Punishment is the imposition of an undesirable or unpleasant outcome upon an individual or group, as a response for breaking some norm or rule. The term punishment is used both within and outside of the criminal justice context. For example, punishment outside of criminal law can include child discipline measures or conscious or subconscious impositions of unpleasant measures in a relationship.
A variety of philosophical theories have been developed to justify punishment. Important views argue that punishment deters wrongdoing, rehabilitates offenders, incapacitates the dangerous, or gives justice to those who deserve it. Moral justifications of punishment are found even in ancient civilisations, with Aristotle writing extensively of the ethical implications of imposing pain onto an individual or group.
Punishment can differ in its degree of severity, and may include sanctions such as reprimands, removing privileges, deprivation of liberty, fines, incarcerations, ostracism and social shunning, the infliction of pain, amputation and the death penalty. Corporal punishment refers to punishments in which physical pain is intended to be inflicted upon the transgressor. Punishments may be judged as fair or unfair in terms of their degree of reciprocity and proportionality to the offense. Punishment can be an integral part of socialization, and punishing unwanted behavior is often part of a system of pedagogy or behavioral modification which also includes rewards.
Definitions
There are a large number of different understandings of what punishment is. These depend as to whether we approach punishment as a criminal justice or everday practice. It also depends on what discipline we use to understand punishment.
In philosophy Various philosophers have presented definitions of punishment.and violates the law or rules by which the group is governed. Conditions commonly considered necessary properly to describe an action as punishment are that it is imposed by an authority (single or multiple), it involves some loss to the supposed offender, it is in response to an offense and the human (or other animal) to whom the loss is imposed should be deemed at least somewhat responsible for the offence. The key concern by legal philosophers is the justification of the imposition of punishment and whether the forms that it takes can weight against the intended benefits. Moreover, philosophical definitions of punishment continue to evolve, often challenging some of the aforementioned key components. For example, legal philosopher, Theo Gavrielides, developed a new theory of punishment that is not imposed by an authority, but is self-inflicted. He argued that when this form of punishment is self-inflicted in a voluntary and honest practice (such as restorative justice) it can have profound effects that can lead to transformation and rehabilitation.
In psychology
Introduced by B.F. Skinner, punishment has a more restrictive and technical definition in psychology. Along with reinforcement, it belongs under the operant conditioning category. Operant conditioning refers to learning with either punishment that discourages the measured behavior, or a reward that encourages the behavior.
In psychology, punishment is the reduction of a behavior via application of an unpleasant stimulus ("positive punishment") or removal of a pleasant stimulus ("negative punishment"). Extra chores or spanking are examples of positive punishment, while grounding a teenager or removing screen time privileges are examples of negative punishment.
The definition requires that punishment is only determined after the fact by the reduction in behavior; if the offending behavior of the subject does not decrease, it is not considered punishment. In operant conditioning terms, punishment does not need to involve any type of pain, fear, or physical actions; even a brief spoken expression of disapproval, or calmly telling a student that they answered a question incorrectly, is a type of punishment, if the result is a decrease in the behavior (e.g., a decrease in giving that wrong answer to that question). There is some conflation of punishment and aversives, though an aversion that does not decrease behavior is not considered punishment in psychology. Additionally, "aversive stimulus" is a label behaviorists generally apply to negative reinforcers (as in avoidance learning), rather than the punishers.
In socio-biology Punishment is sometimes called retaliatory or moralistic aggression; it has been observed in all species of social animals, leading evolutionary biologists to conclude that it is an evolutionarily stable strategy, selected because it favors cooperative behavior.
However, other evolutionary biologists have argued against punishment to favour cooperation. Dreber et al. demonstrate that while the availability of costly punishment can enhance cooperative behavior, it does not improve the group's average payoff. Additionally, there is a significant negative relationship between the overall payoff and the employment of costly punishment. Individuals who achieve the highest total payoffs generally avoid using costly punishment. This indicates that employing costly punishment in cooperative games may be disadvantageous and suggests that it may have evolved for purposes other than promoting cooperation.
Achieving a certain proportion of trust in the population can lead to self-governance without the need for punishment.
