Criminal Justice Stream 1

Four Pillars of a Criminal Justice System Rehabilitation Safety Deterrence Retribution

Rehabilitation

How does the justice system help rehabilitation? The parole system incentivises good behaviour To get parole initially When you are out of prison on parole We can provide rehabilitation services to criminals like education Conciliation between victims and perpetrators

How does the criminal justice system hurt rehabilitation? Resentment of society and the state Creation of criminal networks Difficulty of getting a job outside of prison Australia has a 50% recidivism rate

Safety

How is the criminal justice system good for safety? Victims are protected (e.g. from an ongoing abuser) Because criminals are kept locked away, they can’t reoffend and inflict harm on other people

Deterrence

Why do prisons deter people Rational choice theory Discursive changes in the way we think about crime

Why might the deterrent effect fail?? Criminals are often really irrational Lack education Crimes of passion Economic desperation/drug addiction etc. People are optimistic that they won’t get caught Sometimes it is basically impossible to enforce crimes (rape, drugs)

Retributive Justice

Why does the criminal justice system give retributive justice? Victims can recover if the perpetrator is in jail Society’s desire for justice is met People get what they deserve

Putting it all together

What can we do with these concepts? Think about how the model makes the things we have discussed better/worse

Then analyse stakeholders with them Will crime go up or down as a result of this model? How will prisoners be affected by it? Will it be more moral/just?

Helpful Rule of Thumb Your stakeholders should generally be the way you structure/label your arguments What does this do to levels of crime? How does this help the recovery of victims? How does this impact perpetrators? The content of your arguments can then use the four pillars

Remember! There is no universal template Which of the four pillars you deploy depends on the debate, you have to think through which issues the model is really affecting