* Paper 5
Author 4: Kristen Kurtz
...Burger would argue that the purpose of prison is to fix what is wrong in the criminal’s life that drove him to crime, so that he could eventually be released as a productive member of society. This idea resides on the assumption that we, as society, have a moral obligation to the criminal (22). Burger believes that the world must have failed a man in some aspect of his life, whether it is a lack of moral guidance or work ethic, which has in turn driven him to crime (22). This view of the criminal, regarding him more as a child than a competent adult, allows responsibility for the illegal act to bypass the individual and be placed on the shoulders of society.
Newman would find this assumption fundamentally flawed in the sense that relieving criminals from responsibility for their crimes undermines the entire justice system. Newman advocates punishments for criminals that match the crime that they have committed (35). He claims that we achieve justice through retribution, and would clearly acknowledge the rehabilitative theory’s lack of retribution. However, Burger may rebut this objection by pointing out that offenders would remain in prison throughout rehabilitation and are therefore still being punished. However, Newman would object once again. Newman has acknowledged that prison is a source of pain, and is therefore a tool of retribution, but the chronic pain that it causes is hardly a suitable response for all crime (33). His most salient concern regarding crime and punishment is that criminals must endure pain of equal severity to their crimes (37). Therefore, Newman would not consider continued imprisonment successfully retributive when administered against all criminal offenses uniformly.
The idea of inflicting pain on the criminal to the degree of which they have caused pain is the root of Newman’s view on the purpose of prison. He claims that the purpose of imprisoning criminals is to cause chronic pain. Chronic pain is recognizably more difficult to control than acute pain, but for some offenses a short duration of physical pain would just not suffice (33). Based on this idea, prison time should only be issued to offenders who have caused long lasting painful effects on their victims and alternate, perhaps corporal, punishments of a shorter duration should be administered for less severe crimes.
Burger would contest both Newman’s promotion of pain as the sole consequence of a criminal act and the idea that prison is purely a source thereof. Burger may point out that Newman seems unconcerned by recidivism, which is one of the chief motivations of Burger’s theory, because it is not explicitly addressed in his article. However, Newman does seem to presume that people naturally fear and avoid pain, which would prompt them to refrain from crime. Therefore, once the criminal feels pain as a result of his actions, he would be naturally inclined to refrain from future offenses that lead to a similar result.
Burger would maintain that the infliction of pain is fruitless if it were not accompanied by an attempt to identify and remedy the cause of the criminal’s illegal behavior. As previously mentioned, he believes that the criminal has been failed in some way and is therefore in need of help. For a man who is lacking, whether mentally or emotionally, Burger may claim that the infliction of pain would only worsen the problem...