Punishement or Justice?

                                source: www.punyajokes.com

Whether punishment should be fixed for each type of crimes or whether the conditions and motivation behind it should be considered, I firmly belief that the punishment must be based on a situation behind it. My main reasons are the equality before the law for all citizens and the presumption of innocence that must be taken into account. Another justification is that, someone who commits a crime unintentionally should not be punished as a bad person. Last but not least, if fixed punishment is applied, it may harm human rights.

Fixed punishment is acceptable because it has the advantage of simplicity. There are two reasons that can be used to justify this statement. First, it might reduce time. Once a criminal is proven to be guilty, he could be directly put into jail. For example, a murderer can be punished with fixed punishment after he is convicted of murder. Secondly, this kind of method could save money as a conventional legal system does not. As a result, people who are involved in a criminal case will get their rights and sanctions in a short length of time without spending unnecessary costs.

However, fixed punishment is also has drawbacks. In most countries, there is a similar term which is the equality before the law. This means that, everybody has the same rights before the law. Before deciding someone guilty, a presumption of innocence must be applied for each  criminal case. This mindset is needed to ensure that only the guilty are punished. For example, a person who kills a man in an accident must be differentiated from those who do it on purpose. If we use fixed punishment, these two cases seem to receive the same punishment, and it would be unfair to the person who does it unintentionally.

In my opinion, fixed punishment seems acceptable to reduce time and spending in a criminal case. However, its simplicity could erase the chance for someone who is not totally guilty to get justice. This does not mean that I disagree with this idea. On the contrary, we need to take human rights into account.

As discussed above, the main reason used to justify why fixed punishment will be suitable is because of its simplicity. On the other hand, upon deeper analysis, this argument does not stand up to scrutiny. Therefore, I would argue that punishment needs to be applied based on the circumstances and motivations behind it.