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.

KEEPING DISCIPLINE

Does corporal punishment work?

Many people believe that a good old smack never hurt anyone and actually gets the message across, but there are others who think that hitting a child will either escalate into child abuse, or it doesn't do that, then turn the child itself into a criminal. The truth is somewhere in between. Research has shown that corporal punishment is ultimately self-defeating, but the absence of it alone doesn't guarantee a crime-free society.

Many parents will admit to having smacked their children when they felt there was no alternative. Some people will say that it works, others that they just felt so bad themselves that they would never do it again.

Punishment is the presentation of an unpleasant stimulus after a response. It makes the response less likely to occur in the future. To stop a behavior, punishment should be given right away and given every time. It should serve be severe enough to be worth avoiding, but not so severe to prolonged that it causes other undesirable behavior.