Attitudes to punishment - EduqasChanges in attitudes to punishment in the 20th and 21st centuries

Rehabilitation and restitution

In the context of punishment, rehabilitation means restoring someone to a normal, crime-free life. Restitution means restoring something that has been lost or compensating someone for something. These are the modern attitudes to punishment.

Prison, community service, fines and court orders all aim to rehabilitate offenders and prevent them from reoffending. Victims are more often compensated for crimes. Additionally, convicted criminals may be given community service, which aims to compensate the local community through helpful work.

Attitudes to prison

By the start of the 20th century, attitudes towards prisons had begun to change. Increasingly, going to prison was seen as a punishment in itself. The loss of liberty when in prison was seen as enough of a punishment.

People began to see that the flogging, isolation and silence used in the 19th century were not working and should be abandoned.

This change in attitude led to improvements in prisons, eg prisoners could wear their own clothes. Prison food was improved, and more education and courses were made available inside prisons. These aimed to rehabilitate prisoners and give them skills to allow them to find useful employment after their release.

Since 1945, the rising crime rate has led to a massive increase in the prison population. This has led to overcrowding and, at times, lack of access to education and courses.

There has been further change in attitudes in modern times. Some people now feel that prison has become 'too easy', that it is not enough of a deterrent for prisoners and that prisons are not reforming prisoners effectively enough.

Attitudes to capital punishment in the 20th century

Capital punishment was abolished in the 1965 Murder (Abolition of the Death Penalty) Act. This was a result of changing attitudes towards the use of the death penalty.

Arguments in favour of the death penalty

• Some people saw the death penalty as a deterrent to serious crimes such as murder.
• Very few people were being executed per year.
• During this period, only five crimes were capital crimes - murder, treason, piracy with violence, espionage, and burning down a weapons store or a navy dockyard. Only people convicted of very serious crimes could be executed.
• After 1957, only murder remained a capital crime. This meant that by the early 1960s the only executions that happened were for premeditated murders.

Arguments against the death penalty

• Sometimes there were wrongful convictions. There were well-publicised cases of people who were executed but then later found to be innocent, eg Walter Rowland in 1947 and Timothy Evans in 1950.
• The cases of Derek Bentley, who was involved in a murder in 1952, and Ruth Ellis, the last woman to be hanged in the UK, convinced many that the death penalty should be ended.
• Despite the death penalty, murder still happened. It did not seem to deter murderers.
• Increasingly, people saw the death penalty as barbaric and uncivilised. Many other countries also ended the death penalty.