“The first and greatest punishment of the sinner is the conscience of sin.”
Lucius Annaeus Seneca
What is the purpose of punishment? Ultimately a fair and effective punishment must not only prevent future transgressions, but also teach a valuable life lesson. While some punishments may seem standard: a grounding for breaking curfew, a detention for misbehaving in class, a jail sentence for robbery, not all punishments are so cut and dry. Take the case of Casey Heynes. A video which has since gone viral depicts the March 2011 incident. Ritchard Gale, 12, appears to tease and taunt Casey, 15, and unleash a few unretaliated punches. In response, Casey picks Ritchard up, and slams him to the ground. While Ritchard was relatively physically unscathed in the encounter, Casey could have inflicted quite serious damage. It was revealed through family and witness interviews that Casey was indeed provoked, and had suffered bullying at the hands of classmates for years. Regardless, school and societal rules were broken, and consequences must follow. What then, is a fair punishment? Casey Heynes should receive a four day at-home suspension. In addition, he should participate in a bullying prevention group at his school and attend a one day anger management course. This represents a fair punishment, as it acts as a reasonable deterrent, allows Casey to demonstrate remorse, and is reflective of both Casey and Ritchard’s feelings. In order for a punishment to be
Faculty members believe that caustic punishment will have more of an impact (Kohn 320). They hope that a policy known as Zero Tolerance will help find a solution to enforce friendly behavior and eliminate violent behavior from the school system. Problems arise within the policy as it focuses on students that commit violence rather than trying to exterminate the issue or teach that this is improper behavior. Schools jump quickly to remove the troubled child from their campus for many reasons. The main reason for reaction is not due to safety concerns, but to the fact that school officials are more worried about having an Exemplary campus. In response, the student is not learning a moral lesson for their actions (Kohn 321). Kohn established his credibility by writing an educational and informative article about school safety. He used evidence and real life situations to connect with the readers. He connected with the reader’s emotions by stating instances where children have been affected or severely injured. He described the instances and provided examples as support. Through this essay, Kohn clearly established his concerns and problems that need to be addressed to make the public school system safer for everyone that enters.
Finally, we should continuously circle again and again. Every time a circle sentencing does not work, people should keep having circle sentencing because it shows accountability to the community, in which we show a place where behavior has consequences of social and emotional proportions. If the behavior of bullying has paid off, it is likely a person would increase their behavior to get those outcomes and it may also show that the person who continues the harm, has a real skill issue, and needs more support in developing the skill. It can be viewed that conflict is an opportunity, and Circle sentencing takes and makes the best of opportunities for growth and healing. In Circle sentencing, you have all the parties in attendance and you
What has society done about reforming sentencing laws in order to reduce the incarceration population? The fair sentencing Act which was signed by president Obama has helped reduce the number of inmates impacted by mandatory minimum sentencing by “reducing the disparity in the amounts of powder cocaine and crack cocaine required for the imposition of mandatory minimum sentences and eliminates the mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine, it also increases penalties for major drug traffickers” (White House 2010). What the Act did was changed the ratio of Crack cocaine v Cocaine from 100:1 to 18:1 (U. S. Department of Justice 2010). This Act is beneficial because it
In the law a sentence is forms the final explicit act of judge rule process the sentence can generally involve a decree of imprisonment, a fine and or other punishments against a defendant convicted of a crime. We all have known this for years that this is that is how prison sentencing is done. Even though people should go away for the same crime, in reality prison sentencing is not fair because of people of different backgrounds, genders. and ethnicities face different sentences for the same crime. When it comes to society has high expectations for the criminal justice system. People expect a murderer, for example, to have the same sentence as another person. When a celebrity such as Bill Cosby gets put away for a rape he may go away for a shorter time than average Joe. The minimum sentencing for certain crimes, in this case, are longer than they should be. Why should people be sentenced to unlawful sentences and end up in jail until they are elderly and not a danger society?Unfair sentencing is a form of the unequal treatment often unexplained cause of why. We see a person go away for x amount of years and then someone else comes along and performs the same crime and gets less or longer than the other person.
Statistical elaboration has shown that decreasing the prison population does not affect the well being of the community. Diminishing overcrowding within our jails should be of great importance for state administrations. Our President Barack Obama signed the Fair Sentencing Act into effect in 2010. The method must be two-fold: first, understand how the Fair Sentencing Act works, and second, put a greater emphasis on the recommendations given in reducing the disparity in sentencing.
