CRIMINAL SANCTIONShouse arrest, community supervision, fines, res-
titution, and community service. The type and
severity of criminal sanctions are prescribed by
criminal law (Walker 1980). The quality and quan-
tity of criminal penalties are determined by both
the perceived seriousness of the offense and the
underlying philosophy of punishment. Punishment
by the state on behalf of society has tradition-
ally been justified on either consequential or
nonconsequential grounds (Garland 1994).
Consequentialism justifies punishment as a means
to the prevention of future crime. The utilitarian
approach, for example, allows society to inflict
harm (by punishment) in order to prevent greater
harms that would be caused by future crimes. The
utilitarian approach to criminal sanctions is gov-
erned by a set of limiting principles (Beccaria
1980). According to utilitarianism criminal sanc-
tions should not be used to penalize behavior that
does not harm, the severity of the penalty should
only slightly outweigh the benefit derived from the
criminal behavior, and alternatives to punishment
should be utilized when they prove to be as effec-
tive (Bentham 1995).
Nonconsequentialism, on the other hand, jus-
tifies punishment as an intrinsically appropriate
response to crime (Duff and Garland 1994). The
retributive approach, for example, mandates pun-
ishment as a way of removing the advantage origi-
nally gained by the criminal behavior or as a means
of restoring the moral balance that was lost as a
result of a crime. According to the retributivist
perspective crime separates the offender from the
community and it is only through punishment that
the separation can be repaired (Morris 1981).
While the utilitarian and retributivist justifications
have dominated the philosophical discussion of
punishment, more recent justifications such as
rehabilitation (Rotman 1990) and incapacitation
(Morris 1982) have also been viewed in terms of
their consequential and nonconsequential nature.
From a sociological perspective these philosophies
of punishment represent ideal types against which
the actual practice of punishment must be examined.
THE SOCIOLOGY OF CRIMINAL
SANCTIONSSeveral lines of inquiry comprise the sociology of
criminal sanctions including the examination of
the criminalizing process, the empirical assess-
ment of the effectiveness of particular sanctions,
and the analysis of the relationship between social
structural changes and the evolution of criminal law.Critique of the Criminalization Process. The
question of which behaviors become defined as
criminal and deemed worthy of punitive sanctions
has been central to the study of crime and law. The
functional perspective of criminal law suggests that
the criminalization of a particular behavior is the
result of a consensus among members of a society
(Durkheim 1964). In the consensus view criminal
law encompasses the behaviors that have been
determined to be most threatening to the social
structure of society and the well-being of its mem-
bers (Wilson 1979).According to the functionalist perspective,
criminal law adapts to changes in the normative
consensus of society. As society evolves, behaviors
once considered criminal may be decriminalized
while behaviors that had previously been accept-
able may become criminalized. In this context
criminal law and its accompanying sanctions are
viewed as the collective moral will of society. Pun-
ishment is viewed as serving the essential function
of creating a sense of moral superiority among the
law-abiding members of society, thereby strength-
ening their social solidarity (Durkheim 1964). There-
fore, crime is considered to be inevitable in the
functionalist view because the pressure exerted
against those who do not conform to normative
expectations is necessary to reinforce the willing
conformity among members of society. Solidarity
results from the social forces directed against trans-
gressors, with the most powerful of these forces
being criminal sanctions (Vold 1958). Criminal
sanctions enable societies to distinguish between
behaviors that are simply considered unacceptable
and those behaviors that are considered truly
harmful.Conversely, the conflict perspective suggests
that the designation of behaviors as criminal is
determined within a context of unequal power.
Although various forms of the conflict perspective
identify different sources for this power imbal-
ance, they are in general agreement as to the
results of the criminalizing process. According to
the conflict view, society is made up of groups with
conflicting needs, values, and interests that are