SE23.com - The Official Forum for Forest Hill & Honor Oak, London SE23
Online since 2002   11,000+ members   72,000+ posts

Home | SE23 Topics | Businesses & Services | Wider Topics | Offered/Wanted/Lost/Found | About SE23.com | Advertising | Contact | |
 Armstrong & Co Solicitors



Post Reply  Post Topic 
Should we chop hands off?
Author Message
Ooperlooper


Posts: 104
Joined: Jun 2006
Post: #1
03-12-2007 09:27 AM

But what exactly are those reasons?

Aren't there equally compelling reasons for not putting someone through the psychological punishment of being kept in a prison cell for several years?

Either is a form of discomfort and loss of freedom.

Imagine you are a convicted criminal and the judge gives you a choice of punishment between a hand chopped off and 2 years in jail. Which would you choose? How about if it were 5 years? 10 years. Or how about a branding? Would you trade having your hand branded to avoid a year in jail. 2 years in jail? 5 years?

Assuming that there is a point at which most people would opt for the physical punishment, that proves that psychological punishments can be harsher than physical ones, and if there are significant side benefits to physical ones, what's to stop us investigating the idea of using them?

Of course punishment is not the only purpose of jail. The other purposes are: a) prevent the criminal from repeating their crime for the duration that they are in prison, and b) rehabilitate them.

Obviously locking someone up is a pretty good way to prevent them from repeating their crime in the short term. I'm not sure how well prison works as a form of rehabilitation, though. I'm no expert on the topic, but from what see and read in the media I'm pretty sure it's far from 100% effective and indeed you hear a lot of reports saying that time spend inside prison can make a person more likely to reoffend. I wonder how physical punishments would compare in terms of rehabilitation effectiveness? Perhaps if a thief lost a finger for each conviction, they'd start to get the message pretty quickly?

Cutting of fingers, or sections of them, is in fact a standard punishment meted out by the Japanese mafia to its henchmen. It's a technique they've been using for many years, and presumably they would have stopped bothering if it didn't work.

Find all posts by this user Quote this message in a reply

Friends of Blythe Hill Fields


Messages In This Topic
Should we chop hands off? - Ooperlooper - 03-12-2007, 12:59 AM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - Johnc - 03-12-2007, 07:27 AM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - roz - 03-12-2007, 08:40 AM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - Ooperlooper - 03-12-2007 09:27 AM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - millesens - 03-12-2007, 11:44 AM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - Sherwood - 03-12-2007, 12:10 PM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - roz - 03-12-2007, 06:18 PM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - baggydave - 03-12-2007, 08:27 PM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - baggydave - 03-12-2007, 08:46 PM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - Perryman - 04-12-2007, 01:53 PM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - SANDY67 - 07-12-2007, 02:44 PM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - Sherwood - 08-12-2007, 12:59 PM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - Sherwood - 09-12-2007, 11:57 AM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - roz - 09-12-2007, 05:40 PM
RE: Should we chop hands off? - doc - 09-12-2007, 05:57 PM