Sociological perspectives on punishment
- Created by: rebeccamellors
- Created on: 16-02-17 12:31
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- Sociological Perspectives on Punishment
- Durkheim
- Argue the function of punishment is to uphold social solidarity & reinforce shared values
- Through rituals of order society's shared values are reaffirmed & members feel sense of moral unity
- Punishment is primarily expressive
- Expresses society's emotions & moral outrage
- Two types of Justice
- Retributive Justice
- Found in traditional society
- There's little specialisation & solidarity between individuals is based on similarity to one another
- Produces strong collective conscience
- Punishment is severe & cruel & motivation is purely expressive
- Restitutive Justice
- Found in modern society
- There's extensive specialisation & solidarity is based on resulting interdependence between individuals
- Crime damages this interdependence so its necessary to repair this damage
- Aims to restore things to how they were before the crime
- Its motivation is instrumental but can still be expressive
- Retributive Justice
- Argue the function of punishment is to uphold social solidarity & reinforce shared values
- Marxism
- Function of punishment is to maintain the existing social order
- As part of the 'repressive state apparatus' it is a means of defending ruling class property against lower classess
- The form of punishment reflects the economic base of society
- Rusche & Kirchheimer (1939) argue each type of economy has its own corresponding penal system
- Argue under capitalism, imprisonment becomes dominant form of punishment
- Melossi & Pavarini (1981) see imprisonment as reflecting capitalist relations to production
- Capitalism puts a price on worker's time; so too prisoners 'do time' to 'pay' for their crime
- Factory's & prison both have similar strict disciplinary style
- Durkheim
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