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The sociology of punishment seeks to understand why and how we punish. Punishment involves the intentional infliction of pain and/or the deprivation of rights and liberties. . Sociologists of punishment usually examine state-sanctioned acts in relation to law-breaking; for instance, why citizens give consent to the legitimation of acts of viole
The term penology comes from "penal", Latin poena, "punishment" and the Greek suffix -logia, "study of". Penology is concerned with the effectiveness of those social processes devised and adopted for the prevention of crime, via the repression or inhibition of criminal intent via the fear of punishment. The study of penology therefore deals ...
Punishment and Social Structure (1939), a book written by Georg Rusche and Otto Kirchheimer, is the seminal Marxian analysis of punishment as a social institution. [1] It represents the "most sustained and comprehensive account of punishment to have emerged from within the Marxist tradition" and "succeeds in opening up a whole vista of understanding which simply did not exist before it was ...
Another early form of the theory was proposed by Reiss (1951) [3] who defined delinquency as, "...behavior consequent to the failure of personal and social controls." ." Personal control was defined as, "...the ability of the individual to refrain from meeting needs in ways which conflict with the norms and rules of the community" while social control was, "...the ability of social groups or ...
[3] [6] These theories can be helpful tools for understanding how punishment systems in the US have changed over time. Colvin also discusses some of the limitations of each theory. [1] He additionally assesses important reformers like Benjamin Rush, Thomas Eddy, Eliza Farnham, and Zebulon Brockway. He shows how the goals and approaches of ...
Therefore, in a rational system, the punishment system must be graduated so that the punishment more closely matches the crime. Punishment is not retribution or revenge because that is morally deficient: the hangman is paying the murder the compliment of imitation. Bentham's ideas strengthened the principles behind the prison system.
There are two main goals of deterrence theory. Individual deterrence is the aim of punishment to discourage the offender from criminal acts in the future. The belief is that when punished, offenders recognise the unpleasant consequences of their actions on themselves and will change their behaviour accordingly.
Critical criminologists assert that how crime is defined is socially and historically contingent, that is, what constitutes a crime varies in different social situations and different periods of history. The conclusion that critical criminological theorists draw from this is that crime is socially constructed by the state and those in power. [8]