VIEWPOINT

Of crime and punishment!

I have read True Crime, Master Detective, Murder Most Foul, and True Detective for as long as I can remember. I am also an avid reader of legal cases and proceedings. I have a good collection of crime books based on real life situations, revealing astonishing known facts about real acts of villainy, and they probe fascinating, missing traces and facts that confound the law. At times I feel a strong urge to become part of an elite squad of detectives trying to solve theft and fraud to murder cases.

What drives a person to commit heinous crime? How can someone take the life of another? There are probably many reasons for committing the act, but how they can do it is in their mental makeup. Would capital punishment handed down to law violators help solve human lawlessness? What could possibly be too cruel and unusual punishment for the gravest crime committed?

There is no question that punishment serves many purposes. For many reasons, the issue of punishment is of vital concern to civilized society, with the end in view of knowing the effects and the best way of carrying it out. We want to punish, but we also want to know that such punishment is justified.