISBN 0-340-89991-3. Cavadino, M & Dignan, J. (1997). The Penal System: An Introduction (2nd ed. ), p. 39. London: Sage.

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