GCSE Religious Studies Unit 2 (Religion and Society)- Crime and Punishment

Crime and Punishment

Need for law and Justice- laws are rules about how members of society are expected to behave. Why need laws? - 1. humans live in groups, and groups needs rules to organise the behaviour of individuals within it. Need laws so that people know what sort of behaviour to expect from each other. 2. Need laws so that people can work and be involved in buisness without someone taking away all the rewards of their works. if there were no laws about business deals and work, modern day society could not function as no one would bother to work. 3. need laws to protect weak from the strong.  4. in an advanced civilisation such as he UK, we need laws to keep everything organised. Why does there need to be a connection between the law and justice?- st Thomas Auinas said that an unjust war not proper law because:- 1. If law is unjust, people feel that it is right to break law. if people feel it's right to break laws then whole basis for society may disintegrate. 2. some laws are unjust, people may start to think that all laws are unjust; and if all laws are unjust then they are not fulfilling their purpose of making sure that people are rewarded for their work, the weak protected etc. 3. if law unjust people not obey it and will campaign against law causing trouble in society. 4. if law don't create a just society, people will hink legal system is not working and may start a civil war . Meaning if laws unjust they will disrupt rather than unite society. to achieve justice the uk has legal aid system that taxes to give free help to less well-off peole accused of crimes.

Theories of Punishment- With laws there must be punishment for those who break laws. Aim of punishment is to try to make sure everyone obeys the law. many theories of punishment are mix of theories.

Retribution- theory that criminals should pay for their crime. Because:- 1. makes criminal pay for crime to the severity of crime they have committed. 2. makes criminals suffer for what have done wrong. Criminals make victim suffer so criminals should suffer. 3. Actullay punishes the criminal.

Deterrence- theory that punishment should put people off committing crime.should be main punishment as the idea of deterrent punishment is that punishment should be so severe that no one will dare commit crimes. For example: 1. if someone knows they will kave their hand cut off for stealing, won't steal so are deterred. 2. If people know will be executed if found guilty of murder, deterred.

Reform- theory that criminals should be taught not to commit crime again. Main puinshment because:- 1. believe only way to stop crime to reform criminal so they become honest law-abiding citizens who will not want to commit crime. 2. believe most criminals commit crimes because how they have been brought up and because they do not know…