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Example Of Public Shaming In The Crucible By Arthur Miller

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Public shaming has existed a long time. Back in the 1700s it was very popular, especially with the Puritans. Literature such as Nathaniel Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and Arthur Miller's The Crucible show examples of such public shaming and punishments. Hester Prynne is made an example by the colony's leaders by forcing her to wear a red A on her clothing. By doing this along with public hangings seen in The Crucible by Arthur Miller, people would follow the rules because they do not want to end up like the example set before them. Although there are not public hangings like in The Crucible, at least not in America, there are still forms of public shaming that are sentenced by courts. Public shaming as a punishment to criminals can be …show more content…

Most of the punishments given to the defendants are fair and just. They committed the crime therefore they should have to deal with the consequences as long as the punishment is constitutional and does not violate their rights. When going through with their shaming if they make the argument that it is embarrassing or that they dislike it, they should not have committed the crime in the first place. For instance, a landlord that violated building codes was sentenced to live in one of his own rental houses for 6 months (Reutter) which shows him what his renters went through making it fair while it also did not violate any of his personal rights, making it constitutional. Another time a judge sentenced a man who had picked on his neighbor and her handicapped children for fifteen years to wear a sign calling him an intolerable bully for five hours by a street (Morrison); this was fair and just because he had been in trouble before and nothing had seemed to work so the judge had to think of something else that may punish him and change his ways. These punishments can be considered fair and just but there are times when courts can take them too far. A judge named Howard Broadman gave a woman the choice of prison or probation using birth control for 5 years (Morrison) but he did not have a right to prevent her from having children therefore the judge stepped over his boundaries and violated her rights.

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