Dealing with crime and criminals is something that everyone has had and will have to deal with. Even if a person has not been the victim of a crime, they still have been affected in some way. The difference that forms between one persons experience with crime and anothers is the way that the government or community of a given time period deals with the crimes and the criminals involved. Different communities may choose to punish criminals differently, and some may not even have punishments for crimes that are considered major offenses in others. This is a major difference in the articles that I will discuss. For example, the articles discuss the diverse punishment of certain crimes. One community might compare horse theft to murder, while another might think that is ludicrous. This notion is very relevant to modern world cultures and politics. For example, the punishment for stealing in Singapore is a good caning; in the United States, this would be considered cruel and unusual punishment. This goes to show that the culture and social constructs of a given country greatly affect that nations method of punishment and the frequency with which they use that method to deter crime. Severity of punishments also differed a great deal. For instance, in Dulmens article about Germany, Being buried alive was deemed a particularly horrific and severe punishment for a variety of offences such as adultery. In contrast, Franks article about Russia describes adulterers who were punished with non-fatal charivaris, which is described as a raucous demonstration intended to shame people who transgress community customs. In this punishment, the accused would be striped naked and paraded around the town for everyone to see while community members banged on their over doors and hollered things at the criminal as he or she walked the street. They believed that this form of punishment would shame a person into never committing a crime again. The differenc...
