According to Hood, crime is an act that can be committed by a person against the public law (331). This term comprehends all the types of offenses, but in its limited significance, it is confined to felonies (Beccaria 102). In most cases, crime is defined in three terms, offense, felony, and misdemeanor. An offense is any type of criminal activity that will not be indictable, but punishable (Frankfurter 917). Felony is the common type of crime witnessed in most sectors of life. However, a misdemeanor is a type of criminal activity that is usually punishable by a parting fine or a sentence in jail that may not exceed one year. It is observed that every crime that is committed no matter how petty it seems, violates the law and should be compensated with a relative punishment in accordance with the law (Farrington 5). Various mechanisms of regulating criminal activities of any nature would be employed by the authorities (Cohen 605). However, the lightness or severity of the punishment to be inflicted upon a crime varies in different societies owing to cultural and religious factors. This paper compares the punishment of misdemeanor crimes in England and Iran that focus on how religion influences decisions.
“The provision of criminal punishment in society is a similarly complex social process.” (D’Amico 5). Since the Victorian era, the issue of Crime and Punishment has continued to receive much concern in England (Bottomley 185). Roberts et al. explain that there are four reasons, such as work democracy, penal populism, misinformed, democracy, and late modern anxieties (61-75). Others find the answer to punitive severity in market liberalism (Sutton). On the other hand, Wolpin seeks the reasons for crime in economics (“An economic analysis of crime and punishment in England and Wales, 1894-1967”). Beattie observes that criminal penalties even for petty or misdemeanor crimes were observed to be cruel and violent in ancient England (27). People who were found guilty of petty crimes would be spared the wrath of hanging that would be common with felonies. However, minor punishments, such as whipping, fines, imprisonment, and the pillory, are imposed on petty cases. In some cases, misdemeanors are only asked to make the pledges that they transform their wrong ways (McLynn 73). Hartman observes crime punishment in England to have undergone many changes that would see serious amendments being realized in ‘the Capital punishment’ among other segments (655). However, the punishment for misdemeanor cases in modern England is less severe with fine imposition in most cases. Religion in England was observed to play a significant role in the punishment of criminals in ancient times (Briggs 77). Sharpe notes that, through the mechanism of the clergy, many defendants were spared the wrath of serious crimes (196). This kind of pardon or relief is applicable even today; defendants see the guilty one of petty crimes always to find mercy in the way of religion, which is at the forefront in advocating for human rights thus influencing the decisions made upon defendants in petty crimes.
Beckett states that attitude towards penalties differs from the person’s vision of society and state (6). In both countries, punishment is considered as “God’s punishment for people’s sins” (Kaplan 113), or the thing that helps to maintain balance (Bentham). For example, in Prosecution and Punishment: Petty Crime and the Law in London and Rural Middlesex, the author analyzes ththe e development of judicial system in Britain (Shoemaker). However, the punishment for a crime in Iran differs from that in England (Mayer 127). The Islamic law seems to continue to enforce strict regulations in matters of crime, and this has influenced the entire Iranian legal system in the same path (Hogeveen 73). Whereby Capital Punishment has become history in England for the last century, so the practice is still applicable in the Iranian Judicial System (Fabricant 373). Some of the brutal ways of exercising capital punishment in ithe n Arabic nation would include methods such as hanging, stoning, and firing squad (Bass 76). Another significant different between with the two countries is that, whereby religion seems to favor and side with criminals in England, the religion in Iran which is mainly constituted by Islamams would not entertain any form of crime no matter how light it seems. No wonder, there are even Religious Courts to take care of criminal activities associated with the members (Keshavarz 13). This clearly indicates the strictness usually followed by Iranian religions in dealing with matters of crime. Misdemeanor cases would attract serious punishments in Iran; Whereby arrest and imprisonment are commonplace here, other ways of punishment for petty crimes would include public floggings and fines (Lippman 415). The alternative to punishment that makes it useless is nonviolence as a lifestyle (Dorpat 2). However, in the discussion of two scholars, it is possible to see that though harm is unnecessary for criminalization (Feinberg), it is ‘a good reason’ for it (Ripstein 216). That is why it is necessary to create a system that will deal with different kinds of crime (Ryberg 62) because the seriousness of the crime can vary, and Bogan tries to determine the level of each one (471).
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