Historical Eras of Justice
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Historical Eras of Justice
During the colonial era in the United States, punishment for wrongdoing was expected, and most of the people who did wrong were punished. The punishment was even intense when a person did wrong to the community or the society at large. Americans used stones, flogging, branding, and maiming to punish those who offended society. Some crimes were punishable by execution, and in 1636 the Massachusetts bay colony came up with 13 crimes that were punishable by death, including murder, among others. This paper discusses the basis of the current justice system in the past and within the history of the United States of America.
In the 17th century, the Americans punished offenders even for minor mistakes. However, in the 18th century, the age of reason came around. This instilled a sense of responsibility for justice such that a person was responsible for everything they did. This meant that the punishment was not supposed to be equal for every person, but they could be punished differently depending on the nature of their offense (Arthur, 2009). Therefore, this can be stated based on today’s justice system whereby every person pays through punishment for what they have done wrong to society and others. Something else that is essential is that this age of reason’s ideas have been refined, and laws like capital punishment have been discussed, allowed in some states and others forbidden. However, the most crucial part is that every crime is paid for appropriately in which it was done and how many people it hurt.
This means that if a person does something that hurts many people, they are to pay a lot for this by staying longer in prison or paying large sums of money. On the other hand, if they do something minimal and are found guilty, they can even be instructed to do community service work to be cleared of the guilty, which comes with doing anything wrong (Reisch, 2008). One improvement upon the 18th-century era of reason where a person paid for everything they had done proportionally is that re-habilitation was introduced and was not present back then. This means that if a person is not psychologically sound due to the punishment or the crime done, they can seek professional help to get out of their bad habits and change into good people.
References
Arthur, P. (2009). How transitions reshaped human rights: a conceptual history of transitional justice. Hum. Rts. Q., 31, 321.
Reisch, M. (2008). From melting pot to multiculturalism: The impact of racial and ethnic diversity on social work and social justice in the USA. British Journal of Social Work, 38(4), 788-804.
