15.3: Crime and Punishment

Clearly if society did not punish criminals, then crime would rapidly increase and no one would be safe. Christians have to have views on punishment, and so must ask themselves what the aims of punishment are. Several aims of punishment have been cited over the years, not all of which may be acceptable to Christians.

This means society getting its own back. So that if a person commits a crime, "he has it coming to him." If someone hurts or injures another person, then the criminal must be hurt in return. Christians do not feel happy with this aim, for it suggests that we are entitled to gain some satisfaction or pleasure out of the sufferings of another person, however criminal they may be. Christians do not feel that a truly loving person can gain any pleasure from even the sufferings of a criminal, however bad.

Deterrence is the principle that if people know what punishment is in store for a crime they will think twice about doing it and may be put off. So that, we may think of killing someone, but we remember that if we are caught we will receive a life sentence, so we don't kill. The trouble with deterrence is that it only partly works, and there will always be gamblers who take a chance on not being caught. This problem does not tell us whether deterrence is a valid reason for punishment. In general deterrence is thought to justified under the principle of self-defence. We also must ensure that the punishment is not greater than the crime which it is intended to prevent. Having a punishment which is worse than the crime defeats the object of the punishment, which is to resist evil.

The principle here is that when criminal are behind bars they are where they can do no harm. It keeps them away from the people whom they would otherwise harm. This again is thought to be justified by the right of self-defence. This raises an interesting problem about imprisonment: is it ever right to imprison anyone who is not a threat to the public? Clearly, society may feel a need to imprison a burglar, but what about people who are incapable of paying fines? Christians believe that the punishment should be proportional to the crime, so imprisonment is not necessary in every case.

Christianity is a religion which sees hope for everyone, so Christians believe that the aim of punishment is to reform the criminal and make them fit to re-enter society. This means that the punishment should be designed to help the criminal learn the error of their ways. It should help the criminal to develop character qualities better than they have. Some criminals are lured into crime because they have few skills and cannot easily make a living, so punishment should teach them the skills required to get and keep a job.

The death penalty is a long-standing moral problem. We all are so horrified at certain times that we feel that their perpetrator ought to die, and we would get a great deal of satisfaction from hanging them? This is a normal human emotion, yet the moral problems around hanging are great. Is it ever right to take a criminal's life in cold blood? Many people feel that those who take life should themselves be killed. "An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth." Many Christians believe that God has a destiny for every living person, and that, if that person is killed, God's will for them cannot be done. Furthermore there is the possibility of hanging the wrong person. Many people have been convicted of murder and then found innocent. If they

have been executed the injustice cannot be redressed. There is also the problem that execution can emotionally damage the relatives of the executed person. The son of the last woman to be executed in Britain suffered longstanding depression from his childhood, when this happened, until his suicide. Can we guarantee that execution will not do more damage than it prevents? It is impossible to know the full consequences of any action, so we can never be certain that an execution will do good.