Should All Lawbreakers Be Imprisoned, or Are There Better Alternatives?
It is widely acknowledged that the issue of whether all lawbreakers should be imprisoned or whether alternative forms of punishment may be more effective has sparked considerable debate in recent years. While perspectives on this matter differ, it remains a significant concern that affects both individuals and societies. This essay will explore the key aspects of this topic before presenting a final conclusion.
On the one hand, a common argument in favor of imprisoning all offenders is that it ensures public safety. Supporters of this view argue that strict punishments act as a deterrent to crime, thereby protecting innocent citizens. This is particularly relevant in cases involving violent criminals, regardless of their age. For instance, a study conducted by Eliot in 2018 revealed that the number of crimes significantly decreased in regions where strict enforcement policies were in place.
On the other hand, lenient punishments may encourage further criminal behavior. If criminals are not held accountable through fair and appropriate measures, the number of offenses may continue to grow. Simply imposing fines might not be sufficient, especially in serious cases. A just and balanced system is essential. Governments must also consider the broader needs of society. For example, a 2023 BBC report highlighted a case in which two offenders repeatedly committed crimes despite receiving lenient penalties in the past.
In conclusion, the question of how to deal with lawbreakers presents both challenges and opportunities that require thoughtful consideration. While opinions may differ, it is crucial to adopt a balanced approach that combines justice with rehabilitation. Collaboration among policymakers, educators, and the general public is vital in order to implement effective strategies. Without such efforts, lasting progress will remain out of reach.
My name is Sabina Nafasova, and I was born on May 22, 2008, in Shahrisabz district, Qashqadaryo region, Uzbekistan. I am currently a senior student at School No. 74 in my hometown.
I am actively involved in the SMORM project, which focuses on social awareness, media literacy, and responsible digital behavior.
In 2025, I was selected for the third round of the MGIMO-Tashkent Model United Nations (MUN) conference as a delegate representing the UNESCO committee. Participating in MUN has strengthened my leadership qualities and broadened my understanding of global issues.
One of my articles was recently published in the Kenya Times newspaper.
“People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.”
James Baldwin
In this issue, we explore how people are influenced by their times and cultures, and how they learn from and engage with the thoughts of their forebears. Also, we acknowledge the wealth of wisdom and life lessons carried within each person due to the events through which they have lived.
Amit Shankar Saha writes of then and now, memory and future, remembrance and forgetting, universal human questions. Duane Vorhees’ poetry evokes change, thought, aging, and the creative process.
Stephen Jarrell Williams speaks to memory and the human experience. Eva Lianou Petropoulou speaks to artists and authors’ learning from and being inspired by each other throughout the ages. Writer Rizal Tanjung offers up an existential analysis of Eva Petropoulou Lianou’s poetry.
Giorgos Pratzigos interviews Konstantinos Fais on his artwork and advocacy for rediscovering Hercules and ancient Greek virtues. Muxlisa Khaytbayeva records her grandfather Jumaboy Allaberganov’s memories of knowing famed Uzbek author Omonboy Matjonov as a young adult and discusses Matjonov’s contributions to culture. Shukurilloyeva Lazzatoy Shamsodovna relates her scholarly and personal journey to understanding and illuminating Russian writer Alexandr Faynberg’s poetic legacy and its influence on Uzbek culture.
Kuziyeva Shakhrizoda highlights the Uzbek government’s investment in the nation’s youth and the incredible potential of their young adults. Otaboyeva Khushniya outlines how the psychology of early childhood can inform education. Su Yun collects and translates the work of Chinese elementary school students.O’tkirava Sevinch outlines strategies for learning Mandarin Chinese as a second language and for teaching the language in Uzbek schools. Olimboyeva Dilaferuz outlines verb conjugation rules in the Uzbek language.
Mashhura Farhodovna Joraqulova’s short story encourages students from low-income families to persevere with their education. Sevara Kuchkarova outlines strategies to motivate students to complete work at school. Rashidova Shaxrizoda Zarshidovna honors the life and work of a woman who mentored many of the girls at her school. Dilbar Aminova advocates for a balanced approach to screentime in young children’s lives. Shahnoza Ochildiyeva reflects on the value of her journalism education at an Uzbek university. Xo’jamiyorova Gulmira Abdusalomovna highlights the role of emerging and young poets in Uzbekistan’s national destiny.
