OF CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

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.

WHAT IS LEFT?

A homeless man died after being set on fire on a street where he had lived for many years. He was drenched with what may have been gasoline and set ablaze. Scorch marks stained a wall on where the man was burned. The victim remained unidentified. It was reported that a young man in his 20s was seen running from the scene.

Whatever drove this young man to commit a heinous crime against a helpless beggar is unthinkable. It is without doubt an evil impulse, which stirred up the evil elements in his mind resulting to wicked action. It is a matter of the degree of wickedness one is capable of doing.

What did the beggar do to deserve this fate? How can life have meaning in the face of such torture and death?

If indeed the young man committed the crime, he deserves the harshest sentence available.

"... the beggar man and the mighty king
are only different in name, but they are
treated just the same by fate...!"

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.