Punishment is an intended evil. At the macrolevel, discussion has centred on the reasons for punishment, its effects, the acceptable forms of punishment, and the relationships between social structure and level of punishment. At the microlevel—which will not be covered here—the discussion has concerned the effects of punishments as opposed to rewards on the ability to learn.
There are three main sorts of justification of punishment. The natural law position argues that we punish because we punish, or, in some formulations, we punish because it would be unjust not to do so. God or Nature demand it. Even if we live seconds before doomsday, the condemned murderer must be hanged, otherwise justice would not have been done. Often implicit in this model is a sort of equilibrium theory: evil balances out evil. The tariff, however, may change over time: an eye for an eye in biblical time becomes three years of imprisonment—or 500 dollars—in our time. The second major position is utilitarian: punishment has a purpose; we punish because it is necessary. Punishment is a means to get offenders (individual prevention) or potential offenders (general prevention) to obey the law. The magnitude of the pain inflicted is in this case not proportionate to the crime but to the intended social purposes. Legal philosophers often attempt to reconcile the two major positions, particularly by insisting that no more pain should be inflicted for reasons of utility than is acceptable according to just desert. The equally logical opposite position—that pain should not be inflicted if it serves no purpose—is more seldom expressed. The third position is related to the first, but emphasizes that the judicial process may serve to clarify values. Indeed, the process rather than the outcome may become the central issue. Courts may be compared to theatres, as arenas where social values are dramatized.
Criminologists have given much thought to the effects of punishment on offenders themselves. In general, they have not been able to identify any particular form of punishment that would seem to reduce the probability of relapse: no one measure (apart from death or castration, of course) appears to work better than any other. Some criminologists even claim that the only thing they have found is that punishments are likely to increase the danger of committing further crimes, because all punishments—even if they are called something else—imply stigma.
As far as the effects of punishment on other people’s behaviour is concerned (that is, the general preventive effects), results of research are more complex both to describe and interpret. These effects are evident when we contrast extreme alternatives. Capital punishment for minor and easily detected offences will reduce them, while the absence of any sanction will encourage them—as we see in situations where the police are out of action. More commonly, the choice lies between degrees of punishment, for example, between one or two years’ imprisonment. In such cases, there are few indications that one punishment is more effective than another. Even death penalties are not demonstrably more effective deterrents than long prison sentences.
Figure 1 Prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants in Western European countries
Modern societies differ widely with respect to their penal traditions. Figure 1 gives the number of prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants in Western European countries in 1990 (Christie 1993).
Table 1 Prisoners per 100,000 inhabitants in USSR/Russia and the USA
1979
1989
1993
USSR/Russia
660
353
470*
USA
230
426
550*
Note: *Estimates
Table 1 compares prison figures from some major industrial nations.
Taken together, Figure 1 and Table 1 indicate remarkably large variations in the use of imprisonment between countries and over time. It is difficult to explain these differences as a result of variation in the crime situation. Differences in social structure and penal traditions seems more promising as explanations. From Table 1, it is also clear that the number of prisoners now are on the increase, both in Russia and in the USA. In both countries, the prison industry is of particular importance as a driving force towards increase in the prison population: in Russia, due to what is produced within the prisons; in the USA, due to the consumption. The prison industry is constructing prisons, providing for equipment, food and service for the prisoners, as well as jobs for prison officers and other types of personnel. A joint feature of all these prison systems is that their inmates are heavily over-represented from the lower-lower classes, and from ethnic minorities.
Nils Christie
University of Oslo
Reference
Christie, N. (1993) Crime Control as Industry: Towards Gulags Western Style?, London.
Further reading
Hirsch, A. von (1976) Doing Justice: Report of the Committee for the Study of Incarceration, New York.
Mathiesen, T. (1974) The Politics of Abolition, Oxford.
Rawls, J. (1972) A Theory of Justice, Oxford.
Rutherford, A. (1993) Cnminal Justice and the Pursuit of Decency, Foreword by Lord Scar man, Oxford.
