Punitive and Reformative Treatment of

Criminals
Content

THEORIES AND TYPES OF PUNISHMENT_________________________________________________1

PUNISHMENT: THE CONCEPT_____________________________________________________________1

THE GOALS OF PUNISHMENT AND CRIMINAL SENTENCING_________________________________2

JAIL FUNCTIONS AND SERVICES________________________________________________________3

CORRECTIONAL TREATMENT PROGRAM TYPES___________________________________________3

REHABILITATION OF CRIMINALS_______________________________________________________4

PUNITIVE AND REFORMATIVE TREATMENT OF CRIMINALS_________________________________ 5

CORPORAL PUNISHMENT________________________________________________________________5

RETRIBUTION VERSUS REHABILITATION_________________________________________________6

RETRIBUTION________________________________________________________________________6
REHABILITATION______________________________________________________________________6

RECIDIVISM________________________________________________________________________6

LAWS OF IMPRISONMENT________________________________________________________________7
REASONS FOR RECIDIVISM_______________________________________________________________7
MEASURES TO REDUCE RECIDIVISM_________________________________________________________7
Theories and Types of Punishment
The human society is a cooperative endeavour secured by coercion. There are various theories of
punishment which are retributive, deterrent, preventive and reformative. Punishment is a
recognized function of states.

Punishment: The Concept

Punishment is a means of social control. H.L.A. Hart have defined “punishment” in terms of five
elements:

1. It must involve pain or other consequence normally considered unpleasant.

2. It must be for an offence against legal rules.
3. It must be intentionally administered by human beings other than the offender.
4. It must be an actual or supposed offenders for his offence.
5. It must be imposed and administered by an authority constituted by a legal system against
which the offence is committed.

Punishment according to West Mark is limited to “such suffering as in inflicted upon the offender in
a definite way by or in the name of the society of which he is a permanent or temporary member.”

Sutherland and Cressey have mentioned two essential ideas while defining the concept of
punishment:
a) It is inflicted by the group in its corporate capacity upon one who is regarded as a member of
the same group. War is not punishment for in war the action is directed against foreigners.
b) It involves pain or suffering produced by design and justified by some value that the
suffering is assumed to have.

Two purposes behind infliction of sentence:

1. To create such atmosphere which could become deterrence for the people who had
inclination towards crime
2. To work as a medium in reforming the offenders

The Goals of Punishment and Criminal Sentencing

■ Deterrence. By observing the punishment dished out to convicted criminals, would-be offenders
can see that the “pains of punishment” outweigh the potential benefits of criminal behavior. The
perception of future punishments deters crime. People are not punished merely for what they have
done, but also for the effect their punishment will have on the future behavior of others.

■ Specific deterrence. Experiencing harsh criminal punishments should convince convicted offenders
that crime does not pay and recidivism is not in their best interests. The “pains of punishment”
should inhibit future law violations.

■ Incapacitation. By incapacitating a convicted offender in a secure facility, such as a prison or jail,

the state seeks to reduce or eliminate his or her opportunity to commit future crimes. In some
instances, incapacitation involves supervising an offender while the person remains in the
community. It is hoped that close monitoring will restrict opportunities to commit future crime
without the necessity of secure lockup. Incapacitation involves anticipating behavior patterns:
offenders are confined not just for what they have done but for what it is feared they might do in
the future.
■ Rehabilitation. The purpose of sentencing is to reduce future criminality by treating and
eliminating the underlying causes of crime. Offenders are believed to have one or more emotional or
behavioral deficits that cause them to violate the law. Criminal behavior would cease if this problem
could be successfully treated. Rehabilitation efforts focus on emotional stress, vocational training,
education, or substance abuse. Rehabilitation also involves predicting future behavior: unless the
offenders receive treatment, they will commit future crimes; treatment reduces the likelihood of
their reoffending.

■ Diversion. In some instances, the court process is aimed at sparing nondangerous offenders from
the stigma and labeling of a criminal conviction and involvement with the justice process. Instead of
being convicted and sentenced to traditional forms of correction, such as a stay in a county jail, the
judge may allow them to be diverted into a community correctional program for treatment.

