Goals of Correction in Criminal Justice
The criminal justice system has four main goals of correction. The main objective of these goals of correction in the justice system is to ensure that the society or the nation is a peaceful, safe, and just place to live. These goals include; retribution, deterrence, incapacitation, and rehabilitation (Kifer et al., 2003). In following these goals, the justice system gives the offenders a chance to write their wrongs while in the correctional facilities (prisons, detention centers, etc.) and teaches them to be responsible individuals who can co-exist peacefully.
As one of the main goals of correction, retribution is the act of punishing someone for wrongdoing. Retributive justice is born of the law of retaliation (also known as ‘Lex talionis’) (“Retributive Justice | Penology”). In retribution, an offender is punished based on the magnitude of his/her offence. Retributive justice is more like the law practiced during Moses’s era, ‘An eye for an eye’ whereby an offender is punished based on the severity of his offence. This type of justice allowed fair and just punishment as it prevented extreme punishment by the state or even society. A good example of distributive justice in action is when an offender is proven guilty of murder, he/she can be put to death as punishment for his crimes. Death as punishment for murder is a fair judgement because the punishment is equal to the crime committed. Distributive justice promotes equality in the criminal justice system (“Retributive Justice | Penology”).
The second goal of correction in the justice system is deterrence, which instills fear of consequences to demoralize a certain action in society (Kifer et al., 2003). An example of deterrence in the justice system is imposing hefty fines or prison sentences for specific crimes performed in society. A good example is seeing a police officer walking with handcuffs and a ‘walkie-talkie’ on the street. This specific action is a deterrent to criminal behaviour because of the ‘fear ‘of getting caught and imprisoned. However, deterrence, as a corrective goal in the justice system, may have various disadvantages. One of the disadvantages is that sometimes deterrence promotes criminal behaviour since punishments such as prison sentences sometimes enable the prisoner to gain more intelligence on improving criminal strategies.
Incapacitation is the third goal of preventing offenders from committing future crimes by keeping them away from society (Kifer et al., 2003). Incapacitation may be through imprisoning the victim to prevent him/her from associating with the rest of the community. Simply put, incapacitation restricts offenders’ freedom as a form of keeping society safe and preventing future crimes by the offender. The last goal of correction is rehabilitation, which is based on the fact that crime is not entirely an act of ‘free will’ and is instead influenced by many other factors surrounding an individual (“Rehabilitation – What Is Rehabilitation?” ). Rehabilitation as a correctional goal is sometimes also referred to as a form of treatment because its main objective is to find the cause of committing a crime and solving the challenge.
Out of the four main goals of correction in the criminal justice system, Rehabilitation is the most important goal because it improves society by helping both the criminals and the crime victims. Compared to the three other goals of correction (Retribution, Incapacitation, and deterrence) whose main goal is to punish offenders, rehabilitation works to improve offenders’ lives by guiding them and teaching them the importance of co-existing peacefully in the society. Rehabilitation also teaches the offenders the importance of living a productive life (Moss et al., 2019). Rehabilitation is an important goal in the justice system because it corrects an offender. Still, it also gives offenders hope that they, too, can be productive people who do not have to rely on crime to survive.
References
“Rehabilitation – What Is Rehabilitation?” Law.Jrank.Org, 2020, https://law.jrank.org/pages/1933/Rehabilitation-What-rehabilitation.html.
“Retributive Justice | Penology.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 2020, https://www.britannica.com/topic/retributive-justice.
Kifer, M., Hemmens, C., & Stohr, M. K. (2003). The goals of corrections: Perspectives from the line. Criminal Justice Review, 28(1).
Moss, S. A., Lee, E., Berman, A., & Rung, D. (2019). When do people value rehabilitation and restorative justice over the punishment of offenders? Victims & Offenders, 14(1).