t possible reason could there be for this except to instill greater respect for police officers’ lives and fear into their would-be assassins? One may argue that police officers are exposed to more dangerous situations than the average citizen, but no more so than your average criminal. It is because people perceive cops as “good,” as agents that preserve the social order, that their lives are accorded more respect. Of course, preserving the “social order” preserves the status quo of power, keeping those at the top in power and those at the bottom in deprivation. The police are thus representatives of the authorities at the top of the social hierarchy, and this is where they derive their power and respect.On the other hand, criminals are locked up in cages and exposed to an environment purposefully made horrendous. Under the “good and bad” retributive theories, it is better to create a “hell on earth” for these “bad guys” as some sort of payback for the suffering they have caused others. “An eye for an eye” hearkens back to the Laws of Hammurabi, but there does not seem to be a readily available modern explanation for why society propagates suffering with retributive theories of punishment. There are also utilitarian theories of punishment: we are keeping the felons off the street for the greater safety of the non-felons. However, utilitarian theories do not account for the large percentage of the imprisoned who are there on drug-related charges, putting aside reactionary theories that personal use of mind-altering substances poses some sort of threat to society at large. They also do not account for how hellish these prisons are made. There is no improvement of the felons before their eventual release. Basically, the felon is treated to a course in focused criminality: locked in a cage with those who have similar leanings and barked at by insecure, ...
