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The most severe form of punishment in our Criminal justice system is imprisonment. The issue of prison as an effective form of punishment is an emotionally charged, misunderstood and nothing if not uncertain in its outcome. The central question that this report asks is, “Does prison work as an effective punishment”. This report will argue for and against the use of retribution as an effective form of punishment.

The answer clearly depends on what is meant by “punishment”. Also important, is for whom is punishment effective, and by what mechanism? For example, are potential offenders likely to be affected by, even deterred by the existence of punishment? Are the kinds of behavior that are changeable though punishment the same as those which we classify as crime? In other words, are all behaviors equally able to be reduced or eliminated by the use of punishment? Finally, is prison an effective method of punishment for crime, or are other methods more effective in bringing about reductions in crime and changes in harmful behavior?

There is no question that prison is seen as a severe punishment for most people. The critical question is whether it is an effective punishment for potential offenders. This depends on what motivates potential offenders and how much prison is working to deter them. Statistics of prisons say that prison itself is not the most effective way to reduce offending, and particularly re-offending, but the most effective way to reduce the problem is the education programs running in our prison systems particularly the literacy training as majority of prisoners have exceedingly low levels of literacy this increases the prisoners chance at getting more involved in life beyond prison. The modern prison will have large cell blocks with high tech security watching over the facility making sure that nothing will go wrong ensuring the safety of the prisoners themselves aswell as having single cells so that there are no...