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State-Sanctioned Punishment as Deterrent to Violence

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Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science

Synonyms

Criminal justice system; Norms and social contract; Punishment

Definition

State punishment is an administrative system of punishments which functions are deterrence, retribution, communication, incapacitation, or rehabilitation of criminal offenders.

Introduction

Aggression is any form of behavior that goals to harm or injure (Baron 1977), while the violence is an aggression that has extreme harm as its aim (Anderson and Bushman 2002). Aggression mechanisms have emerged as solutions to a host of distinct adaptive problems, such as retaliate against or punish group members who violate social and moral norms (Buss and Shackelford 1997; Durrant and Ward 2015). The social structural and cultural factors play a role in the nature and form of punishment and how these have changed over time (Durrant and Ward 2015). Punishment can be defined as the intentional infliction of sanctions by the state on who have unjustifiably harmed other people (Boonin 2008). In addition, Miller and...

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References

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Correspondence to Quésia F. Cataldo .

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Cataldo, Q.F., de Almeida Segundo, D.S. (2018). State-Sanctioned Punishment as Deterrent to Violence. In: Shackelford, T., Weekes-Shackelford, V. (eds) Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2834-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-16999-6_2834-1

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  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-16999-6

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