Re:What happens after a defendant is found not guilty by rea...
by LeifCarrotson on Wednesday September 27, 2017 @09:00PM
(#15353678)
> would likely create prisons to protect the people
How would prisons protect people? By deterring the people who might endanger them, by removing the capacity of people who do cause harm to cause more harm, by punishing those people, and by rehabilitating them into society.
The reasons aren't secondary or primary. They're different sides of the same coin, just stated from different perspectives: how to deal with the problem of crime vs. how to protect society from criminals.
My understanding is that prisons are said to have four purposes: deterrence, incapacitation, retribution, and rehabilitation.
However, in the absence of having prisons a society would likely create prisons to protect the people of society. My conclusion is that prisons are meant to protect the populace with those other reasons being secondary based upon cultural mores.