What Is the Purpose of Criminal Sentencing?

Question by Jedi Gangster: What is the purpose of criminal sentencing?

Best answer:

Answer by doggenfreek
To punish the criminal for their crime?

Answer by Andreas
To punish a person for the crime they were convicted of committing. To remove their freedom to move about in society for some specified period of time.

150 years ago, there was a theory that criminals could be reformed in prison and returned to society as changed persons who would not voluntarily break the laws again. Most U.S. prisons required inmates to work to pay their keep. One prison warden in the East (an ordained minister), required all new inmates to spend time in solitary confinement when they arrived to reflect on the actions that got them there in the first place. They were not allowed to join the general prison population or engage in work until they understood what they had done wrong. The return rate for these prisoners was under 10%. This all ended with the rise of organized labor, who successfully stopped prison industries from unfairly competing with the free labor market in many areas of the country.

Americans, weary of war on drugs, prefer rehab to jail, poll says (+video)
That's the conclusion of a new Pew Research Center poll finding that two-thirds of Americans prefer drug policies that emphasize rehabilitation, not jail time, for those who use illegal drugs such as heroin or cocaine. Most Americans also support …
Read more on Christian Science Monitor


 

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