■ Retribution. Because criminals benefit from their misdeeds, they deserve to be punished for their
criminal acts. Furthermore, if the state did not punish people for their misconduct (retribution),
victims would be encouraged to seek personal vengeance for their loss (revenge), creating a chaotic
society. In a just society, criminals are punished in a manner proportionate to the severity of their
crimes. According to this view, it is only fair that criminals who have committed the most serious
crime, murder, receive the most severe penalty, death.

■ Equity/restitution. Because criminals gain from their misdeeds, it seems both fair and just to
demand that they reimburse society for its loss caused by their crimes. The equity goal of
punishment means that convicted criminals must pay back their victims for their loss, the justice
system for the costs of processing their case, and society for any disruption they may have caused. In
a so-called victimless crime, such as drug trafficking, the social costs might include the expense of
drug enforcement efforts, drug treatment centers, and care for infants born to drug-addicted
mothers. In predatory crimes, the costs might include the services of emergency room doctors, lost
workdays and productivity, and treatment for long-term psychological problems.

■ Restoration. Defendants may be asked to confront their behavior, the damage they caused the
victim, and the shame they brought to their family, friends, and community. The goal is to restore
them to good standing in society. Restorative justice advocates suggest a policy based on restoring
the damage caused by crime and creating a system of justice that includes all the parties harmed by
the criminal act: the victim, the offender, the community, and society.

Jail Functions and Services

Jails are locally operated correctional facilities that:

■ Confine persons before or after adjudication. Inmates sentenced to jail usually have a sentence of
one year or less.
■ Receive individuals pending arraignment and hold them awaiting trial, conviction, or sentencing.
■ Readmit probation, parole, and bail-bond violators and absconders.
■ Temporarily detain juveniles pending transfer to juvenile authorities.
■ Hold mentally ill persons pending their movement to appropriate mental health facilities.
■ Hold individuals for the military, for protective custody for contempt, and for the courts as
witnesses.
■ Release convicted inmates to the community upon completion of sentence.
■ Transfer inmates to federal, state, or other authorities.
■ House inmates for federal, state, or other authorities because of crowding of their facilities.
■ Sometimes operate community-based programs as alternatives to incarceration.
Correctional Treatment Program Types
Therapy and Counseling
The most traditional type of treatment in prison involves psychological counseling and therapy.
Counseling programs exist in almost every major institution. Some stress individual treatment with
psychotherapy or other techniques. However, because of lack of resources, it is more common for
group methods to be used. Some groups are led by trained social workers, counselors, or therapists;
others rely on lay personnel as leaders.

Therapeutic Communities
Because drug abuse is so prevalent among inmates, some institutions have been organized into
therapeutic communities (TCs) in order to best serve their clientele. The TC approach to substance
abuse uses a psychosocial, experiential learning process that relies on positive peer pressure within a
highly structured social environment. The community itself, including staff and program participants,
becomes the primary method of change. They work together as members of a “family” in order to
create a culture where community members confront one another’s negative behavior and attitudes
and establish an open, trusting, and safe environment; TC relies then on mutual self-help. The TC
approach encourages personal disclosure rather than the isolation of the general prison culture.

Educational Programs
Almost all correctional institutions provide some type of educational experience. Some prisons allow
inmates to obtain a high school diploma through equivalency exams or general educational
development (GED) certificates. Some prisons provide college courses, usually staffed by teachers
who work at nearby institutions. These services are extremely important because about two-thirds
of all state prison inmates did not receive a high school diploma. Recent federal surveys indicate that
about one-quarter of state prison inmates were able to complete the GED while serving time in a
correctional facility; more than half take education courses while confined.

Vocational Programs
Most prisons operate numerous vocational training programs designed to help inmates develop
skills for securing employment on their release. In the past, the traditional prison industries of
laundry and license plate manufacture failed to provide these skills. Today programs stress such
marketable skills as dental laboratory work, computer programming, auto repair, and radio and
television work.

