Crime and Punishment.

The first 200 words of this essay...

Crime and Punishment

In this particular crime, four generals who served under the rule of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet were convicted of being implicated with the assassination of a trade unionist who had called for protests days earlier, this act made him an enemy of the state.

At the time, the martial government viewed the victim, Tucapel Jimenez, as a threat to their grasp on the country so he had to be eliminated.

On the other hand, the people of the time saw this as another injustice committed by a fascist government desperate to remain in power and cut short any potential uprising. The people of Chilli still hold this view today; with many more opting for campaigns to bring to justice the senior officials who gave the orders to commit these various atrocities and assassinations during their time in power. Capital punishment had now been abolished as prisons had become the most common form of punishment, with 90% of serious offenders sent to prison. The emphasis of prisons had shifted from trying to deter current and future criminals to actively reforming and rehabilitating criminals back into society.

The present government, eager to present itself