Court is responsible to set a specific measure to the individual which formulates punishment. Penalty is applied to a person found guilty of committing a crime and consists of the deprivation or restriction of the rights and freedoms of this person provided for by the Code (Frase & Roberts, 2019). Punishment has its two key aspects which should positively impact on the person in terms of correction, namely retribution and prevention. Retribution prevents future crimes by discouraging the desire to continue illegal activities. Prevention carries the role of a preventive aspect for the potential commission of a crime.
In other words, when a person can realize the consequences of crimes, one has a barrier to committing illegal activities. It is formulated not only from a moral point of view but also from the fear of punishment and the consequences for life. Today, our current correctional system addresses both of these needs since it discourages the desire to continue the criminal activity and has a preventive role. However, in some cases, a person goes deep into the criminal world while in the dark and continues gang activity.
It is worth noting that the modern correctional system has some drawbacks. It was clearly demonstrated by the Stanford experiment, which showed how power could induce sadistic tendencies in ordinary people (HeroicImaginationTV, 2011). It can help to improve the ethics of corrections, namely not to put prisoners on the level of enslaved people and not to provide them with cruel living conditions. Moreover, it shows the power of informal culture in punishment, namely how social norms can influence the distribution of roles. In other words, some wrong social prejudice caused absolutely equal people to be divided into groups, which showed inequality.
References
Frase, R. S., & Roberts, J. V. (2019). Paying for the past: The case against prior record sentence enhancements. Oxford University Press.
HeroicImaginationTV. (2011). The Stanford prison experiment. [Video]. YouTube. Web.