An excellent example of a psychological punishment that has lasting effects is Chinese water torture. This involved the constant slow dripping of water onto the prisoner's forehead until they were driven to madness. This type of punishment does not sound as extreme as physical torture, but the results can be equally effective.
Even as you read this there are 3350 inmates waiting on death row. In 1996, the average inmate waited on death row for 11 years and 2 months for their day of reckoning. This waiting is psychological torture, because it is so drawn out, that even though there is no physical pain, the psychological torment is painful enough. We should not be so quick to judge that we have moved on from barbaric methods of punishment. If we allow ourselves to slip into this state of complacency where we are willing to accept that our system is infallible simply because our methods seem tamer and more civilized, we might overlook the many flaws of our justice system.We think that we have become better because we no longer use barbaric forms of punishment. However, I believe that the moral aspects of punishment were later tacked on; they were excuses to make ourselves feel better by saying we were improving society or reforming the criminal. These qualities are later additions to the original purpose of punishment, and we still see justice largely as a vehicle for retribution. It is when we are presumptuous as a society that we make mistakes.
7 comments:
I completely agree: many of the punishments inherent in a prison stay are barbaric and ignored. When Damian Echols told everyone that he had been raped repeatedly while staying in jail during his trial period, who made any sort of attempt to help? The psychology of prison has horrendous results; the Stanford Prison Experiment perfectly illustrates that jail changes people and mindsets. There is even a name for the psychological toll on death row inmates: death row syndrome.
I think your arguement is extremely clear and to the point. However, I think you need to expand a little more on how this could affect the future. This is the IMPLICATIONS post, so what conflicts is it going to have? The examples are great, and the chinese water torture idea is really interesting in that it draws the reader in to the main point of you psycological influences on the person on death row. After this though, take it further and expand on what this will cause.
Your post is very interesting and I definitely agree that the type of punishment that we use is much different from the past. However, there are still many aspects of punishment that can be changed. What can make the morality of the punishment better? Will these punishments truly agree with American values?
An aspect of your post that was somewhat unclear was your definition of civilized. what do you mean by the punishments becoming more civilized? Is this in the physical sense or the mental?
I think that you present your argument very well. You state your sentences in a way that makes them easy to understand. However, the word civilized can be ineterpreted in many ways. Some people define the word based on their own personal lives. Do you mean civilized to mean a technology-driven society, a society marked by morals and laws, or a society that is of present time? Also, I think that you should definitely add more of a reason for why we have to stop this presently. You make a good argument about how it all came to be, but what does it hold for our future if we don't halt the practice now? I think that will add on to your argument. Stil, you make a good one that is easily undetstood.
I think you planned out your argument well and have pertinent examples that prove your point. Your thoughts are clear and connected, however I think you should add what is implied, because this is the implications post. I recognize the values that your post is based upon and think that your ideas are well thought out, you just need to add more to what you think will happen in the future.
I never really thought about the psychological aspects of capital punishment on inmates. You make a really interesting point that it is a type of torture or cruel punishment to await death like that, never truly knowing when or if it will happen. I think you could focus more on the future though, is this really an implications post? I would like to know what your thoughts are on how this affects inmates, this country's future, and what can be done about it.
Hi... yes, a very strong post and argument you have made. I like it. The only thing that I felt could improve was the link between torture techniques and death penalty.
I think that the jump was too sudden and it gave the impression that you wanted to link death penalty to barbarism. You might need to give a little more explanation before making this comparison. Perhaps by citing certain cases where the death penalty has been abused for retribution or has been bloody and cruel in nature. All in all, I love your post - short and sweet!
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