In every country, a crime committed has a punishment that goes hand in hand with it. The nature of the crime determines the punishment that follows it. The nature of the punishment also depends on the law that operates in the country in which the crime is committed. Different crimes attract different penalties. For instance, crimes involving murder may attract capital punishment on the criminal, or life jail sentence depending on the circumstances surrounding the murder. Capital offences do attract…

What constitutes whether something is a crime or punishment? This varies depending on where one lives, their culture and their personal beliefs. For instance if someone was on trial for claims of child abuse they might not see their actions toward the child as abusive. If the person is on trial it is likely that other people do not share the accused’s opinion. The difference in opinion can be a result of being raised with different beliefs. An example of differentiate opinion is the matter of spanking…

Crime and Punishment, written by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky; is a philosophical crime fiction novel. The story is very powerful in that it goes beyond the book and into the lives of the audience; making the audience feel some type of relation between themselves and the story. Dostoevsky was brilliant in creating a fictional world where the characters seem to be found within the audience, transitioning from a fictional story to a self-help book. He employes many life lessons in the story, which…

Caesare Beccaria thoughts on crime and punishment was that it’s inhuman. Caesare had insight to what was the proper punishment for such crimes. He questioned whether the death penalty was really useful or necessary to maintain order in society. Is torture needed to insure that the laws are observed? He wondered what the best way to prevent a crime was and if all punishments were effective given the crime that was committed. Caesare protected the innocent people who were helpless in their situation…

During the Elizabethan Era, crime and punishment was a brutal source of punishments towards criminals. The term “crime and punishment” was a series of punishments and penalties the government gave towards the people who broke the laws. In William Harrison’s article “Crime and Punishment in Elizabethan England”, says that “the concept of incarcerating a person as punishment for a crime was a relatively novel at the time” (1). This seemed reasonable at the time, because back then they didn’t sentence…

This became known as Nihilism. According to Whitney Eggers on "Philosophies in Crime and Punishment," "Nihilists argued that there was a distinction between the weak and the strong, and that in fact the strong had a right to trample over the weak" (Eggers). Nihilism is commonly linked to utilitarianism, or the idea that moral decisions should be based on the rule of the greatest happiness for the largest number of people. Raskolnikov, the protagonist in Crime and Punishment, is a Nihilist, which…

A paragon of realist literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky deftly exposes nihilism in his novel, Crime and Punishment, published in 1866. Its protagonist, Rodion Raskolnikov, is intelligent yet bitter and unfeeling, having denounced his morality and bonds with society. He embodies the qualities of nihilism, the desertion of all emotional and ethical concerns. This philosophical doctrine is historically ubiquitous, particularly with the Nihilist Movement, one of Imperial Russia’s Great Reforms, and the growing…

Capital punishment as a Deterrent to Crime Is it ethically wrong to execute offenders after they have carried out a certain horrendous crime? Two sisters vanished while strolling home from a shopping center in a calm suburb of Washington, and a far reaching inquiry yielded nothing. As months swung to years, and after that decades, any desires for realizing what happened to the young ladies dwindled. Law enforcement authorities vowed to work to pursue each individual who was included in the crime against…

The purpose of punishment is to keep an incident from reoccurring. While punishment doesn’t keep it from happening again, it helps. Execution and the death penalty have been used in most societies since the beginning of history. Penalties back then included boiling to death, flaying, slow slicing, crucification, impalement, crushing, stoning, decapitation, etc. The death penalty was used for reasons today that would go under cruel and unusual punishment. Today in the United States, execution is…

literature, Fyodor Dostoevsky harshly exposes nihilism in his novel, Crime and Punishment, published in 1866. He wields his knowledge of social psychology and pathology to weave the cautionary tale, borrowing liberally from his personal life. Its protagonist, Rodion Raskolnikov, is intelligent yet bitter and unfeeling, embodying the qualities of nihilism, the desertion of one or more meaningful aspects of life. The philosophical doctrine of nihilism is historically ubiquitous, particularly with the…