The philosophical-ethical principles regarding The practice of punishment in Kenya

Abstract

Punishment has been used everywhere as one of the means of curbing crime which is a social evil. However, more often than not, it has not achieved its objectives to this end. This is partly due to the social-economic problems as well the methods. used in punishing criminals. There is need for a study to be done in the area of the various methods used in punishing criminals with a view to find out what methods were used in both ancient and modern times. The intention of studying these methods of punishment is to find out whether they have any moral justification or not. An evaluation of these methods therefore will be done. A comparison will be done between the methods of punishment used in Europe and America, and those used in Kenya both in the ancient and modern times. This thesis has taken as its hypothesis that crime is increasing at an alarming rate despite the fact that punishment has been employed to rectify the situation. Instead of curbing crime, the opposite is observed. Punishment, which is intended to curb crime, docs not seem to be working in Kenya. This prompted us to investigate on the problem of punishment, mainly the philosophical - ethical principles regarding its practice. We mainly relied on library research which forms the primary source. We also had secondary sources which were informants like the philosophic - traditional sage, a prison's superintendent and two lawyers chosen at random. In the course of this study, we found it difficult to get adequate information on the practice of punishment in the Orient, Australia and New Zealand, hence, the scope of the study is limited to include only America, Europe and Kenya in Africa. Since Africa was colonised by western world, we found it appropriate to study punishment in Europe since our codes or laws are somehow related. However despite the exclusion of these regions, this study is sufficient. v From the above sources, we found that most of the methods used in punishing offenders are criminal in themselves hence we came to the conclusion that they should be revised. Punishment, such as the death penalty and imprisonment, are very expensive in terms of loss of life and dignity. Most methods are unnecessary and therefore should be avoided if we have to have a moral society. Criminals should be. rehabilitated instead of being punished. The government should look into the factors that lead to crime like poverty, inflation, unemployment among other factors. This study has contributed to knowledge especially due to the fact that it has highlighted that in the practice of punishment, crimes against humanity are committed in as far as reference to ethical principles is concerned