What purposes were served by early America’s criminal laws in colonial times?

Answer 1

Main reason was to tame the area. Take the Wild West for example. If you raped, murdered, robbed or stole someones horse (i.e. their ride) they shot or hung you. Just thinnk today if someone hijacks a car and they know the police have the option to take them out might just think twice if the law stated they could take them out if they were speeding donw the road and endangering lives. If they knew someone might plug them they would think twice.

By hanging or shooting the person it instilled in the normal law abiding people a sense of well being and also detoured crime. As far as the criminals, when word got around they began to worry about being tracked down like wild animals and brought to justice.

Today people say that killing someone through the court system does no good, but that's hog wash. Statistics all point to one factor, when you take out the evil person it actually cuts down on the violent crimes. Unfortunaely our country is over run by illegal criminals, ones that come in on visas and don't leave and the hugh burden of drugs and what they cause. We need bigger jails or shut down the borders.

If borders are shut down then the only way for extra people to get in and drugs is by boats, trains, cars or airplane. This would drive the price of drugs up, but many would go through rehab and be cured and get on with a productive life, the rest would be the evil rich people that have plenty of money and they could afford the drugs and pay for them. Ever heard of the "rich man's drug"? (Joke).

If you don't have law and order then protection drops down to a vigilanty type system, which isn't that bad in the right hands, but sometimes things slip through the cracks and are not as reliable as a court system, which with nutty laws and judges (nuts, crooked, kick back takers) are not always fair.

Kind of like if you tear up the house as a kid and you know your parents told lyouif you did that you would get a whipping, then you get your butt beat and next time decide not to do it.

With the way these groups have taken u pthe banners for the prison inmates, I doubt if over 18% are rehabbed. I wonder if the ACLU has anything to do with that.

Answer 2

Same purpose as modern day laws have - they are an attempt to keep order by prohibiting acts that might be harmful to others, or to the state.