eople would exhibit behavior that indicated what their destiny was heaven or hell. Those who were destined for everlasting life would eventually move into a leadership position, those who were in doubt remained in the middle, and those bound for hell occupied the lowest echelon of society and were vulnerable to deviant behavior. Therefore, the Puritans didn’t feel it mattered how severe the punishment was, because those people were already condemned to an eternity in hell. The punishment from the court was a method for protecting society, but also was an act issued directly from Christ (Erikson, 1966).According to Puritanism, the guilty party should accept their punishment regardless of the pain, and do so with dignity. If the culprit resisted these measures, they were thought to be the demon. In essence, deviance was a form of illness that needed to be corrected—at any cost—by the community. It was thought that by repenting, a person could show the community they really weren’t a bad person; however, by repenting the person was publicly admitting their guilt and understands why they were being punished for their actions. Erikson (1966) sums it up nicely by stating, "that the people of the community . . . were somehow anxious for the condemned man to forgive them" (Erikson, 1966, p. 195).To sum up the New England thought process regarding deviance, it can be said they saw deviance as a special characteristic of a certain class of people who had no means of escaping the deviant behavior. In their eyes, the best way to handle these problems is to secure these people into a fairly everlasting deviant role. Because Puritans believed in predestination for all people, reform of a delinquent was unlikely to happen. It should be noted, that not all delinquents were considered ‘lost’ forever. Imposing a fine against a delinquent was meant to bring the person to their senses, whereas by branding them on the for...
