Punishment
Sociology: AQA A Level, topic 10.3.3
Theoretical Approaches to Punishment
Functionalists and Marxists have different approaches to the purpose and aims of criminal punishment.
The Functionalist view
- Durkheim believed that punishment is ‘expressive’ as it heals the wounds of the public while also promoting the value consensus.
- In his view, traditional societies used ‘retributive justice’.
- This was simple, effective and often brutal.
Restitutive justice
- However, in modern societies have moved to using ‘restitutive justice’.
- Punishment must now restore a sense of equilibrium to society by ensuring that the community is healed from the damage of the offence that was committed.
The Marxist view
- The role of punishment is to benefit capitalism through the imprisonment of the working classes.
- The criminal justice system use ‘selective law enforcement’ to protect the interests of the ruling class and therefore acts as a ‘repressive state apparatus’ by making the proletariat conform due to the fear of punishment.
Role of prisons
- The role of prisons has changed over time.
- Garland discusses how prisons are being used as the main form of punishment in the USA and in the UK.
- Garland believes that prisons are now used by politicians to prove to the electorate that they are tough on crime, and as a result they will gain electoral popularity and win elections.