Penology and

Punishment
► Penology (from "penal", Latin poena, "punishment" and the Greek
suffix -logia, "study of") is a sub-component of criminology that deals
with the philosophy and practice of various societies in their attempts
to repress criminal activities, and satisfy public opinion via an
appropriate treatment regime for persons ...
► Penology is the study of punishment
Francis Lieber was the sociologist who coined the term
penology which means punishment for criminals. ..
► There are different kinds of punishment that a person can
face. In order to understand them, first, we need to
understand the theories of the punishment. There are
majorly four theories of punishment.
► These theories are the
❖ deterrent theory,
❖ retributive theory,
❖ preventive theory, and
❖ reformative theory.
► Deterrent Theory
► The term Deter means to abstain from doing an act. The main
purpose of the theory is to deter (Prevent) the criminals from
doing the crime or repeating the same in future.
► Under this theory severe punishment are inflicted upon the
offender so that he abstains from committing a crime in future and
it would also be a lesson to the other members of the society ,as to
what can be the consequence s of committing a crime. This theory
has proved effective even though it has certain defects.
► Retributive Theory
► Retribution is the most ancient justification for punishment. This theory
insists that a person deserves punishment as he has done a wrongful deed.
Also, this theory signifies that no person shall be arrested unless that person
has broken the law. Here are the conditions where a person is considered as
an offender are:
• The penalty given will be equivalent to the grievance caused by the person.
• Performed a crime of certain culpability.
• That similar persons have been imposed for similar offenses.
• That the action performed was by him and he was only responsible for it.
Also, he had full knowledge of the penalty system and possible
consequences.
► This theory of punishment is based on the principle “An eye for an eye a tooth
for a tooth”
► Retributive means to give in turn
► The object of this theory is to make the criminal realize the suffering of thee
pain by subjecting him to the same kind of pain as he had inflicted on the
victim.
► This theory aims at taking revenge rather than social welfare and
transformation.
► Preventive Theory
► This theory has used a restraint that an offender if repeats the
criminal act is culpable for death, exile or imprisonment. The theory
gets its importance from the notion that society must be protected
from criminals. Thus, the punishment here is for solidarity and
defense.
► The modern criminologists saw the preventive theory from a different
view. They first realized that the social and economic forces should
be removed from society. Also, one must pay attention to individuals
who show anti-social behavior. This is because of psychological and
biological handicaps.
► This theory thus aims to prevent the crime rather than avenging it. As per this
theory the idea is to keep the offender away from the society. The criminal
under this theory is punished with death, life imprisonment etc. This theory
has been criticized by some jurists.
► Reformative Theory
► Deterrence and retributive are examples of classical and neo-classical
philosophies. The reformative theory was born out of the positive
theory that the focal point of crime is positive thinking. Thus,
according to this theory, the objective of punishment needs to be
reformation by the offender.
► So, this is not a punishment virtually but rather a rehabilitative
process. Thus, this process helps in making a criminal a good citizen
as much as possible. Furthermore, it makes the citizen a meaningful
citizen and an upright straight man.
► This theory is the most humane of all the theories which aims to reform the
legal offenders by individual treatment.
► The idea behind this theory is that no one is a born criminal and criminals are
also humans.
► This theory believes that if the criminals are trained and educated they can
be transformed into law abiding citizens.
► The theory has been proved to be successful and accepted by many jurists.