Should our criminal justice system be more punitive or rehabilitative? Why or why not? Is it possible for a system to be both punitive and rehabilitative?

Question

Should our criminal justice system be more punitive or rehabilitative? Why? Why Not?

Is it possible for a system to be both punitive and rehabilitative?

retentionist arguments Defenders of the death penalty make several arguments

supporting their positions, including its deterrent value, fairness, and the idea that

life imprisonment does not sufficiently protect society. abolitionist arguments

Those who oppose the death penalty base their arguments on several positions,

including the moral issue, the constitutional issue, and the pragmatic issues. and

sentenced to death by an all-white jury when he was 17 years old. His death sen-

tence was overturned after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled Louisiana’s mandatory

death penalty statute unconstitutional in 1976, and his life sentence was recently

overturned after the Supreme Court barred mandatory life sentences for juvenile

offenders. Tyler was released on April 29, 2016, after he pled guilty to

manslaughter, and sentenced to time he had already served. On May 2, 2016,

81-year-old Paul Gatling was exonerated. He had been convicted of capital murder

in 1963, despite the fact that he did not fit the description of the killer and no

physical evidence linked him to the killing. He pled guilty to second-degree

murder after his lawyer told him he would get the death pen- alty if the case went

to trial.72 Cases like these stir the arguments for and against the death penalty.

Defend- ers of the death penalty make several arguments supporting their position

and, at the same time, those who oppose the death penalty base their arguments on

several positions. The following sections outline both the retentionist arguments

and the abolitionist arguments. Retentionist Arguments The following are among

the many arguments used to maintain the death penalty: ● Deterrence. Punishment

has a deterrent value. Crime is a rational process, and therefore it only stands to

reason that the possibility of a death sentence will deter some of those who are

contemplating murder. ● ● Fairness. It is only fair that “cold-blooded” killers pay

for their crimes with their own lives. In Walter Berns’s eloquent essay, he draws on

humanity’s anger against Nazi war criminals to justify capital punishment for

retribution.73 Threat of recidivism. Defenders of the death penalty charge that life

imprisonment does not protect society, because prisoners who have committed

murder are usu- ally eligible for parole after a period of time, or if they are given a

life sentence, they commit another murder while they are incarcerated.74 Those

opposed to the death penalty include people whom you might think would be

supporters. Ronnie Sandoval (left) and Lorrain Taylor comfort each other as they

hold photos of their slain children at a news conference where they joined others in

supporting a November 2012 ballot initiative to end the death penalty, held in

Sacramento, California, August 29, 2011. Sandoval’s son, Arthur Carmona, was