ESSAY HELP PLEASE - function and role of sentencing in society (1 Viewer)

[quickbrownfox]

Year 10 assignment:

There are various arguments about the length and function(s) of penalties imposed. Some examples include – police say there has to be truth in sentencing, and that the criminals get paroled after too a short time. Some people believe that petty criminals learn to be “better” criminals in jail and/or become part of criminal networks. The humanitarians believe jails should help convicted criminals to become worthy citizens so that the convicted criminals see the error of their ways/show remorse and should be reintroduced to society.

Write an essay about the function and role of sentencing in society, in general. 600 Words

I cannot find anything of much use through Google on sentencing. Some help please!? What are the main points that I need to include?
It seems like a pretty basic topic.. I don't know why I'm having so much trouble with it..

 

[jeff.wong]

Sentencing I take it as in punishment from the HSC Legal Studies syllabus it prescribes several purposes of punishment:
Here are some of the main ones
-Retribution: i.e. seeking revenge to achieve a sense of justice on the victim's behalf
-Rehabilitation: as you mention, "jails should help convicted criminals to become worthy citizens so that the convicted criminals see the error of their ways/show remorse and should be reintroduced to society", however, the reality of prison may not be the case, you can look into theory of differential association whereby it asserts that criminals will learn criminal behaviour from others [i.e. in jail criminals will associate with each other and commit crime when they are out thus rehabilitation is difficult]
-Incapacitation: this is basically keeping the criminals in jail to prevent them from further harming society
-Deterrence: i.e. providing a disincentive for a particular crime or the individual from commiting the same crime again

Goodluck in your assignment.