UnitVI_Reflection_Assignment

The reflection discusses the justification of the death penalty through the Old Testament and critiques early reform methods as psychological isolation rather than true rehabilitation. It highlights the historical use of classification in the criminal justice system, particularly during the Jim Crow era, to reinforce racial hierarchies instead of focusing on individual psychology. The author questions how to avoid pathologizing social rebellion in the context of historical racial coding within the medical model of crime.

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UnitVI_Reflection_Assignment

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labroad2493

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Reflection Assignment (3-2-1)

1 People who support the Death Penality use the Old Testament
phrase Lex Talionis to justify their desire for retribution when
someone commits a crime they believe should be punished with
death
2 I now see that "penitence" was often just a mask for sensory deprivation. This
Three Things reshaped my understanding: early "reform" wasn't about teaching skills; it was
about using psychological isolation to break a person's identity.
You Learned
3 By labeling criminals as "mentally ill," the system moved away from punishing
the act to trying to cure the person. This connects to my interest in racial coding;
it’s easier to justify indefinite control over someone if you label their non-
conformity as a biological flaw rather than a reaction to systemic issues like Jim
Crow.

1 It's interesting how the Auburn and Eastern State models

(1820s) focused on moral habits and architecture to control the
mind. It shows how asylums were used during the same period to
store people who were socially inconvenient (Peak and Herold
2023). It shows that the history of punishment is also about the
psychological desire to remove undesirables from the public eye.
2 Zebulon Brockway’s Elmira Reformatory introduced
classification. I found the 1870s shift toward classification
intriguing because it claimed to treat the individual, yet it emerged
Two Interesting alongside the Jim Crow era. As a psychology major, I see this as the
Aspects point where race, social construct, was weaponized as a biological
fact to categorize people. The system used classification to
reinforce racial hierarchies rather than true individual psychology.
This connects to the CJ theme of discretionary power. It shows
how "scientific" tools can be used to justify systemic bias. By
defining individuals through a social construct like race rather than
their actual behavior, the system historically prioritized social
control over genuine reform, a tension that still exists in modern
risk-assessment tools.

If the Medical Model views

crime as a psychological
deficiency to be treated, how
do we prevent the
One Question pathologizing of social
rebellion or cultural
differences, particularly in the
context of historical racial
coding?
References

Peak, K. J., & Herold, T. D. (2023). Introduction to Criminal Justice (5th ed.). SAGE Publications,