Way back in the old days of my first year of law school, right on the first day of Criminal Law, our professor discussed the concept of sending someone to prison. Essentially, he said that there were four purposes for imprisoning someone, as follows:
1. Deterrent - A disincentive, we send you here and you don't want to come back after you're done.
2. Retribution - We believe that since you're a criminal, you deserve to be punished. You chose to live outside the law and now you have to pay the consequences.
3. Rehabilitation - There is a belief in people that we can "fix" a criminal, that we can somehow teach them to not break the law and be a decent, law-abiding person.
4. Incapacitation - If we put you in jail, then you can't break the law and hurt non-criminals while you're there. Thus, we reduce crime.
The idea, as I understood it, was that people will adopt one of these philosophies with respect to how we treat prisoners and why we have a penal system. I don't know exactly which section I would fall under. I wonder what other people's philosophies would fall into...
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