The difficulties surrounding the theory of retribution have led to other definitions of punishment.  Punishment, it is said, is not inflicted on the offender as a retribution for his misdeeds, it is inflicted for the purpose of protecting society against its enemies.  Such a view leaves moral considerations entirely out of account; it leaves no room for the just indignation of the public at the spectacle of crime.  It is defective in other ways.  For instance, a criminal has a particular animosity against some single individual; it may be he murders this person, or does him grievous bodily harm.  Such an offender has no similar animosity against any one else; as far as the rest of the community is concerned he is perfectly harmless.  On the supposition that punishment is only intended to protect society against the criminal, a man of this description would escape punishment altogether.  Or supposing a man (and this often happens), after committing some serious crime for which he is sent to penal servitude, sincerely and bitterly repented of it, and would be, if released, a perfectly harmless member of the community, such a man, according to the theory we are now discussing, should be released at once.  The certainty that the public conscience would tolerate no such step shows that punishment has a wider object than the mere attainment of social security.

Punishment is only a means say some; its real end is the reformation of the offender.  The practical application of such a principle would lead to very astonishing results.  It is perfectly well known that there is no more incorrigible set of offenders than habitual vagrants and drunkards.  And on the other hand, the most easily reformed of all offenders is often some person who has committed a serious crime under circumstances which could not possibly recur.  According to the theory that reformation is the only end of punishment, petty offenders would be shut up all their lives, while the perpetrator of a grave crime would soon be set free.  An absurd result of this kind is fatal to the pretention that punishment is merely a means and not also an end.

Is it the end of punishment to act as a deterrent?  We are often told from the judicial bench that a man receives a certain sentence as a warning and example to others.  If such is the end of punishment it lamentably fails in its purpose, for in a number of cases it neither deters the offender nor the class from which the offender springs.  It was under the influence of this idea that criminals used to be hanged in public, but experience failed to show that these ghastly exhibitions had much deterrent effect on the community.  Besides, it is rather ridiculous to say, I do not punish you for the crime you have committed, I punish you as a warning to others.  In these circumstances the effect of punishment is not to be upon the person punished, but upon a third party who has not fallen into crime.  Unless the punishment is just in itself, society has no right to inflict it in the hope of scaring others from criminal courses.  Justice administered in this spirit, turns the convicted offender into a whipping boy; the punishment ceases to be related to the offence, and is merely related to the effect it will have on a certain circle of spectators.