Penology

Pains

The Peine can be defined like a suffering imposed by the authority as sanction of the violation of the fundamental rules of the life in society.

The suffering returns directly towards the idea of revenge and punishment: by the made punishable act, a suffering was inflicted with the victim and consequently its author must undergo of them the consequences by a principle of reciprocity (but not inevitably of equivalence).

The fact that this suffering is imposed by the authority excludes the principle from private revenge. It is the social group as a whole which delegates to other authorities the power to punish those which enfreignent the rules of life in society.

Objectives of the sorrow

According to the designs, the policies but also the times, the objectives allotted to the sorrow in the broad sense of the term are variable. That does not mean however that they are excluded mutually, some of them overlap besides.

Revenge

Revenge consists in making pay the author of an infringement and washing undergone offense.

It is the first role which was allotted to the sorrow. The main part of the structured social organizations, some is their degree of evolution, confer on their chief the right to punish in order to make reign the order in its center. Certain animal species structured as clans have a similar system besides where the chief has right to punish the members of his tribe, via for example the corporal punishments, the capital punishment or the banishment.

Historically, the sorrow as a revenge exerted by the authority is in the majority of the companies a progressive regulation of the deprived revenge by which offended became creditor of its offender (and generally of all its family even). As of 1750 before Jesus Christ, one thus finds trace of the first coding of revenge in the Code on Hammurabi.

Elimination

Certain sorrows but also certain measurements taken with regard to the abnormal delinquents or usually have as a main aim or accessory the protection of the company by the elimination of the delinquent. It is the case of the Bannissement or the sorrow of imprisonment for example.

Atonement and amendment

Atonement and amendment start from a more philosophical design of the sorrow and find their origin in the Christianity which preaches the repurchase of its faults, even the purification, by the inflicted punishment.

It then is awaited condemned that it makes amend and expie its fished by undergoing its sorrow, which should thus be made profitable for a reflection on oneself. Failing this, it is advisable to rectify it in order to make him lose its dangerosity, of the " normalizer" while it returning obeying the laws more, even if it does not become inevitably a better being.

Intimidation and dissuasion

Helps, care and monitoring

Conciliation

Models of Justice

Penology traditionally distinguishes three great models from Justice, which return towards various applicable types of sanction: the punitive justice, the réhabilitative Justice and the repairing Justice (or restorative).

Punitive justice

Punitive or rétributive justice is centered on the offense in itself, the transgression of a social norm and aims at restoring the order by the imposition of a precisely proportioned suffering. The objective of the sorrow will be the dissuasion from the delinquent (specifically, i.e. that on which is imposed the sanction, and generally, i.e. population as a whole) and the application of a revenge precisely due. The standard sanction answering this model is the sorrow of imprisonment.

Réhabilitative justice

Réhabilitative justice is centered on the delinquent by determining his needs in order to assist it and to treat it. The delinquent is in this case considered as a patient that it is advisable to cure, to assist in order to allow him in the future to adopt a behavior in conformity with waitings. The imposition of a therapy or to follow a formation generally meets this aim.

Repairing justice

Repairing or restorative justice is centered on the damage while trying to repair it and/or restore balance broken between the parts: the company, the delinquent and the victim. The objective will be then the restoration of the bond between the various parts implied in order to restore peace in the community. The mediation author/victim is the typical example of application of a model of repairing justice.

Types of sanctions

Whereas penology is in itself a recent science, the infliction of sanctions following the transgression of the social norms goes back to the first steps even of humanity. A notable evolution is however noted with the wire of the centuries, the sanction evolving/moving gradually of a strictly rétributif model (Loi of Retaliation for example: an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth) towards a model of restorative justice.

Currently, in the democratic society, the principal following sanctions are likely to be inflicted with very contravening the criminal law:

the Sorrow of imprisonment, considered classically as reference pains since the French revolution which proclaimed freedom as fundamental value
the Amende, applied for offenses of minor importance but which can also be combined with a sorrow of imprisonment
the Community Sanctions which consist, with the agreement of condemned, to make voluntarily work this last for the general interest
formations or therapies by which condemned agree to be made look after via therapeutic programs or to follow modules of formation aiming at developing its aptitudes (professional or human) in various fields
penal Médiation which aims at restoring the dialog between the prisoner and his victim from a point of view répatrice
the electronic Surveillance by which the prisoner is assigned in residence but generally profits from moments of freedom, the respect of the periods of assignment being controlled by electronic means (most of the time by the port of an electronic bracelet connected by radio wave to a telephone exchange installed at condemned and itself connected to the station control room by the phone network)

Alternative sorrows and measurements

Since many years, criminologists and specialists in the criminal law and penology are with the research solution known as " alternatives" with the sorrow of imprisonment. The latter indeed showed its limits for a long time, having for only true utility only to exclude the delinquent from the company for a defined term, without bringing real appreciation once this released last and being even often regarded as a real school of the crime.

Certain alternative punitive models are thus developed. The Probation, which consists in matching the deferment pronounced with regard to unquestionable sanctions of particular conditions, is the first model of this type set up. By after, other alternatives will come to be grafted on this system or will be developed in parallel, it is the case of the Community sanctions already mentioned above.

The alternative character of these measurements is however regularly disputed, of no doubting that it really replaces the sorrow of imprisonment while advancing which they widen rather the field of penalty, these measurements being applied to delinquents sanctioned before. This phenomenon is described of widening of the penal net in criminology or as Net widening.

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