While responding to a previous post on possible misplacement in the circles of Hell in Dante’s Inferno, I realized that punishments and crimes are not only subject to influence by the time period in which they are committed, but also by the culture/religious beliefs of communities, even in modern times. For example, if you are caught stealing in certain nations, such as Saudi Arabia and many other Middle Eastern countries, you can have your hands cut off as a punishment. By contrast, in Western nations, stealing is considered a minor crime and at most the perpetrator will be given a misdemeanor charge, resulting in community service. You may recall Liangelo Ball, who while representing the United States in a basketball tournament in China, was caught stealing clothes from a Gucci store and was looking at ten years of labor-intensive prison sentencing before our President used diplomatic channels to get him pardoned. Thus, punishments for crimes can differ from country to country, and it mainly depends on the culture and religious backgrounds of nations which can influence peoples’ outlooks on crimes’ severities.
What do you guys think about this?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
1 comment:
That's something you don't think about every day, and it's pretty interesting. Its obvious when you actually think about it, how for instance stealing in North Korea would get you a marginally worse punishment than here in the U.S. My question would be about the backgrounds to some of the punishments in the circles of hell then. Specifically for the circle where Cerberus is constantly killing the people stuck in the muck. I believe we went over the others in class already.
Post a Comment