Bring back flogging?
by Jeff Jacoby
The capital of Massachusetts Globe
BOSTONS prude FOREFATHERS did non indulge miscreants lightly.
For selling arms and gunpowder to Indians in 1632, Richard Hopkins was sentenced to be whipt, & branded with a hott iron on one and only(a) of his cheekes. Joseph Gatchell, convicted of blasphemy in 1684, was ordered to stand in pillory, guide his head and hand put in & have his toung drawne forrard out of his mouth, & peirct through with a hott iron. When Hannah Newell pleaded guilty to adultery in 1694, the court ordered fifteen stripes severally to be laid on upon her naked back at the putting green Whipping post. Her consort, the aptly named Lambert Despair, f atomic number 18d worse: He was sentenced to 25 lashes and that on the next Thurs solar day Immediately after blab he stand upon the Pillory for ... a full hower with criminal conversation in Capitall letters written upon his brest.
Corporal punishment for criminals did not vanish with the Puritans -- Delaware didnt get around to repealing it until 1972 -- but for all relevant purposes, it has been out of fashion for at least 150 years. The day is long past when the stocks had an honored place on the Boston Common, or when offenders were publicly flogged.
Now we practice a to a greater extent enlightened, more humane way of disciplining wrongdoers: We lock them up in cages.
Imprisonment has become our penalty of choice for almost every(prenominal) offense in the criminal code. Commit murder; go to prison. Sell cocaine; go to prison. Kite checks; go to prison. It is an all-purpose punishment, suitable -- or so it would seem -- for crimes violent and nonviolent, make by hate or by greed, plotted coldly or committed in a fit of passion. If anything, our penchant for incarceration is deepening -- behold the slew of mandatory marginal sentences for drug crimes and three-strikes-youre-out life terms for recidivists. Some 1.6 million Americans are behind bars today. That represents a 250 percent increase since...If you need to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay
If you want to get a full essay, wisit our page: write my essay .
No comments:
Post a Comment