Private Industry
A new version of vocational rehabilitation is the development of private industry in prison. This can
take many different forms, including private citizens sitting on prison industry boards, private
vendors marketing goods from prison industry, inmates manufacturing and marketing their own
goods, private management of state-owned prison industry, franchising within the prison system in
which manufactured goods are marketed under license from a private firm, and privately owned
industries on prison grounds employing inmate labor.

Self-Help Groups
Recognizing that the probability of failure on the outside is acute, inmates have attempted to
organize self-help groups to provide the psychological tools needed to prevent recidivism. Some are
chapters of common national organizations such as Alcoholics Anonymous. Membership in these
programs is designed to improve inmates’ self-esteem and help them cope with common problems
such as alcoholism, narcotics abuse, or depression.
Rehabilitation of Criminals
It is increasingly understood the prisons have become a crime-generation factor. Harsh conditions,
the presence of gangs and criminal groups, and societal and psychological pressures lead to
socialization into lifestyle patterns which afford immediate survival but are inimical to a crime-free
life upon release-all these and a host of additional factors have combined to create what is popularly
known as the revolving door of recidivism.

Ex-convicts or parolees face severe difficulties in obtaining adequately remunerative employment

and decent housing. They find little to no support for a crime-free life style.

This can be seen as an intractable dilemma where societal problems have created a criminal class
and the necessary incarceration of offenders hardens inmates into criminal life styles which both
reinforce the underlying social ills and create political pressures for harsher anti-crime policies.
Essentially it is a closed feedback loop where the problems generate further problems, which
generate even more problems until society reaches a stage, such as in Pakistan, where prisons are
already overcrowded.

Punitive and Reformative Treatment of Criminals

 According to concept of Reformative theory, the object of punishment should be the reform
of the criminal, through the method of individualization. It is based on the humanistic
principle that even if an offender commits a crime, he does not cease to be a human being.
He may have committed a crime under circumstances which might never occur again.
Therefore, an effort should be made to reform him during the period of his incarceration
 The object of punishment should be to bring about the moral reform of the offender. He
must be educated and taught some art or industry during the period of his imprisonment so
that he may be able to start his life again after his release from jail.
 While awarding punishment the judge should study the character and age of the offender,
his early breeding, his education and environment, the circumstances under which he
committed the offence, the object with which he committed the offence and other factors.
 The object of doing so is to acquaint the judge with the exact nature of the circumstances so
that he may give a punishment which suits the circumstances.
 The reformative theory is also known as rehabilitative sentencing. The purpose of
punishment is to “reform the offender as a person, so that he may become a normal law-
abiding member of the community once again.
 Here the emphasis is placed not on the crime itself, the harm caused or the deterrence
effect which punishment may have, but on the person and the personality of the offender.
 According to the view of Salmond, if criminals are to be sent to prison to be transformed
into good citizens by physical, intellectual and moral training, prisons must be turned into
comfortable dwelling places.
 There are many incorrigible offenders who are beyond the reach of reformative influences
and with whom crime is not a bad habit but an instinct and they must be left to their fate in
despair. But people criticize the primary and essential end of criminal justice is deterrence
and not reformation.

Concept of Reformative Justice

Crime is a violation of people and relationships. It creates obligations to make things right. Justice
involves the victim, the offender, and the community in a search for solutions that promote repair,
reconciliation and reassurance.
  Punishment is a means of Social Control H. L. A. Hart with Mr. Bean and Professor Flew have
defined “punishment” in terms of five elements:
I. It must involve pain or other consequence normally considered unpleasant
II. It must be for an offence against legal rules
III. It must be intentionally administered by human beings other than the offender
IV. It must be an actual or supposed offender for his offence
V. It must be imposed and administered by an authority constituted by a legal system
against which the offence is committed

Corporal Punishment
Corporal punishment is a form of physical punishment that involves the deliberate infliction of pain
in order to punish a person convicted of a crime or as retribution for a perceived offence, including
physical chastisement such as spanking, paddling, or caning of minors by parents, guardians, or
school or other officials.