Duane Vorhees compares the poetry of Phillis Wheatley and Nikki Giovanni as part of a broader comment on changing Black consciousness in the United States.
Cherise Barasch writes with respect for the hardworking people she observes digging into the earth in the heat. Yongbo Ma brings a poetic and scientific perspective to fog. Sayani Mukherjee contemplates peaceful natural scenes in a reverie. Priyanka Neogi compares accepting life’s changes to living through different seasons and times of day. David Sapp reflects on the transcendent experience of seeing a peacock. Dilnoza Islamova looks to nature’s beauty as an invitation to spiritual faith and practice. Maki Starfield sends up elegant reflections on weather and fruits in Thailand as Maja Milojkovic meditates on sunflowers, existence, and perseverance.
Brian Barbeito lets his mind wander to cosmological and existential places while walking near birds by a lake. Orinbayeva Dilfuza rejoices in the beauty of nature at springtime as Dilobar Maxmarejabova shares the emotional significance of tulips in her life. Don Bormon revels in the fun of rain at school. Mark Young renders up more of his fanciful “geographical” maps of Australian regions. Mathematics is a language we use to describe nature, and Timothee Bordenave discusses how his geometric studies inform his artwork. Mesfakus Salahin speaks to drought in Bangladesh in a meditation on accepting life and nature’s cycles.
Bruce Mundhenke urges humanity to turn away from hate towards love and acceptance. Vo Thi Nhu Mai illuminates the beauty and communicative power of the craft of poetry.
Leslie Lisbona sends up a childhood memory of having fun dancing to and figuring out rap lyrics. Marjona Baxtiyorovna Jorayeva celebrates sports and their fandoms and their power to bring enjoyment and bring people together.
Kholmurodova outlines strategies to bring digital access and economic opportunities to the world’s rural women. Rakhimov Rakhmatullo outlines challenges and solutions for logistics technologies. Sa’dia Alisher outlines some benefits, problems, and challenges from modern digital technologies. Gulnora Rakhimjonovna Khomidova explores the educational potential of artificial intelligence.
Dr. Jernail S. Anand relates how, regardless of the tools we use to craft our work, restraint and discipline can serve as a creative force. Dr. Debabrata Maji highlights the power of perseverance and devotion. Azemina Krehic compares the care she has for her poetic works to the process of washing her clothes on a line. Hassan Mistura speaks to the journey of developing a healthy self concept. Surayyo Nosirova reminds us to let go of the illusion of more control than we have and to stay open to change.
Grant Guy offers up stage directions for absurdist theater, an artistic reaction to periods of rapid social change. Ahmed Miqdad speaks to the absurd persistence of normal life amid wartime. Mykyta Ryzhykh, in a similar vein, evokes the quest for queer love and sensuality among bombs and bullets.
Pat Doyne laments violent immigration enforcement overreach in Los Angeles. Otabayeva Khusniya reveals the deeply humane vision of Erkin Vahidov’s work Rebellion of Souls, a tribute to the memory of Nasrul Islam and other artists who died as a result of unjust persecution. Chimezie Ihekuna shares some of life’s paradoxes and urges nations and groups of people to move away from war as a solution to issues. Mahbub Alam also puts out a call for peace, remembering the many people lost to war. Boboqulova Durdona laments the many civilian deaths in Gaza as Stephen House highlights war’s effects on ordinary people, especially children.
Muslima Olimova reflects on surviving an unhappy marriage and urges families to welcome young brides and for women to carefully consider before marrying. J.J. Campbell speaks to the lingering effects of trauma on people and the tension between hope and disillusionment. Dr. Bindu Madhavi speaks to the inner battles many of us fight as Mirta Liliana Ramirez evokes the pain of loneliness.
Doug Hawley’s short story presents several characters representing a mix of lawful and roguish motives and actions. Taylor Dibbert’s poem lampoons the worldliness of a priest and the devotion it still inspires. Sarvinoz Sobirjonova Abdusharifova depicts the dual nature of humanity: kindness and cruelty.
Kelly Moyer uses vegetable humor to convey and navigate the experience of chronic illness. Alan Catlin frames evocative images with words, plumbing the imagined photos for meaning.
