The Illustrated Guide to Criminal Law
Chapter 3: Punishment
Page 1: Why punishment?
The Criminal Lawyer’s Guide to Criminal Law (with pictures!)
Part Three: “For the Love of God, WHY?”
Average Joe running off with a woman’s purse.
NARRATOR
Let’s say you committed a crime, harming society.
The State bonking Joe with her big freakin’ hammer.
The State responds by harming YOU.
Joe looking beat up.
It’s reasonable to ask yourself
JOE
Why?
NARRATOR
What possible purpose is served by the State adding injury to injury?
How does adding MORE suffering make society any better off?
[Note: These chapters originally appeared as single, long-form posts on Tumblr. They have been broken down into individual pages for this website, for better comprehension and discussion.]
Good question!
The cynic in me wants to say that the well-being of society isn’t high on the list of the state’s priorities. She just really loves her hammer (read: wishes to retain a large number of men-at-arms), and if she didn’t have an acceptable target to use it on, people might ask questions about why she needs the damn thing so much. Society does benefit from this arrangement, to be sure, but that’s not the same thing as it being for the benefit of society.
Punishment by the state is primarily used to illustrate that is you rebel against societies “norms” you injure society as a whole and not just the person place or thing against which the act was committed. It’s meant to be a deterrent