Lisk 1

Ben Lisk
HELA 10 Pd 3
Mr. Lundstrom
January 10, 2016
Fear of Arrest or Punishment
Basically everyone I know is scared to be arrested. Because of this, they
normally dont break the law, which prevents bad behavior from the citizens. Ultimately,
it makes that nation safer and more crime free. Governments and law enforcement
intimidate their citizens all the time by scaring them or making them afraid of getting in
trouble. Most people fear getting arrested and going to jail, so that helps governments
keep their people under control.
To start, the world would be a much different place without punishment. People
would be getting killed left and right, women would get raped all the time, banks would
be robbed, and all the other crimes would be happening too. That is why we have the
laws we have. It makes people scared because they dont want to get in trouble. Fear is
a very powerful concept and makes us do things we normally wouldnt do, or not do
things we normally do. Christie Wilcox wrote an article on fear and she said, Fear is so
much more than an emotion; it is a whole body experience.
Fear is a feeling we get when something scares us, or we assume we are in
danger or with someone who could harm us. I do good things because I dont want to
get in trouble. Therefore, I fear of getting in trouble. Almost all people think like me when

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it comes to this. Fear of arrest is almost always a good thing because it keeps the world
a better place with less crime.
If you get in trouble with the law, then you will most likely take a visit to jail or
prison. It is not a fun place and it is very miserable. People fear going there. Citizens
make better decisions so they can stay living their normal life. Little kids are often
scared of police officers. This is because much of the population puts a stereotype on
the police, and young boys and girls catch wind of this and believe it. They follow the
rules from a young age so this helps governments. Governments scare their citizens a
little bit, so they can keep them in check and keep them out of trouble.
Fear gives us quite the scare. As Christie Wilcox said, When we sense danger
or threat, a signal is sent to the walnut sized structure in our forebrains called the
amygdala, which is responsible for alerting the rest of our body to prepare for fight or
flight. Once the threat is removed, the signal relaxes, and so do we. But for those who
suffer from anxiety disorders, it takes much longer for the brain to sound the all clear.
When you get scared, you react differently than you normally would.You get timid right
before you make the bad decison and fear makes you not do it. This is how the
government keeps crime down. Punishments are given out to the citizens who break the
law.
Perhaps down in his heart Okonkwo was not a cruel man. But his
whole life was dominated by fear, the fear of failure and of
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weakness. It was deeper and more intimate than the fear of evil
and capricious gods and of magic, the fear of the forest, and of

nature, malevolent, red in tooth and claw. Okonkwos fear was

greater than these. It was not external, but lay deep within himself.
It was the fear of himself, lest he should be found to resemble his
father. Even as a little boy he had resented his fathers failure and
weakness, and even now he still remembered how he had suffered
when a playmate had told him that his father was agbala. That was
how Okonkwo first came to know that agbala was not only another
name for a woman, it could also mean a man who had taken to title.
And so Okonkwo was ruled by one passion to hate everything
that his father Unoka had loved. One of those things was
gentleness and another was idleness. (Chinua Achebe)
This quote from the book Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe shows you how
fear can change your thinking. I know I feel pressured to make the right decisions and to
follow the law when I am around police officers, and so does everyone else.The
government does a good job of taking advantage of this, and making people scared of
breaking the law around law enforcement.
Our leaders use fear against us in many different ways. First, they make us
scared of being arrested or getting in trouble with the law by putting punishments out for
whoever breaks the law. Also Robert Higgs says, the warrior element of government
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puts the people in fear for their lives, and the priestly element puts them in fear for their
eternal souls. These two fears compose a powerful compoundsufficient to prop up
governments everywhere on earth for several millennia. That is another way the

government scares us. An example of how the government uses fear for their
advantage is the United States has been a little chaotic lately because of ISIS and all of
their terrorist attacks. The government has used this to their advantage because they
threaten to kill anyone who has anything to do with terrorism. Since everyone has
become scared, people dont mind as much if the U.S. government is checking into the
citizens backgrounds, so they can keep their country safe. Because of this, the U.S.
has basically been spying on all Americans the last decade and a half. Fear makes us
more gullible.
Some people may say, fear is not the reason we dont break the law. They say
we break the law because it is our decision. To add to that people believe fear is not the
reason we listen to the leaders of our country. They might also say the government does
not use fear against us. However fear causes us to make good decisions when it comes
down to the law. And, fear is a big help to law enforcement and keeping the people of
their country under control. So when it comes to this topic on fear, it is a good thing.
Another reason why fear is helpful is because it keeps people away from doing
drugs and under age drinking. ...peoples fears that their children may become drug
addicts or gun down a classmate(Higgs). Parents dont have to worry about this as
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much because the police officers intimidate the kids, which makes them a whole lot less
likely to do it. Police officers come to middle schools and high schools all the time and
tell the students not to do drugs. This makes the kids scared to get in trouble when they
hear the consequences. I never wanted to do drugs, but the punishments I would get for

doing them makes me not want to do them even more. This is how all my friends think
too.
The main reason people dont break the law is because fear of the punishments
that are given to someone when they do break the law. It prevents everyone I know
from doing things to get in trouble. Fear is very helpful to the government because they
use it against us and for themselves. But it is for the good of the country because it
keeps everyone safe. Fear can really get us nervous and can control us and make
decisions for us. One of the men behind him cleared his throat. Ikemefuna looked

back, and the man growled at him to go on and not stand looking back. The way
he said it sent cold fear down Ikemefunas back. His hands trembled vaguely on
the black pot he carried (Achebe). Fear is more than an emotion and it helps can
make us do things we normally wouldnt do. Ultimately, fear helps governments
keep everyone under control by making them scared of getting arrested and
facing the punishments.
.

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Works Cited
Achebe, Chinua. Things Fall Apart. Heinemann Educational, 1959. Print.
Higgs, Robert. "Fear: The Foundation of Every Governments Power." The Independent
Quarterly Newsletter 17 May 2005. Print.

Wilcox, Christie. "Using Cannabinoids to Overcome Fear in the Brain." Discover

Magazine 12 June 2012. Print.