Many criminals today serve their time in prison and are then set free. Most of them go on
to commit other crimes, without learning the lesson their punishment was meant to teach.
the worst punishment possible is torture and to live with ones own guilt.
In The Scarlet Letter, Hester Prynne is punished by having to stnd on a scaffold
for three hours and having to wear a scarlet letter on her breast. After a while she
feels no guilt and goes on about her life. People in the community forget about it too.
Roger Chillingsworth asks, "Is Hester Prynne the less miserable, think you, for that
scarlet letter on her breast?" (Hawthorne 132). Dimmesdale on the other hand, has to
live with his guilt. He is mentally troubled and his guilt lasts the rest of his life.
People today have no fear about what might happen to them if they commit a crime.
They serve their time and jail and are then set free. That is why there is so much crime
where we live. For example many people in the mafia are caught and go to jail. Most of
them do not go for their full life but for a couple of years. When they do get out of
prison they are still in the mafia. The only thing they learn from being in prison is to
cover their tracks up better. People should pay for what they do and be punished
properly. For example, if a man rapes a woman he should be castrated. This way people
would have fear and not commit crimes.
Torture is also a better punishment rather then death. When a person dies they
don't pay for what they have done, they simply die. When they live with pain, they pay
for it. For example, a person whose havds were cut off for stealing something would
suffer much more that a person who was quickly killed. The only upside of being sent to
prison is that people are tortured there. Many of the men who are sent there are raped
by other men. The recent movie Dead Man Walking, was a true story about a man that was
given the death penalty fro raping a girl and killing both her and her boyfriend. He
should not have been killed but instead tortured. He could not take his guilt that later
he confessed in tears.
There are many ways a person can be punished. The way our society punishes
criminals today is not effective. We need to change out ways of punishment to more
fearful ways that actually teach criminals what they are doing wrong. The best way to
punish a person is torture and to let them live with there own guilt.
works cited.
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. THE SCARLETT LETTER. Penguin Books Canada Limited: Markham Ontario.
1959
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