Retribution versus Rehabilitation

Retribution
 It allows the government to not only punish criminals, but to remove them from society. A
prison sentence means that, without a doubt, the individual will be committing no more
crimes for the duration of the sentence, which can be anywhere from two years to one
hundred and fifty.
 It allows the government to scale punishments more effectively. A man who steals a loaf of
bread gets five years, while a man who robs a bank gets fifty. The disincentive to commit
crimes increases drastically as the crimes get more severe. With corporal punishment, there
is only so much physical violence you can do to a person. How much more would you flog a
bank robber than a bread stealer? Perhaps you would flog him repeatedly over a period of
days? Still, it is simply easier to add more years with the severity.
 It allows for programs of "rehabilitation” and “re-education” to be administered to convicts.
While these programs are ineffective in their current incarnation, they could be improved
and made far more effective if prisons were restructured. Corporal punishment, while
effective as a deterrent, cannot rehabilitate anyone.
 It allows for punishment that is consistent and long term. Corporal punishment, for its
benefits, only lasts for at most a few hours; prison lasts for years. The convict emerges at the
end of the sentence having experienced punishment as a lifestyle, and can be significantly
changed by the experience if done properly.

Rehabilitation
 The prison environment is often conducive to criminalization rather than rehabilitation.
However, a reformation of prisons could fix this.
 Prisons are very expensive.
 Prisons become difficult to manage as the number of prisoners in the same institution
increase. Whereas taking four thousand men and flogging them before returning them to
their homes is not so different from flogging ten thousand, taking four thousand men and
providing for their food, clothing, guarding, and shelter for years is far easier than increasing
the number being imprisoned to ten thousand.
 Prisons require centralization, which at its core is inefficient and costly. Floggings can be
done individually and anywhere, so to be most efficient the convict would probably be
 flogged right outside the courthouse then let go. This only requires paying a couple officers
for a half hour of guarding and then beating the convict.
 Prison is glorified by many criminal and semi criminal cultures. It is doubtful any criminals
glorify being flogged.
 Prisons can easily become corrupt when they form an isolated culture among the guards and
administration. Floggings are public and one-time things, and are in no way conducive to
corruption.

Alternative Titles: industrial school, reform school, training school

Reformatory: correctional institution for the treatment, training, and social rehabilitation of young
offenders.

[In England in the mid-19th century, the House of Refuge movement prompted the establishment of
the first reformatories, which were conceived as an alternative to the traditional practice of sending
juvenile offenders to adult penitentiaries. As the term suggests, these institutions were intended to
reform juvenile offenders rather than to punish or exact retribution on them. The methods used to
effect reform usually involved a combination of military drills, physical exercise, labour, training for
industrial and agricultural careers, and instruction in morality and religion.]

Recidivism
De-radicalisation is the process of de-programming radical individuals and reintegrating them into
the society as normal and useful citizens. Intrinsically linked with de-radicalisation are the risks of
recidivism. According to National Institute of Justice, recidivism is the most essential concept in
criminal justice. It refers to a person’s relapse into a criminal behaviour after undergoing an
intervention for a previous crime. Recidivism is measured by criminal acts that probably resulted in
re-arrest, reconviction or going back to prison. But some individuals face difficulty in reintegrating
into society, sometimes because society does not accept them as “normal” people.

48,794 neglected inmates languishing in 40 Punjab prisons according to the Punjab Prisons
Department. These statistics, though hard to make peace with in a practical sense, indeed depict
that the country in shambles. The Crisis Group in a 2011 report also described the “overpopulated,
understaffed and poorly managed” prison system of Pakistan as a “fertile breeding ground for
criminality and militancy, with prisoners more likely to return to crime than to abandon it.”

