Editing Justice (section)

===Utilitarian justice===
{{Main|Utilitarianism}}
According to the utilitarian, justice is the maximization of the total or average welfare across all relevant individuals. Utilitarianism fights crime in three ways:<ref>{{Cite web |title=Punishment {{!}} Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy |url=https://iep.utm.edu/punishme/ |access-date=5 October 2023 |language=en-US}}</ref>
# ''[[Deterrence (legal)|Deterrence]]''. The credible [[coercion|threat]] of punishment might lead people to make different choices; well-designed threats might lead people to make choices that maximize welfare. This matches some strong [[intuition]]s about just punishment: that it should generally be proportional to the crime. Successful deterrence would reduce [[crime statistics]].<ref>{{cite journal |doi=10.1177/002242787401100204 |last1=Bailey |first1=William C. |last2=Martin |first2=J. David |last3=Gray |first3=Louis N. |title=Crime and deterrence: A correlation analysis |journal=[[Journal of Research in Crime and Delinquency]] |volume=11 |number=2 |year=1974 |pages=124–143}}</ref>
# ''[[Rehabilitation (penology)|Rehabilitation]]''. Punishment might make "bad people" into "better" ones. For the utilitarian, all that "bad person" can mean is "person who's likely to cause unwanted things (like suffering)". So, utilitarianism could recommend punishment that changes someone such that they are less likely to cause bad things. Successful rehabilitation would reduce [[recidivism]].<ref>{{cite book |last=Monahan |first=John |chapter=Preface: Recidivism Risk Assessment in the 21st Century |title=Handbook of Recidivism Risk/Needs Assessment Tools |date=2017}}</ref>
# ''[[Incapacitation (penology)|Security/Incapacitation]]''. Perhaps there are people who are irredeemable causers of bad things. If so, [[Prison|imprisoning]] them might maximize welfare by limiting their opportunities to cause harm and therefore the benefit lies within protecting society.
So, the reason for punishment is the maximization of welfare, and punishment should be of whomever, and of whatever form and severity, are needed to meet that goal. This may sometimes justify punishing the innocent, or inflicting disproportionately severe punishments, when that will have the best consequences overall (perhaps executing a few suspected [[Shoplifting|shoplifters]] live on television would be an effective deterrent to shoplifting, for instance). It also suggests that punishment might turn out ''never'' to be right, depending on the facts about what actual consequences it has.<ref>{{cite book |first=C. L. |last=Ten |chapter=Crime and Punishment |editor-first=Peter |editor-last=Singer |editor-link=Peter Singer |title=A Companion to Ethics |location=Oxford |publisher=[[Wiley-Blackwell|Blackwell Publishing]] |date=1993 |pages=366–372}}</ref>