Mark Blickley, a combat veteran who finished education later in life, reflects on what he gained as a person and an artist from popular literature and reminds the “literary” crowd not to so easily dismiss popular writers.
Reverie
A perfectly new morning
The hidden hydrangeas hide in the blush
A soulful symphonic trodden path
For full of nectar the heaven drank
The river runs deep ahead
Porcelain touches lose my vision
Yet the morning is beaten against
The sweeping currents of adversity
Proclivity for the blissful hippocrane
I hear a Byzantine reverie
Enter the summer breeze breeding of beads
For the first touch of dropped waterfall.
Moss
Dewdrops around my clock table
A newly refurbished watch
The steel clean peel the orangy desk
The rumination stales around
A heavy buzzkeep silence
The opulence of tall heavy strain
Straight out of the hillsides
The air mists a blue hour
My peonies are hung around
The bonnets are wet dried
My nestled dropped homeskill
To myriad ways the honey touch smile
And kill the open ended questions
Before they end before the red postbox
It stays around
Whatever we try to ponder on
As the river slithers around
My new desked moss.
Three years after the onset of my chronic illness, I realized it was up to me to manage my condition. And what better way to take control than through the practice of chaos magick? In no time at all, I began sleeping better, which helped with the brain fog and whatnot; but, my heart rate still hovered around 160 bpm, and the loneliness remained unabated.
So, I created a sigil tied to the intention, “I am healthy and at peace.”
Who would have imagined I’d wake up this morning at the farmers’ market, sitting contentedly within the kohlrabi bin? I’ll admit, I am a fine specimen, fit as a fiddlestick; and, there’s little to fret over as a card-carrying member of the cabbage family.
A beneficent figure approaches, blocking the glare of the sun. Her bracelets jangle as she rifles through the bin. I then feel a gentle pressure upon me.
Well, how do you do? I think to myself as I’m lifted and carefully placed into a well-used reusable tote.
At last, rather than rotting in my bed, I get to live out the rest of my days with this lovely hippy-dippy lady who reeks of patchouli. Sure, she’ll cut me into slices and slather me in Bitchin’ Sauce; but, after years of frustration, I’ll have, at last, fulfilled my destiny—bringing joy to someone capable of seeing me as I am.
Stephen House has won many awards and nominations as a poet, playwright, and actor. He’s had 20 plays produced with many published by Australian Plays Transform. He’s received several international literature residencies from The Australia Council for the Arts, and an Asialink India literature residency. He’s had two chapbooks published by ICOE Press Australia: ‘real and unreal’ poetry and ‘The Ajoona Guest House’ monologue. His next book drops soon. He performs his acclaimed monologues widely. Stephen had a play run in Spain for 4 years.
It brings destruction to the lives, civilization, humanity, economics
And what not?
As the rose is burnt in the heat wave
The lives like the roses burned, make us stumbled
On the way the stars fall down
You see, I see, we all see
breaking down our hearts the mangrove forest is firing.
The sound of cry reaches the sky
From above the sky the creator laughs at the play
We everyday are playing with ourselves
With the country people or with the people of the world
Killing mankind without any hesitation awaits a great punishment.
How sweet the scented the roses blowing in the morning breeze!
Would you please meet the dead faces to make the safe journey to heaven?
O the sweet scented flowers in the bushes you refresh us
to the sunny bright beginning of the day.
Please be the companion to our loving brothers, sisters, daughters and sons
Passing away from us.
Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh
03 July, 2025
Md. Mahbubul Alam is from Bangladesh. His writer name is Mahbub John in Bangladesh. He is a Senior Teacher (English) of Harimohan Government High School, Chapainawabganj, Bangladesh. Chapainawabganj is a district town of Bangladesh. He is an MA in English Literature from Rajshahi College under National University. He has published three books of poems in Bangla. He writes mainly poems but other branches of literature such as prose, article, essay etc. also have been published in national and local newspapers, magazines, little magazines. He has achieved three times the Best Teacher Certificate and Crest in National Education Week in the District Wise Competition in Chapainawabganj District. He has gained many literary awards from home and abroad. His English writings have been published in Synchronized Chaos for seven years.
