In society, punishment is used to set out anything we may view as painful; such as rough treatment or handling (McTaggart, 1896). When it comes to crime, punishment is considered to be important and necessary to deter crime and those to commit it. Punishment has a variety of uses within society, however the most common use is to promote the behaviour that society deems acceptable whilst, simultaneously, discouraging behaviours that are considered inappropriate. Durkheim believed that society can only restore its faith in each other when a crime has been committed by punishing the offender, which maintained a societal solidarity that once would have been shattered by said crime. Criminals are punished judicially, by fines, or custodial sentences such as prison. Flew argued that (in the context of penalizing a criminal offence) punishment is comprised of five key components: it should involve a negative act towards the victim, it should be in response to the committing of an offence, it should be acted out on the offender, personal agencies should perf
orm the punishment, and whichever institutions rules have been affected by the offence should be the imposers of the punishment. (Flew, 1954). Alongside this, Benn and Peters (1959, 1981) added that the act of punishment should be performed with intentions leading to negative outcomes for the offender. In regard to the theoretical approaches to punishment, each theorist has their own take on the true cause, necessities and their own explanation of punishment. For example, Durkheim assigns the power of punishment to the state of the sole purpose of resorting and maintaining social and collective conscience and felt as if crime shatters societal solidarity (Durkheim, 1933, 1973, 1983). In contrast, Michel Foucault seeks to understand punishment from a social perspective, by studying how altering relations of power affected punishment (Foucault, 1975). This essay will pursue the similarities and differences between both theorists Durkheim and Foucault, whilst comparing and contrasting their ideologies on punishment and ending with an overall conclusion.