Jain Journal 1980 10

Author(s): Jain Bhawan Publication
Publisher: Jain Bhawan Publication

Page 26

64
manifesting itself in the forms retribution, retaliation, vindictiveness and compensation (wergild). Restraint encompasses the concepts of deterrence, prevention and protection. Reformation incorporates the final aim and object of punishment and at the same time replacement of punishment by correction and treatment; thus providing a turn-table to the basic concepts of penology and new interpretation and outlook in the attitude towards crime, criminal and punishment, without relinquishing the concept of control.11
JAIN JOURNAL
The outlines of Modern Penology revolves around the controversies that exist between the theories of punishment and the theories of treatment. Punishment for the sake of punishment is considered as "an end in itself to the individual as well as society"12 and "there has been a slow but discernible trend away from punishment",13 even though ambivalence still exists between punishment and treatment. "At each extreme, stand policemen, jurists, psychiatrists and laymen who are engaged in dialectic and actual tug of war. They disagree on what will serve society best, punishment for punishment's sake or treatment with the aim of social readjustment of offenders. Some speak of penal treatment which suggests a penalty to be enacted on the wrong-doer. Others suggest correctional treatment suggestive of more intensive therapy in the interest of helping offenders change."'14 All observation like "the attempt to deter, punish and prevent can actually create deviation itself"15 sounds like a paradox but makes in an unequivocal term a very strong plea for the abolition of punishment.
The rising sun of treatment which emits manifold peno-correctional rays in the form of exemptions, pardons, commutations, remissions for good behaviour, indeterminate sentences, suspended sentences, probation, conditional release, parole, short sentences etc is greeted at the horizon with the clouds of uncertainty,16 inconsistency,17 and confusion.18 The New Penology has thus opted for treatment in the place of punishment but is still afflicted with the problem of choosing between penal treatment and correctional treatment with the result that it has not been able to do
11 John P. Conrad, Crime and Its Correction, p. 170.
12 Dressler, Readings in Criminology and Penology, p. 470.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., p. 469.
15 The New Criminology: for a Social Theory of Deviance, p. 140.
16 Sir Kenneth Younger, 'Senetencing', an article in Howard Journal, Vol XVI No 1, p. 18.
17 Paul Tappan, Crime, Justice and Correction, p. 237.
18 Crime and Its Correction, p. 2.