Aim of Penalty Should Be “General Prevention”

Aim of penalty is an everlasting problem in criminology and sociology. Three views of the aim of penalty are popular in criminology: retribution theory, general prevention theory and special prevention theory. Unfortunately, none of them can tell us what penalty really means. In this author’s opinion, the aim of criminal law is the same as that of penalty. What criminal law intends is to protect basic human rights of citizens at large, including criminals. In order to achieve the aim, we must reduce crimes. By analyzing crime commitment possibility of different sort of persons, one can find that in order to reduce crimes, the test of sentence is to make the crime cost above, and exactly just above the crime profit. In this sense, “general prevention” should be the real purpose of penalty.