Working Copy For Essay 2

The assignment is based on an essay by Stephen Chapman titled The Prisoner's Dilemma: Why is it significant that punishment in the West is private and follows secular guidelines, whereas in Eastern cultures, punishment is public and follows Koranic law? Discuss how differences in forms of punishment reveal cultural values.


The establishment of laws in society and the punishments for breaking them have roots in religion throughout history. Many criminal behaviors today, such as murder and theft, have not changed in thousands of years, but the manner in which those crimes are prosecuted, judged, and punished have changed even in cultures whose laws were originally founded in religion. While religion has been the foundation upon which the basic structure of ethical behavior in society is based, it has been almost totally eradicated from modern court rooms in the west. This is very different from countries in the Middle East whose laws are based on the Koran, where the religion is the law and punishment is meted out according to scripture.

With the secularization of the legal system in Western countries, trials and subsequent sentencing were taken behind closed doors and away from the public eye. While some high profile crimes draw the attention of the media and are reported in the news rampantly, most are quietly decided and their defendants sentenced to be tucked away in a cell with other like minded criminals far from the public eye. There is seldom any impact on the psyche of the public, others involved in the same criminal activities, or even those that would ponder committing an offense against society. Only when capital punishment is being delivered for the most heinous of crimes does the public once again become aware of the seriousness of the what can happen when the law is broken.

Where Koranic law is the accepted practice there is a much more drastic approach taken to the trial and punishment of offenses which can be as trivial as singing or dancing in public or as severe as murder. Some offenses, such as blasphemy and abandoning Islam, carry the same weight as murder: the death penalty. Punishments are frequently carried out in public and commonly attended by large audiences of men, women and children. These public displays of discipline serve as a warning and reminder of the consequences for breaking the law, leaving an often graphic and brutal image forever etched into the minds of those present to witness them.

So how do these differing manners of implementing justice impact society and its miscreants? It has been shown that imprisoning criminals is doing little to accomplish the desired goal of rehabilitating them for re-entry into society. The prison system is overloaded with people convicted of petty non-violent crimes who, after being condemned to serve long jail sentences with violent offenders, will probably be scarred for life after their release. And while it can surely be said that a thief in the Middle East who has his hand cut off for stealing will also be scarred for life, he is highly unlikely to commit the same offense again, nor for that matter any other. As this once corrupt person carries on with his daily activities, the sign of his punishment serves as a visual reminder to everyone he encounters of the cost that must be paid for not obeying the law.