The Pros And Cons Of Early Punishment

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Early punishments seem to have been extremely brutal and were mostly carried out in a public setting. For example, the execution of Robert-Francois Damiens in 1751 for attempted assassination was designed to inflict maximum pain on him before he died while showing people the entire process. The early punishments were very brutal for various reasons including the fact that the justice system of the day was mostly retributive. For example, the Code of Hammurabi was made with “an eye for an eye” approach. The brutality of these punishments, therefore, acted as a “fair” response to the offenders for their crimes. As Michel Foucault argues the primary purpose was revenge, and this was to ensure that the punishment was equal or above the initial

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