Alternative Title: career criminal

Recidivism, tendency toward chronic criminal behaviour leading to numerous arrests and re-
imprisonment. The criminal population is made up largely of those for whom criminal behaviour has
become habitual; moreover, penal institutions appear to do little to change their basic behaviour
patterns.

Though the percentage of recidivists runs high for all offenders, it is greatest among those convicted
of such minor charges. These are more likely than serious criminal charges to result from, and to be
bound up in, an entire way of life. Accordingly, their root causes are rarely susceptible to cure by
jailing.

Laws of Imprisonment
When laws such as Sections 302 and 304 of the Pakistan Penal Code come into play, the two main
punishments in our criminal justice system are imprisonment and death. The punishment in our
system is perceived to be confined to abuse and torture while positive reinforcement of punishment
has no place in our law. The last amendment to Prison Rules accompanying the Prisons Act 1894 had
been made in 1978, which too did not shed any light on the need for positive reforms. As soon as an
inmate is done serving the sentence, he or she is free from the hands of law – nothing gained, a lot
lost.

Record of Recidivism
The foremost step to be taken here is to have a record of those who recidivate. The record could be
maintained separately for each province, divided between men, women and juveniles, and range
from serious offences to minor offences. The record could be made retrospectively. If the
percentage of repeat offenders is supposedly high, policies could be implemented depending on
whether the offences are grave or getting graver.

Reasons for Recidivism

But before framing policies, reformers must also focus on identifying trends that trigger the
offenders and their psychological and financial state.

Poverty plays a significantly influential role when a person decides to commit a crime. People who
are financially unstable tend to take the harsh route of committing crimes in order to gain money,
which later becomes a habit by practice. Once labelled as criminals or prisoners, they become foes
of the society, and this acts as another trigger for not being able to function properly or deviate from
crimes. Juveniles engage in crimes for the same reasons, resorting to small offences during youth
and getting brainwashed into committing bigger crimes for monetary gain.

Measures to Reduce Recidivism

These wrongdoers could be given a chance to contribute towards the society in more serviceable
ways. Community service plays a key role in creating synergy between the offenders and the
working class.

Prisoners could be taught basic labour work which could result in having more labourers in the long-
run and more human resources within prisons. A time-check could be implemented by local officers
for assessing productivity.

An alternative option could be the provision of decent jobs to prisoners after their sentence is over.
A two-way beneficial scheme would increase employability while the offenders would stay
undistracted and financially stable.

Juveniles could be provided with basic education which could help them branch into more
vocational opportunities.
According to the Law and Justice Commission of Pakistan Report 23 on jail reform, the jail manual
suggests building libraries and giving primary education to all illiterate prisoners. However, none of
this has ever been implemented. Donations, books and school supplies could be crowdsourced from
the general public and a small school could be built at least for juvenile offenders who could later be
enrolled in government schools under special programs once their sentence has been served.

(Penal Reform International, in collaboration with UK Aid and DOST, issued a report in 2012 on the
probation and parole system of Pakistan and provided detailed suggestions and reforms. However,
none of them have been enacted to date and the issues remain unaddressed.)

The parole system has been well observed in laws such as the Probation of Offenders Ordinance
1960, the West Pakistan Probation of Offenders Rules 1961, the Good Conduct Prisoners’
Probational Release Act 1926 and the Good Conduct Prisoners’ Probational Rules 1927. The clauses
state how courts could grant probation to the deserving and how probation officers could keep
checks. However, the process could be made less tedious and applied fully if the task could solely be
handled by probation officers who could physically assess an inmate’s behaviour and approve
probation accordingly. The Ordinance also suggests rehabilitation services which again have never
been observed. Such services must be allowed for all offences and be available to offenders of all
genders and ages.

Conclusion
Our prison system needs to be more therapeutic and social rather than give rise to demeaning acts
such as harassment, sexual abuse or increased crime rate. The system needs to identify the trend
that could otherwise be stopped through the implementation of legal instruments and morally
acceptable approaches. It would not only result in an opportunity to make the law more effective
but also develop more skilled citizens who could benefit the society as a whole instead of harming it
further.