The generalisation about the people who commit crime indicates flaws in the processes of thinking and possible outcomes. In other words, the logic presented by such generalisation does not add up and, in most cases, results in people being treated in specific manners. Indeed, some people advocate for special treatment of specific groups of people considered having a higher possibility of committing a crime, such as theft or violence. The assumptions are based on previous statistics. Various factors contribute to the generalisation that a given group of people, such as poor ones, could commit more crimes than other groups. For example, the media promote such generalisations. The media contribute to the fallacious generalisations, which result in disproportionate policing of particular groups, especially the poor. Interestingly, people consider such policing generalisations to be ‘acceptable’ and ‘legitimate’. Over-policing of specific groups often results in higher arrest rates among the poor communities, thereby promoting the fallacious conception that the poor commit more crimes (Bex, 2011).
It appears that the society chooses to pay attention to crime committed by specific groups, such as the poor, because it works as a method of absolving the society from the institutionalised discrimination, violence and prejudice used against specific communities or groups of people. Therefore, the generalisation acts as a buffer for people who do not want to take responsibility and gives a way to shift blame in addition to changing the cause effect relationship. The fallacy of generalising people who commit crime stains the social setup and corrupts the society and general mindset. More importantly, people should not focus on particular groups as crime perpetrators. Instead, people should speak about the reality and end the long-standing fallacious generalisations (Martinot, 2003).
Teleological justifications for punishment
The criticism against teleological justifications for punishment, such as deterrence theories, makes no sense because the punishments help to deter others from committing similar crimes. In other words, people are not punished for the crimes they commit. In fact, the objective of the punishment is to prevent future occurrence of them, because of lessons learnt from the punishment. The deterrence applies for individual or specific cases. Individual or specific deterrence work by preventing specific persons from committing the crime in the future. The justice system achieves the deterrence by keeping persons in custody to achieve physical deterrence or by incapacitating individuals, which takes away the ability to commit the crime again. On the contrary, general deterrence does not benefit the perpetrator. The objective is to prevent others in the community from committing the crime and promoting societal reformation. General deterrence makes sense considering that the individual does not benefit, but the community benefits in the end because people learn about the dangers of crimes (Tella & Tella, 2006).
Teleological punishments support capital punishment for perpetrators, which effectively prevent crime in the future and teach persons the dangers and negative implications of it for themselves and the community. For instance, murder or statutory rape cases receive severe punishments, which speaks for the grave nature of the crimes. The punishments imply that no one should commit such crimes in society. In this regard, punishments are used as a means of preventing rather than a way of ending crimes in the society (Sarat, Anderson & Frank, 2010). Although criminologists and sociologists argue against such teleological punishments based on the impulsiveness of committing crime and failing to serve the intended purpose, deterrence helps in reducing crime and teaching the society.
References
Bex, F. J. (2011). Arguments, stories and criminal evidence a formal hybrid theory. New York, NY: Springer.
Martinot, S. (2003). The rule of racialization: class, identity, governance. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press.
Sarat, A., Anderson, M. D., & Frank, C. O. (2010). Law and the humanities: an introduction. Cambridge, United Kingdom.: Cambridge University Press.
Tella, M. J., & Tella, F. (2006). Punishment and culture a right to punish?. Boston, MA: M. Nijhoff.