Compare & Contrast Essay: Crime & Punishment

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From the formation of our country until today, not much has changed in the sense of achieving real penal reform. Within reason, the level of punishment must fit the level of crime, thus, the question of what �within reason� means is relatively up for grabs. The fact of the matter is that law is not a remote entity. Law changes by following the three guiding principles: concrete political groups, current emotion and real economic interest. As a result, crime and punishment follows closely behind since law will inevitably be broken.

In the late 18th-early 19th century, punishment was intended to reform, to create penitence (hence the penitentiary system), and to make example of sinners. This system of punishment was a result of Calvinist/Puritanical beliefs within the tightly knit colonial system. As the United States grew bigger so did the jurisdiction of small local courts, the amount of interaction between and amongst other colonial groups, and the types of crimes that were able to be committed (especially property crimes). The sting of years of religious repression and geographi...

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