Homeland Security Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 3750 words

Homeland Security - Essay Example All crimes not considered capital were punishable through public torture, mutilation, or embarrassment (McCorkle 321). Flogging was common. Branding with a hot iron was frequently practiced in Britain and sometimes in the British Colonies in North America. The stocks or the pillory were used for lesser crimes (McCorkle 321-2). Numerous crimes or repeat offenses were considered capital crimes, and executions were public events. The death penalty was the final solution offered to compensate for all the other defects of the criminal justice system. The Massachusetts Assembly in 1736 issued a decree that a thief, on the first conviction, be fined or whipped. On the second, the offender would pay triple the fines and be forced to sit on the gallows platform with a noose around his (or her) neck, followed by thirty lashes at the whipping post (Miller 66). For the third offense, the culprit was taken to the gallows and publicly hanged. In his book  The London Hanged  (1992), Peter Linebaugh notes that those hanged for capital offenses in eighteenth century London were overwhelmingly from the working class, and particularly from trades experiencing the onset of craft-destroying manufacturing (Miller 42). The rise of capitalism had resulted in substantial increases in pauperism and petty thievery, which became rampant all through Europe with the decline of the feudal system. In England, steps were taken as early as 1557 to address this problem through the construction of houses of correction or workhouses, the first of which was Bridewell in London. This type of institution quickly spread throughout Britain and the Continent. Unruly apprentices, beggars, â€Å"strumpets,† vagrants, and rogues were sent to the houses of corrections, where they were manacled, flogged, and forced to carry out hard labor (Parker 105). These institutions were widely regarded as

All Quiet On the Western Front Assignment- Close Reading Essay

All Quiet On the Western Front Assignment- Close Reading - Essay Example The story concludes with Paul’s death at the hands of a French sniper on a day near the end of the war. This book is not written by a military general, a politician, a hired ghost writer, a professional historian, but a common solider that has deep respect for human values. He writes without any hidden agenda. Though Paul and his friends joined the army charged with patriotism and with high expectations, soon the brutalities and other realities of war disenchanted them. The captioned pages elaborate the realities of war. In this short passage, the author has provided everything as to how a good books needs to be written. The original company of 150 men of which he has described is a mini-war front, and the description of the sufferings of the individual soldiers is moving. Paul writes about the life of a soldier and how he learns to disengage oneself from human emotions like fear, love and sympathy and turn almost cynical. Not the actual war, but the aftermath of the war worri es Paul. In the above scene, the members of the Second Company, a unit of German army men fighting during World War I, are resting to enjoy a short reprieve from active duty in the warfront. They have suffered heavy casualties, only eighty have returned from the original strength of 150. Paul gives an admirable description about the soldiers and the literary talents of the author are showing. Tjadenis a glutton, but his body is wiry, Haie Westhus, with a heavy body, Detgering who always things about his wife at home, Katczinsky, the cunning old man and the experienced one, and the unwilling cook, who goes by the rule-book of the army to issue rations. The genius of the author is showing throughout their conversation. The passages above highlight the main themes of the novel: How an ordinary soldier is impacted by the horrors of war. The usual features with the war novels are romance, valour, and heroism in the battlefield. But Paul describes about the