CRITICALLY
EXAMINE THE IMPORTANCE OF PUNISHMENT IN CRIMINAL LAW AND EXPLAIN IN DETAIL ANY
NAMED THEORY OF PUNISHMENT STUDIED
Punishment
may be seen to have similar meaning with sentencing. This is because the
sentence of the court conveys the punishment to be meted out to the offender or
criminal who has been convicted. The
word “punishment has been defined by different scholars and legal jurists. For instance “Black’s law dictionary defined
punishment as follows:
Any fine penalty, or the law and the
Judgement and sentence of a court, for some crime or offence committed by him,
or for his omission of a duty enjoined by law. A deprivation of property or
some right. But does not include a civil penalty redounding to the benefit of
an individual such as a forfeiture of interest.
And
according to the classical school, punishment is a contractual obligation that
can be computed in relation to the degree of guilt and infact an ascertained
bases of criminality. It is also postulates that there must be definitive
approach to punishment for every crime insisting that every punishment must be
proportionate to the crime committed.
While
the neo-classical school based its
formula on responsibility in favour of the convict. In other words, is
the offender capable of knowing that he has committed an offence. Eg cases
involving infants, accident and insanity were the justifying factors utilized.
Punishment
was also seen to be the act of imposing a penalty by a court on a wrong done by
a person or to make him undergo pain, loss or suffering for a crime or wrong
doing.
Punishment
may also be defined as the instrument with which the criminal law performs it’s
function of checkmating crime.
H.L.A
Hart is of the view that the definition of punishment should be divided into
five parts in the following manner;
1.
Unpleasant
experiences
2.
Inflicted
for breach of legal rules
3.
Upon
actual or supposed offenders on the ground of the offence committed.
4.
Intentionally
administered by human beings and;
5.
Constituted
as authority within that legal system.
Punishment
as an award for criminal offences has advantages that could be seen as follows;
1. It prevents further commission crime
this is the view of the Utilitarian school. see the case of R.V. Adebesin where
two men were convicted for the offence of armed robbery and burglary. Having
thought that the sentences were excessive, they decided to appeal to the west
African court of Appeal (WACA). The president judge having looked at the nature
of offences committed increased the sentence of the two accused persons, from
10 years and 8 years imprisonment respectively to 15 years and 12 years. In the
view of the court, the sentences were increased “for the protection of the
public.
2.
Punishment can serve as a means of
educating the society about the need to abstain or refrain from crime. Where a
community forbids the perpetuation or a particular kind of conduct and attaches
punishment for the breach of it, apart from serving the purpose of deterrence,
it will also educate others for the need to refrain from such act.
3.
Punishment can serve a deterrence
purpose of determining a particular accused from committing another crime
again. This is relevant where certain types of crimes are on increase in a
particular society, locality, community or place. It is also relevant as a
check against professional criminals.
4. It promotes good governance; when some
acts are prohibited and punishment stipulated for the breach of such acts, good
governance could be achieved.
5. For maintainance of public order in the
areas of morality and tranquility. That is why in Nigeria public nuisance,
brothel keeping, adultery e.t.c are punishable.
6. preservation of life; when criminal
offences like homicide, assault and physical violence abduction, kidnapping,
wrongful restrain or false imprisonment hurt e.t.c.
Retribution as a
theory of punishment
“It is something
givenor demanded in payment in criminal law, it is punishment based on the
theory which bears its name and based strictly on the effect that every crime
demands payment in the form of punishment”
Stephen,
j. maintains that retribution is a philosophy which tries to appease the public especially in cases where passion
are aroused by the commission of crime. He observed as follows:
“I am of the
opinion that this close alliance between criminal law and the moral sentiment
is in all ways healthy and advantageous to the c community. I think, it’s
highly desirable that criminals should be hated; the punishment inflicted
should be so contrived as to give expression to the hatred and to justify it so
that as the provision of means for expressing and gratifying a healthy and
natural sentiment can justify and encourage it “
salmond
on his part had this to say:
Retributive
punishment, in the only sense in which it is admissible in any rational system
of administering justice, is that which serves for the satisfaction of that
emotion of retributive indignation which in all healthy communities is stirred
up by injustice. It gratifies the instinct of revenge or retaliation, which
exists not merely in the individual wronged, but also by way of sympathetic
extension in the society at large.
The
position expressed by salmond finds support by the supreme court of Nigeria in
the case of UZOLOKE V. STATE. Where the appellant met a little on the road,
took her to the bush, poured acid on her and cut off her left ear and leaving the girl unconscious
in the bush and ran away. This can also be seen in the case of R. V. BLAKE, The
accused had pleaded guilty to five offences having breached the rules under the
official secret act and was sentenced to fourteen years imprisonment on each
count. The court further ordered that the sentence should run consecutively
giving a total of 42 years.
And
finally on this point, F.H. BRADLEY. Is of the view that punishment must be
meted where it is deserved. He said:
If
there is any opinion to which demand of uncultivated morals is attached, it is
belief in the necessary connection of punishment and guilt. Punishment is
punishment only where it is deserved. We pay the penalty because we owe it to
and for no other reason; and if imprisonment is inflicted for any other reason
whatever than because it is merited by wrong, it is a gross immorality, a
crying injustice, and abominable crime are not what it pretend to be.