Punishment over Rehabilitation
Punishment over Rehabilitation Simone Weil, a French philosopher, once said, “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. 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, “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…” 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
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