Two news stories pop up on your feed. In the first story, a man living in your city is described as a convicted sex offender. His neighbors are picketing in front of his house, voicing their displeasure that he is allowed to live there. The video shows how angry the neighborhood is, and you can see the frustration and anger on the people’s faces.

The second story is about a woman who was detained for stealing food from a local grocery store, apparently to feed her children. She is shown in the back of a police car. The store manager is interviewed and says he is offering to donate the food to her so that she does not have to spend time in jail or get into any more trouble.

How do these two stories make you feel? Is it the same feeling for each story? Does one of these stories make you feel more afraid of crime? More angry or upset? Which one? Who deserves to get punished more? How much punishment should they get? The answers to questions like these flood our thoughts as we see stories like this and when we hear about crime in general. These questions and feelings are normal. It is this process that generates our own personal punishment ideology.

Now, which one of these two individuals has actually committed a crime? Technically, the woman has broken the law. Our perceptions of punishment can be influenced by the narrative we hear online or from others.

In this section, we will reference forward-looking ideologies and backward-looking ideologies. Forward-looking ideologies are designed to provide punishment but also to reduce the level of recidivism through some type of change. Recidivism is when someone who has been in trouble with the law before gets in trouble again. It’s a repeat offense or when a person does something illegal more than once. The backward-looking approach is solely for the punishment of past actions and aims to have no effect on recidivism. The change in ideologies and in how society views punishment is a shift that occurs over time and is impacted by the dominant culture, politics, and even religion.

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“Philosophies of Punishment” is adapted from “8.1. A Brief History of the Philosophies of Punishment”, “8.2. Retribution”, “8.3. Deterrence”, “8.4. Incapacitation”, and “8.5. Rehabilitation” by David Carter in SOU-CCJ230 Introduction to the American Criminal Justice System by Alison S. Burke, David Carter, Brian Fedorek, Tiffany Morey, Lore Rutz-Burri, and Shanell Sanchez, licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0. Modifications by Megan Gonzalez, revisions by Roxie Supplee, licensed CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 include editing for clarity.