Goals of Punishment - Essay Example

Goals of Punishment Goals OF Punishment In the United s, an eight–year old girl could be condemned behind the bars . A man who gets caught some milligrams of drugs in his pocket could possibly live a life without parole. A woman who steals laundry baskets repeatedly could be imprisoned for twenty-five years or worse, until she dies. Peculiar is the word that best describes the sentence practices in the United States. According to a report by the University of San Francisco School of Law, Center for Law and Global Justice, entitled Cruel and Unusual: U.S. Sentencing Practices in a Global Context, the United States stands out among other nations in the world due to their odd sentencing laws, these laws include what they call long sentences such as life without parole, consecutive consequences, and recidivist/ habitual statuses; and juvenile justice such as juvenile without parole (de la Vega et al., 2012). The recidivist/habitual statuses should be the basis of sentences practices among others as it is supported by 76% of nations in the world (de la Vega et al., 2012). Therefore, this practice takes into consideration the international legal standards.

It is thus supported by behaviorist and psychologist B.F Skinners theory in Operate Conditioning, specifically in negative reinforcement, which states that , "Negative reinforcement strengthens behavior because it stops or removes an unpleasant experience" (McLeod 2007). For example, an offender loses his rights and gets detained in jail, and therefore, to win back his rights again, the offender must not do his previous crime again. This sentence law could help lessen crimes without resulting to "cruel and unusual" sentence practices.

Referencesde la Vega, C., Solter, A., Kwon, S., Isaac,. (2012) Cruel and Unusual: U.S. Sentencing Patterns in a Global Context. p. 17-35. University of San Francisco.McLeod, S.(2007) Operant Conditioning. Simply Psychology. Retrieved fromhttp://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html