Criminal Justice
Essay
Hammurabi was a just ruler. He ruled the
kingdom of the Old Babylonians in
Mesopotamia. Hammurabi started his empire
in 1792 B.C. During Hammurabi's rule,
Hammurabi posted a set of laws in town for
everybody to read. The laws dealt with crime,
farming, business, marriage, and family. This
set of laws was known as Hammurabi's Code
and later became known as “an eye for an
eye and a tooth for a tooth.” Code No.196 is
“If a man put out the eye of another man his
eye should be put out.” Hammurabi's Code
provided a punishment for every crime
instead of rehabilitating the person of that
crime. I believe prisoners should be
rehabilitated and not be punished. American
taxes should be used to make prisoners
better people rather than punishing prisoners
in jail.
American Taxes should be spent to make
jail a place where criminals can learn and not
get punished. According to the United
Nations, jail is a punishment itself, then why
add extra punishments that the criminal does
not deserve? The original purpose of prison
was to refine someone to be capable of
society, according to Berkeley Political
Review. Norway refines criminals instead of
punishing them after their crime. Norway
spends their taxes on making jail a better
place to learn. The United States punishes
them even more in jail. Norway’s recidivism
rate is 20%, while the United States
recidivism rate is 82%. In Norway, the
criminal rate is 75 people per 100,000, where
in the United States of America it is 707
people per 100,000. In Norway, a jail named
“Halden Prison” is designed so that prisoners
can learn how to act in society. Whereas in
the United States prisons are locked cells
where prisoners are given harsh punishments
for couple years. I believe that prisoners
should be rehabilitated so that later in life
they do not make the same mistake again.
According to the United Nations, it is too
expensive to keep a prisoner in jail! If the
United States of America should rehabilitate a
prisoner instead, so the prisoner will never
come back to jail making less criminals
causing the United States of America to save
a lot of money. Did you know that the United
States of America spends about $9,900 each
year for the education of each student. The
United States of America must spend $45,000
to keep a prisoner in jail every year. That
means the United States of America spend
about 4 times more on a prisoner each year
than on a student. If the United States of
America spends so much on prisoners and
then they still do not learn anything and do
another crime. All the money is wasted, and
the prisoner's life is ruined. Instead, if the
United States of America rehabilitates the
prisoners it saves time, it saves money, and
the prisoner can live a happy life.
If the United States of America
rehabilitates a prisoner, it saves time, it saves
money, the prisoner learns how to act in
society, and the prisoner can live a happy life.
Hammurabi's Code is the base of all laws. It is
like a stepstool which eventually leads to
American laws. Hammurabi's Code helped a
lot to set the foundation of American laws.
Laws like “an eye for an eye” helped set
modern standards. Even though how harsh
they were.
