Purposes and Philosophies of Punishment

The classical set of justifications criminology and penology give for punishing an offender at all: restoring what the offense damaged through victim and community involvement rather than punishment alone, discouraging future offending through the threat or experience of punishment, removing an offender's present ability to offend again, imposing punishment because it is deserved regardless of future effect, and returning an offender to law-abiding life. Belongs here: any concept naming a reason why a criminal justice system punishes, restrains or treats an offender. Does not belong here: concepts about the lived experience of confinement itself, grouped under Corrections and Institutional Life, which is the practice these philosophies justify rather than the justification itself.