TORTS laws offer compensation to individuals harmed by the unreasonable actions of others. TORTS claims are based on the legal premise that a person(s) is liable for the consequences of their conduct if it results in injury to others. In education-related cases, the most common TORT is negligence. Recently, several cases have occurred whereby negligence and bullying are interconnected with students suing their schools for failing to enforce anti-bullying policies and causing injury to their well being. A current case includes Maya Williams suing her former high school for negligence in regards to the enforcement of their anti-bullying policy. By looking into a precedent case, elements of negligence, and how bullying affects a student, we
The punishment for this Brooklyn teen named Aniah Ferguson was fair. In her circumstances she had another fair shot to not face consequences for her actions and she blew it for brutally attacking her classmate at McDonalds. She should have known what was going to happen to her when she did it. Her punishment of facing four years in prison is satisfactory because she has history of assaulting people such as her grandmother and stabbing her brother. She was the one in spiraling video leading the brutal assault against the classmate, she didn’t have to do it. There are other ways to deal with problems with your peers such as talking them out with a peer mediator or going to an adult and finding a solution. I say, since they are classmates at
cocaine offenses under the 100-to-1, crack to cocaine trigger were African American (Written 4). In 2010 Congress passed the Fair Sentencing Act (FSA) that reduced the crack to cocaine disparity from 100-to-1 to 18 grams of crack to 1 gram of cocaine triggering the mandatory minimum but they did not change mandatory minimum sentencing (Written 4). Blacks and whites use marijuana at similar rates however blacks are 3.73 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession, in some counties blacks are 10, 15 or even 30 more times more likely to be arrested (Written 6).
The laws were strategically designed to disproportionately affect or communities. For example, before the passage of the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010, the possession and selling of crack cocaine (used predominantly in black communities) was harsher than possessing and selling powdered cocaine (used predominantly in other communities), even though data proved that both drugs had the same adverse effects on their consumers. It's unfortunate that as a result of certain illegal drugs now having a devastating impact on other communities, many are calling for sympathy and allocation of funds towards treatment, education, and prevention, but our community was faced with a frivolous "war on drugs"
The main idea and subject of this article is that parents with unjust harsh punishment techniques cause present and future issues for their children. The article discusses poverty stricken families have harsher techniques in parenting when compared to middle and higher classes. “...parents who live in poverty treat their children harshly more often, researchers say” (Inquirer 1). These punishments may have more than just some tears or a temporary wound. “When parents are too consistently harsh, their children's brains release stress chemicals…these chemicals are released when a person is in danger. These chemicals are toxic, or poisonous, to developing brains.
Kids should be subjected to the measures of punishment that our judicial system is giving to them. Kids who show lots of enmity should be tried as adults. It is the only way to protect the innocent children. These kids know right from wrong, but they choose to do the wrong things and violence is wrong. As the laws have gotten stricter on discipline the kids have gotten wilder. When we let society tell us how to discipline our children then violent children is the result.
There is a fine line between dangerous threats that need to be addressed, and simple immaturity. Many of the incidents that children are enacting in school seem to be misunderstood by faculty and administrators as seriously dangerous issues when in fact they are nothing but immaturity and stubbornness transpired by children being children. Dr. Lawrence T. Kajs states “There is a need for educational reform of zero tolerance policies in school disciplinary management procedures” (Kajs). Kids get angry and jealous, and therefore start fights for unnecessary reasons. That is just part of growing up and the hormones that conjure up in their bodies is not something that is easy to control. Although, that doesn’t mean that they should be expelled from school for minor offenses, especially if no one is hurt in an incident. “Zero tolerance discipline policies, harsh sentencing laws, and the gentrification of color have devastating effects for the
I believe that parents should not be punished for their child’s behavior. Parents aren’t always by their child’s side, there are other influences outside of schools that are not just the kid’s parents. When the kid becomes older than eighteen, it’s their problem to deal with if they get charged for assault, not their parents. So, if the person is responsible for their own actions in the future, why should their parents be responsible for their actions when they are a child. The bully should be responsible for their behavior in the future and in the
My first reason why bullies should get harsher punishments is if you tell a bully to stop they’ll keep bullying and bullying the more they bully the more they think they have power over everyone and if they think that they’ll keep bullying and it can get worse the bullies can do physical bullying so that's one reason they should have harsher punishments.
School discipline is to ensure that students and the campus staff are safe and peaceful. According to the U.S. Department of Education on Rethinking Discipline (2017), “Teachers and students deserve school environments that are safe, supportive, and conducive to teaching and learning.” The idea is to decrease bad behavior and school violence which will lead to fewer suspensions and expulsions. There are rules and limitations when it comes to student discipline; there are acts in which students can and must be disciplined. For examples, if a student quality’s for special needs some different guidelines protect them under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act’s (IDEA). Furthermore, the Education Code, Section 48900 was implied to discipline students who committed any wrongful doing such as attempting or threatening to physical harm another person. In the case f any wrongfulness, the student is forced to be disciplined by being suspended or expulsed from school.