Punishment over Rehabilitation free essay sample

As soon as men know that they can kill without fear of punishment or blame, they kill; or at least they encourage killers with approving smiles. † We punish criminals because there is an intrinsic good in the guilty suffering; because the offender had knowledge that he/she would be punished if they committed a crime. Because we make a contract to give up certain rights in order for other rights to be protected, those who break such rules deserve to be punished. But is also to warn others that what they do has consequences which will follow if the law is broken. Current research and closer examination has led me to believe that it is better to punish criminals rather than rehabilitate them, because change or no change, the purpose of punishment is to show the offender that he or she has committed an offence to society that will not be tolerated. We will write a custom essay sample on Punishment over Rehabilitation or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Therefore, this person has to take the foreseeable consequences. In 1797, a well-known German philosopher by the name of Immanuel Kant published a book entitled, Metaphysical Elements of Justice. Immanuel Kant says, â€Å"Judicial punishment can never be used merely as a means to promote some other good for the criminal himself or civil society, but instead it must in all cases be imposed on him only on the ground that he has committed a crime†¦Ã¢â‚¬  Kant argues that retribution is not just a necessary condition for punishment but also a sufficient one. Punishment is an end in itself. Retribution could also be said to be the natural justification, in the sense that man thinks it quite natural and just that a bad person ought to be punished and a good person rewarded. In a sense that the good and evil scales are tipped and need to be rebalanced. It is a well-known fact that nothing in this world is free, especially if the government is part of it. So talking about criminals naturally brings up the cost of a form of punishment, the prison system. Looking at the cost of prison, including maintenance, operation, etc. , we find that prison indeed costs a huge sum of money for the public. Adam Gelb, who has a Master’s in Public Policy from Harvard University said that prison costs 22 times more than community-based corrections which is a form of rehabilitation. Simon Dinitz from the Academy for contemporary Problems in the article, Is Rehabilitation a Waste of Time, says that after locking up every first time offender for five years would put construction costs up to $130 billion. But also that it would raise operating budgets from $12 billion to between $36 and$ 60 billion. Here we can see that operation and running a prison is far more expensive, and if that’s the case then why shouldn’t we switch to rehabilitation? Here’s why. An article published by the Colorado Criminal Reform Justice Coalition, an organization seeking out a better life for criminals, in 2007 states that the cost of putting up a rehabilitation program was about 682 million dollars, in just the state of California. Now this whole rehabilitation thing is new so this would be just the base cost, and for a specific type of rehabilitation. Think of all the different set-backs and methods that they would have to go before they get it right, this means a lot more money would have to be spent. According to Public Safety Canada, the success rate of a rehabilitation program for a person going through it is about 15-35%. Now factor in the number of incarcerated adults per state with the success rate and it is visible that one would be losing a lot of money if we were to use that system. With our economy in a tight spot right now, if forced to choose between the two systems, punishment is the way to go because even though we are spending a lot of money on it, actually shows the public that we care enough to keep them safe. It is true that out of many of those who have went through the rehabilitation program, there have been those who have changed for the better; those who have thought out their life of crime and mishap and vowed to change for the better. Take for example an article out of Freedom Magazine International, which is published by the Church of Scientology. The article is centered on a miracle rehabilitation program in New Zealand. In the course, teens were taught self-worth and read the book entitled The Way to Happiness. A former director of a juvenile court and chief probation officer said â€Å"Over 90% of the juvenile offenders seem to internalize the values and we don’t see them again as court referrals. I have over 500 letters on file that these kids have written saying how The Way to Happiness helped them straighten their lives out. † A juvenile wrote â€Å"I can be something in life, before I just wanted to be a gang member. † Through a testimony we can see that many of these kids are ready and changed to see the world a different way. But how do we know what they are writing and saying it true. Take this quote for example, â€Å"†¦[teens] tend to lie†¦usually for freedoms sake†¦to escape punishment for misbehavior or to get to do what has been forbidden. To many teenagers, lying seems to be the easy way to get out of trouble†¦Ã¢â‚¬  It was published by Psychology today on an article concerning adolescent lying. We can see that they are more prone to lying and not mean what they say just to get out of jail. Even using standard methods of detection won’t work. For instance, Fred T. Blakemore published an article entitled, Can Criminals Beat the Lie Detector? , in association with the National Academy of Sciences. Quote, â€Å"Some criminals have beaten the machine by concentrating on something other than the [question]. †, also, â€Å"Pathological liars do not respond to the lie-detector. Only rarely can the polygraph†¦spot the pathological liar. In most cases their deception is undetectable†¦Ã¢â‚¬  After putting a criminal through a rehabilitation program, you assume that he or she was successfully reformed or wants to be reformed for the good of society and self-betterment. However it is impossible to tell. A person cannot untimely tell whether or not the other person is lying. Even using a known method such as the polygraph will not always work, or it may give the wrong results. So criminals can lie their way through rehab in order to â€Å"get out faster† so they can do more of what they’ve been doing; leading a cycle of crime and wasted money. Consider this statement, you cannot return something back to what it never was to begin with. As a child, you are taught right or wrong; and when wrong is committed, you weren’t given a pat on the back, you were punished. Your parents taught you that every decision has a consequence. Same goes for citizens; you learn the law when you are wrong so you don’t break it because it gives a sense of order. And when you do, it is like you are fully accepting the consequences because you knew what would happen and so therefore you must be punished.