Example Of Two Questions That Will Be Asked To Fellow Classmates Based On The Discussion, The Questions Are: Essay

Impact of History on Criminal Justice

Impact of History on Criminal Justice
Prison is a central part of the criminal justice system. It serves what is seen as the central purpose of the justice system, which is to convict and punish the guilty, while also protecting the innocent and ensuring their safety. The underlying premise for imprisonment is that taking away an individual’s freedom is a better punishment (Siegel, 2010; Schmalleger, 2014). Moreover, the emergence of the prison system was seen as a more humane alternative to the previous forms of punishment used, such as exile, flogging, public humiliation and torture that were thought cruel and uncharacteristic of a republic.
Rothman (1990) traces the emergence of imprisonment as a central institution of the criminal justice system through centuries. Initially, he argues, order in communities was maintained through self-policing and informal social controls. However, social, political and economic changes that came with colonization as well as industrialization and the advent of urbanization and new ideas about the causes of deviant behavior and crime led to the drafting of new modes of control. In these new modes, prisons would serve as tools for ensuring obedience and legitimate trades.
There has also been an evolution of the purpose of prison, the floor divided between whether the main goal is to ‘punish’ or ‘rehabilitate’ the wrongdoers- the latter meant for those who are to be allowed back into the society and would be required to exercise self-regulation and function productively. These two premises characterize the two apparent strategies in the management of prison: control-oriented or focused on rehabilitation. It seems that the idea of punishment as the main purpose of prisons has taken an upper hand, evident in the more widespread use of control-oriented management systems (Clark, 2004). These issues have led to the complexity of criminal justice system, both in theory and practice, including how to implement both purposes: punishment and rehabilitation.

What is the role of prison in the criminal justice system?
What factors result into deviant behavior or crimes, and how can these factors be controlled?

References

Clark, S.C. (2004). Rehabilitation versus Control: an Organizational Theory of
Prison Management, The Prison Journal, 84(4), 928-1148
Rothman, D.J. (1990). The Discovery of the Asylum: Social Order and Disorder in the
New Republic, Revised Edition. New Jersey: Aldine Transaction
Schmalleger, F. (2014). Criminal Justice: a Brief Introduction (10th ed.). Upper Saddle
River, NJ: Pearson Education Inc.
Siegel, L.J. (2010). Introduction to Criminal Justice, 12th Edition. Belmont,
CA: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning