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Convicting Raskolnikov Dostoevskys Views On Criminal Justice
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Convicting Raskolnikov Dostoevsky's views on Criminal Justice At the close of Crime and Punishment, Raskolinkov is convicted of Murder and sentenced to seven years in Siberian prison. Yet even before the character was conceived, Fyodor Dostoevsky had already convicted Raskolinkov in his mind (Frank, Dostoevsky 101). Crime and Punishment is the final chapter in Dostoevsky's journey toward understanding the forces that drive man to sin, suffering, and grace. Using ideas developed in Notes from Underground and episodes of his life recorded in Memoirs of the House of the Dead, Dostoevsky puts forth in Crime in Punishment a stern defense of natural law and an irrefutable volume of evidence condemning Raskolnikov's actions (Bloom, Notes 25). Central to the prosecution of any crime, murder in particular, is the idea of motive. Not only must the prosecutor prove the actus rectus or "guilty act," but also that the criminal possessed the mens rea or "guilty mind" (Schmalleger 77). The pages of Crime and Punishment and the philosophies of Dostoevsky provide ample proof of both. The first is easy; Dostoevsky forces the reader to watch firsthand as Raskolnikov "took the axe all the way out, swung it with both hands, scarcely aware of himself, and almost without effort, almost mechanically, brought the butt-end down on her head" (Crime and Punishment 76). There is no doubt Raskolnikov caused the death of Alena Ivanovna and, later, Lizaveta, but whether he possessed the mens rea ...
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