Examples against sociobiological use
There are also arguments against the notion of punishment requiring intelligence, based on studies of punishment in very small-brained animals such as insects. There is proof of honey bee workers with mutations that makes them fertile laying eggs only when other honey bees are not observing them, and that the few that are caught in the act are killed. This is corroborated by computer simulations proving that a few simple reactions well within mainstream views of the extremely limited intelligence of insects are sufficient to emulate the "political" behavior observed in great apes. The authors argue that this falsifies the claim that punishment evolved as a strategy to deal with individuals capable of knowing what they are doing.How the Body Shapes the Way We Think: A New View of Intelligence, Rolf Pfeifer, Josh Bongard, foreword by Rodney Brooks. 2006
In the case of more complex brains, the notion of evolution selecting for specific punishment of intentionally chosen breaches of rules and/or wrongdoers capable of intentional choices (for example, punishing humans for murder while not punishing lethal viruses) is subject to criticism from coevolution issues. That punishment of individuals with certain characteristics (including but, in principle, not restricted to mental abilities) selects against those characteristics, making evolution of any mental abilities considered to be the basis for penal responsibility impossible in populations subject to such selective punishment. Certain scientists argue that this disproves the notion of humans having a biological feeling of intentional transgressions deserving to be punished.Friedrich Nietzsche (1886). Beyond Good and Evil: Prelude to a Philosophy of the FutureAllen, Elizabeth, et al. (1975). "Against 'Sociobiology'". [letter] New York Review of Books 22 (Nov. 13).Dawkins, Richard (1979). Twelve misunderstandings of kin selection"Observational Learning in Octopus vulgaris." Graziano Fiorito, Pietro Scotto. 1992.Aliens of the deep sea, documentary. 2011.
Scope of application Punishments are applied for various purposes, most generally, to encourage and enforce proper behavior as defined by society or family. Criminals are punished judicially, by fines, corporal punishment or custodial sentences such as prison; detainees risk further punishments for breaches of internal rules. Children, pupils and other trainees may be punished by their educators or instructors (mainly parents, guardians, or teachers, tutors and coaches)—see Child discipline.
Slaves, domestic and other servants were subject to punishment by their masters. Employees can still be subject to a contractual form of fine or demotion. Most hierarchical organizations, such as military and police forces, or even churches, still apply quite rigid internal discipline, even with a judicial system of their own (court martial, canonical courts).
Punishment may also be applied on moral, especially religious, grounds, as in penance (which is voluntary) or imposed in a theocracy with a religious police (as in a strict Islamic state like Iran or under the Taliban) or (though not a true theocracy) by Inquisition.
Justification of punishment
There are many possible reasons that might be given to justify or explain why someone ought to be punished. The justification of punishment has captured the interest of many philosophers throughout history including Aristotle, John Stuart Mill, Jeremy Bentham and many others. While some, such as Mill and Bentham, draw its explanation through utilitarian perspectives, others look at liberalism as a philosophy. More recently, additional approaches have been developed to justify punishment including social contract theory and restorative justice pain.
A principle often mentioned with respect to the degree of punishment to be meted out is that the punishment should match the crime.Doing Justice – The Choice of Punishments, A Vonhirsch, 1976, p. 220Criminology, Larry J. Siegel"An Economic Analysis of the Criminal Law as Preference-Shaping Policy", Duke Law Journal, Feb 1990, Vol. 1, Kenneth Dau-Schmidt One standard for measurement is the degree to which a crime affects others or society. Measurements of the degree of seriousness of a crime have been developed. A felony is generally considered to be a crime of "high seriousness", while a misdemeanor is not. Here follows a broad outline of typical, possibly conflicting, justifications.
The reasoning for punishment may be to condition a child to avoid self-endangerment, to impose social conformity (in particular, in the contexts of compulsory education or military discipline), to defend norms, to protect against future harms (in particular, those from violent crime), and to maintain the law—and respect for rule of law—under which the social group is governed. Punishment may be self-inflicted as with self-flagellation and mortification of the flesh in the religious setting, but is most often a form of social coercion.
The unpleasant imposition may include a fine, penalty, or confinement, or be the removal or denial of something pleasant or desirable. The individual may be a person, or even an animal. The authority may be either a group or a single person, and punishment may be carried out formally under a system of law or informally in other kinds of social settings such as within a family. Negative or unpleasant impositions that are not authorized or that are administered without a breach of rules are not considered to be punishment as defined here. The study and practice of the punishment of crimes, particularly as it applies to imprisonment, is called penology, or, often in modern texts, corrections; in this context, the punishment process is euphemistically called "correctional process". Research into punishment often includes similar research into prevention.
Justifications for punishment include retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, and incapacitation. The last could include such measures as isolation, in order to prevent the wrongdoer's having contact with potential victims, or the removal of a hand in order to make theft more difficult.