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1,124. Capital Punishment; Crime;
Deterrence; Justice
"It has always been the practice, when any particular species of
robbery becomes prevalent and common, to endeavour its
suppression by capital denunciations. Thus, one generation of
malefactors is commonly cut off, and their successors are
frighted into new expedients; the art of thievery is augmented
with greater variety of fraud, and subtilized to higher degrees
of dexterity and more occult methods of conveyance. The law then
renews the pursuit in the heat of anger, and overtakes the
offender again with death. By this practice, capital inflictions
are multiplied, and crimes, very different in their degrees of
enormity, are equally subjected to the severest punishment that
man has the power of exercising upon man."
Johnson: Rambler #114 (April 20, 1751)
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