Inferno By Virgil

Justice for the Unjust As a common saying goes, “Let the punishment fit the crime,” meaning that the degree of punishment should match the level of offense. This can be applied to most schools enforced with an efficient disciplinary code. In schools run by the New York City Department of Education, for example, punishments are given based on the severity of the offense. This includes vandalism, the act of damaging school property to one’s own will. Examples of vandalism include graffiti on classroom walls or bathrooms, drawings on desks, and otherwise destroyed classrooms. Vandalism is a sign of disrespect towards the vandal’s peers and school. As appropriate retribution, vandals in the DOE are required to complete a certain number of community

Vandals who feel angry or discontent towards their school may be violent towards its property, feeling the need to express their emotions through destruction. In Inferno, Dante associates the Seventh Circle of Violence with those who are hostile towards other people, property, themselves, or human nature. Those in the first ring of the Seventh Circle are accused of violence against other people or property. As Virgil says to Dante when they approach the lowest ring of the Seventh Circle, "But fix your eyes below, upon the valley, for now we near the stream of blood, where those who injure others violently, boil." (12.46-48). In Dante’s point of view, those who were violent in their lifetime should be constantly reminded of their actions by lying in the scorching hot blood of those they were violent against. In contrast, the punishment for students who vandalize school property is not as severe. Usually, students are required to do a certain number of community service hours to make up for what they have done and compensate for the damages they have wrought. Although both Dante’s Circle of Hell and New York City schools have different forms of punishment, they are both consistent with the notion in which those who have destroyed property must receive a punishment at the same level of the severity of their

When students sign a contract at the beginning of the school year, they agree to all of the rules—rules that are commonly accepted and followed by most of the students in the school. However, if some students become vandals, they go against the common rules followed by the people in their school, making them a heretic, in Dante’s world. In Inferno, the 6th Circle of Hell holds people who were heretics in their lifetime and opposed the values of God. They denied the divinity of God; they rejected God’s values; and they didn’t believe in the afterlife. As punishment, they are placed in burning graves where they are forced to spend eternity in. However, students who vandalize their schools only have to compensate for their damages and do community service for their school. Unlike the Heretics in Hell, they do not have to experience a punishment specifically for the rules they betrayed—instead, they are punished by undoing what they have done. As the students consciously and willfully commit their crime, vandalism, they can be associated with some of the souls in the eighth pit of the Eighth Circle of Hell, who consciously plan and devise a certain act of crime. While those in the Eighth Circle are engulfed with pillars of flame and lose their ability to speak, preventing them from speaking with others to commit crime ever again, students who vandalize their school have to arrange several