The Summing Up table reviews the four justifications for punish-
ment. However, an accurate assessment of the consequences of
punishment is no simple task.
The value of retribution lies in Durkheim’s claim that punishing
the deviant person increases society’s moral awareness. For this rea-
son, punishment was traditionally a public event. Although the last
public execution in the United States took place in Kentucky more
than seventy years ago, today’s mass media ensure public aware-
ness of executions carried out inside prison walls (Kittrie, 1971).
Does punishment deter crime? Despite our extensive use of
punishment, our society has a high rate of criminal recidivism,
later offenses by people previously convicted of crimes. About three-
fourths of prisoners in state penitentiaries have been jailed before, and
about two-thirds of people released from prison are arrested again
within three years (DeFina & Arvanites, 2002; U.S. Department of
Justice, 2014). So does punishment really deter crime? According
to researchers, just 46 percent of all violent crimes and 36 percent of
all property crimes are known to police, and of what is known, only
about one in five crimes results in an arrest. Most crimes, therefore, go
unpunished, so the old saying that “crime doesn’t pay” rings hollow.
Prisons provide short-term societal protection by keeping offend-
ers off the streets, but they do little to reshape attitudes or behavior in
the long term (Carlson, 1976; R. A. Wright, 1994). Perhaps rehabilita-
tion is an unrealistic expectation, because according to Sutherland’s
theory of differential association, locking up criminals together for years
probably strengthens criminal attitudes and skills. Imprisonment also
stigmatizes prisoners, making it harder for them to find legitimate em-
ployment later on (Pager, 2003). Finally, prison breaks the social ties in-
mates may have in the outside world, which, following Hirschi’s control
theory, makes inmates more likely to commit new crimes upon release.
Check Your Learning What are society’s four justifications
for punishment? Does sending offenders to prison accomplish each
of them? Why?