Justifications of the Social Punishments from the Perspective of Citizenship Rights

The human beings’ progresses and evolutions have caused changes in the form and nature of the punishments, as well. Due to the same reason, attentions have been paid with the human right concepts’ gaining of importance to the importance of the social punishments or incarceration alternatives as ways for showcasing a humane visage of the punishments. In line with this, the present study seeks investigating the reasoning posited about the social punishments from the perspective of citizenship rights.

The method used in this research is descriptive-analytical with the applying of the documentary resources and use of credible resources, including the prominent articles and books on the social punishments.

Social punishments are of importance from the perspective of the citizenship rights due to such considerations as the decarceration, use of alternative punishments, paying attention to the position and prestige of the criminals in the society, paying attention to certain criminals like women, children and less dangerous criminals, establishing participation between the people and the judicial system, enforcing punishments in neighborhood level and use of the individuals’ expertise in social convictions as well as making security a collective concern.

Social punishments are enumerated amongst the Ta’azir punishments as stated in the domestic regulations of Islamic Republic of Iran. Therefore, they feature a fluid and changeable nature hence social punishments can be applied in proportion to personal states and temporal conditions in lieu of incarceration. Moreover, social punishments decrease the penal costs; put emphasis on the participatory role of the people in the supply of security and citizenship rights; increase the trust between the people and the judicial system and pay attention to decarceration as an effective method. Considering the effective and efficient methods seen in the social and alternative punishments, the domestic legislator should encourage the judicial system and instruct them for better application of these methods thereby to replace the imprisonment with novel approaches that, meanwhile being deterring, significantly and effectively reduce the social crimes and criminality.