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Violence and crime are one of most characteristic features of the modern world. In order to find a solution which would prevent the rate of crime from growing, many people point out that the key to the problem lays in rehabilitation of those, who have already committed offenses. Accordingly, the y regard the present systems of prisons to be outdated and not serving the purpose of improvement of those, who are kept in them. Following this point of view, no civilised society should punish its criminals but rather do its most to rehabilitate them. Unfortunately, this way of thinking, though attractive, is completely wrong. The biggest crime that a society could commit to itself would be to forgive its criminals .
Those who think that we should stop punishing criminals and lead them through the process of reeducation in order to improve their behavior and respect for the law, unavoidably follow the path of thinking established by some nineteenth century philosophers and criminal lawyers. According to this approach, criminals do not commit offenses because they are bad by nature, but rather it is because of the society which forced them to be who they are. How dangerous can accepting this point of view be, may be illustrated by a popular case of a murderer accused in nineteenth century Germany of killing somebody. He said to the court that he was sorry for having committed the crime, but he couldn't be punished, because he had been brought up by the people who regarded crime as something natural and accepted, and therefore the society in general is to be blamed for what had happened. Now we must ask ourselves this question: should we allow killers to get away with a not guilty verdict? Of course not! The judge in the case supported this point of view. He said to the accused that he was sorry, but he, in turn, had been brought up by the people who despised crime and he returned the death sentence verdict .
Society must never stop punishing criminals. It should be realized that punishment, contrary to what some people say, does have a significant purpose to serve. Criminal lawyers, as early as in the Middle Ages, invented the concepts of general and individual prevention. The latter is based on the assumption that if one suffers considerable hardships for his misdemeanour, he will not decide to commit a crime again. The former, on the other hand, presumes that if the general public sees how severe a punishment the convict has received for what he had done, it will not dare to commit the same offense. In other words, it will realize that crime does not pay. Indeed, people must be aware that if they willingly decide to go astray, they will without fail be punished in a severe and quick manner. This is crucial for any society in order to function properly. Rehabilitation, on the other hand, is based on a naive presumption that those who are already bad, will collaborate to improve their behavior. Will any manufacturer lower the prices of his products knowing that he is o monopolist? Will any horse pull a cart without being urged to do it? Obviously not! It is precisely the same case with criminals and rehabilitation .
One should realize, too, that the modern system of prisons is by no means outdated. As a matter of fact, it has never been as lenient as it is nowadays. People who stay behind bars receive decent food, stay warm, may receive regular visits, may write letters and write books, even watch television. Many, on special occasions, are allowed to visit their families outside a prison for a few days. What more should they need? A swimming pool with a swim-up bar and sunglasses? After all, the idea is that they are supposed to endure hardships. One century ago, prisoners could not even dream of such conditions as there are in the prisons today. Water and bread in a dark and damp cell was all they could count for. Today, societies agree to pay great amount of money in order to support comfortable enough prisons, for the people who have done nothing better than to show their disrespect for the law and morality. This fact is rarely mentioned, although it is quite important and should not go without recognition .
What all idealistic points of view have in common is that it is not feasible to put them into practice. It would be simply wonderful to live in a society without prisons and without criminals, either (those few ones who have chanced to put their foot on that land would have already been rehabilitated). Unfortunately, such a state of matters would quickly lead to complete anarchy. We must realize, that prisons are perhaps too comfortable by this time, and the only way to prevent crime is severe sanctions and quick punishment .
