Four Requirements For Punishment In The Criminal Justice System
According to James Rachels, he concluded the criminal justice system should be designed along the lines of retributivism, in much the way it currently is. Rachels comes to the conclusion the overall goal of punishment should be retributivism by examining the four requirements necessary for punishment. The four requirements for punishment are guilt, equal treatment, proportionality, and excuses. These requirements mean only the guilty get punished, each criminal who commits the same crime gets roughly the same punishment, the punishment is proportionate to the crime, and if provided a legit excuse, then no punishment is given. Rachels also argues that deterrence and rehabilitation do not meet the requirements, but retributivism does. Deterrence
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An example of how deterrence fails the proportionality requirement could be someone receiving the death penalty for jaywalking. The punishment does not fit the crime; however, the punishment ultimately deters people from jaywalking. Deterrence also fails the excuses requirements because people will try to get out of punishment by using excuses regardless of whether they are telling the truth or not. If the criminal justice system were based along the lines of deterrence, then there would have to be a no excuse policy to prevent people from failing to tell the truth to get out of punishment. Equal treatment is the only requirement the deterrence view meets. Moving forward, we examine the rehabilitation view. This view of punishment fails the guilt requirement because the criminal justice system would have to sort out all the potential criminals from society and attempt to rehabilitate them and attempt to make them into a better person, which would be nearly impossible. It also fails the equal treatment requirement because each criminal would require a different form of
An example of how deterrence fails the proportionality requirement could be someone receiving the death penalty for jaywalking. The punishment does not fit the crime; however, the punishment ultimately deters people from jaywalking. Deterrence also fails the excuses requirements because people will try to get out of punishment by using excuses regardless of whether they are telling the truth or not. If the criminal justice system were based along the lines of deterrence, then there would have to be a no excuse policy to prevent people from failing to tell the truth to get out of punishment. Equal treatment is the only requirement the deterrence view meets. Moving forward, we examine the rehabilitation view. This view of punishment fails the guilt requirement because the criminal justice system would have to sort out all the potential criminals from society and attempt to rehabilitate them and attempt to make them into a better person, which would be nearly impossible. It also fails the equal treatment requirement because each criminal would require a different form of