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Punishment and Rehabilitation The first article, Is It Better that Ten Guilty Persons Go Free Than that One Innocent Person be Convicted dwells on the issue of justice and punishment. The author uses the Roman doctrine (it was better to let the crime of a guilty person go unpunished than to condemn the innocent) in order to articulate the strong intuition of everyday morality. The author examines an alternative explanation provided by Jeffrey Reiman. According to Reiman, there are three propositions of what is called strong retributivism: in case 1) to punish an innocent person is as bad as to commit a crime against the innocent person, and 2) being unable to punish the guilty person is as bad as committing a crime against the innocent, then 3) failing to punish the guilty is as bad as punishing an innocent (Halvorsen 4). Next, the question is that whether any innocent law-abiding person would suffer more from being a victim of undeserved punishment than from having the criminal who victimized him go unpunished. The question reduces to criminal justice ethics.
The author continues exploring the concepts of morality and examines the fallibility of the criminal justice system. He reminds about the presumption of innocence and claims that accepting the presumption of innocence we knowingly accept a greater risk that guilty persons will escape a punishment than with a presumption of guilt. However, the presumption of guilt is morally worse than the presumption of innocence. Finally, the author comes to conclusion that people prefer thinking that punishing the innocent is morally worse because they intuitively make between the harm they bring about by doing something and the harm they merely allow to happen by failing to act. In closing it may be said that although it is very difficult to define what is morally better. At the same time, on mature reflection, we come to conclusion that in case the mistake is inevitable, it is better to acquit the guilty person than to convict an innocent, because in the first case it is a mistake, while in the second case there is a crime.
Therefore, the author was right, claiming that it is better that ten guilty persons go free than that one innocent person be convicted. Bibliography Vidar, H. (2004, Winter/Spring). Is It Better that Ten Guilty Persons Go Free Than that One Innocent Person be Convicted. Criminal Justice Ethics, 3 - 13.
Punishment and Rehabilitation: Article 2 The article Old-School Cops in a New-School World written by Peter Moskos, a doctoral candidate in sociology, dwells on the incident that took place in Inglewood, California. Jeremy Morse, the police officer hit a handcuffed teenager Donovan Jackson, however, Morse's trial on assault charges ended in a mistrial, because juries were unable to reach a verdict. However, the conflict is not about white and black, but about new-school policing and old-school police. The author dwells on moral righteousness of hitting back.
The old school of thought considers that in case someone disrespects you, legal niceties be damned. However, the new school says two wrongs dont make a right. The new school of thought prefers cuffing suspects and writing solid reports. There is a misunderstanding between the two schools.
The author tells that in his police academy class, more than 70 % of recruits confirmed that at their childhood they were physically disciple with the methods more severe than open-hand spanking on the behind. The old school considers it a parenting, whereas the new school calls it a child abuse. The old school believes that the disrespectful deserve a good thumping, claiming that it is not about race, but about respect. Ironically, perhaps the only thing uniting police, public and criminals is a belief that those who do bad things deserve to be physically punished.
The situation seems to be hopeless, because the effective new-school policing requires new school police. The only sound way out is to realize the fact that police departments should become diverse also in terms of ideology. The authors point of view is quite reasonable, as far as liberals make good police officers, too. Bibliography Moskos, P. (2003, August 5). Old-School Cops in a New-School World.
The Washington Post.
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Research essay sample on School Of Thought Criminal Justice
