Evaluating the usefulness of punishment theories in the context of crimes committed by those in custody

Abstract

It is inevitable and regrettable that inmates continue to commit crimes while serving their sentences. This is rather bizarre because prisons are naturally confined spaces that leave one with little or no liberty to do what one would normally do outside of prison, let alone committing crime. This raises questions concerning the pragmatic position of scientific theories that are not only formulated to explain, predict, and understand phenomena but are also seen as a bedrock of scientific research. It would not be far-fetched to expect any research paper to include a section on a theoretical framework that is essentially a representation of some level of the application of particular scholarly theories. However, not much has been documented about the usefulness of scientific theories that normally form part of research papers. This analytic paper evaluated the usefulness of scholarly theories in the criminal justice system field, specifically punishment theories, by reflecting on the crimes committed by inmates while serving their time. This study found that retribution, deterrence, and incapacitation are not useful theories in terms of theoretical scope. The incapacitation theory is not useful in terms of heuristic value, and deterrence, and rehabilitation are not useful in terms of validity.