The goals of punishment
Why should offenders be punished? This apparently simple question has several possible answers: because they deserve it; to stop them committing further crimes; to reassure the victim that society cares about what has happened to him/her; to discourage other people from doing the same thing; to protect society from dangerous or dishonest people; to allow offenders to make amends for the harm they have caused; to make people realize that laws must be obeyed. Each of these reasons, and others one could easily imagine, are plausible justifications for imposing punishment on offenders. These are the kinds of consideration judges and magistrates have in mind when they pass sentences, and at first glance they may seem such obvious, common-sense reasons for punishing criminals that it is sur¬prising that they are the subject of a large body of scholarly พTiring and generate much argument.