reward and Punishment

REWARD AND PUNISHMENT he could not pay the penalty, his term of punishment was to be extended. (The Times of India, november 9, 1979). The culprit at the time of sentencing was 34 years of age. Even if he lived to a ripe old age, there would still be about a hundred years left for him to serve. Therefore, in the eyes of the law, he would never fully expiate his crimes. our world is too limited by human mortality for there to be any possibility of absolute justice. in a similar case in Thailand, a case was filed against a policewoman, Mrs Phenphanchong imsap, who had been posted in the frontier region of Pelchabun, where she was in charge of the registration office for foreigners. The court found her guilty of earning $25,000 illegally over 17 years by accepting bribes for registration. she was then sentenced to 1000 years of rigorous imprisonment, with no possibility of being released on parole or granted mercy. in the judge’s view, such punishment would be a preventive to others. This policewoman was not going to stay alive for one thousand years to serve her full term, but since it was felt that a criminal’s punishment should be in direct proportion to the magnitude of her crime, this verdict expressed the court’s desire for absolute justice. in the present world, no judge, however well-intentioned, can hope for anything more than partial justice in a large proportion of the cases he presides over. if to expiate his crimes, a criminal must serve a prison term of 1000 years; his death will provide him with an escape route. This inevitable reality calls for the existence of an unlimited