Animal Trials (and Punishments) w/ Katie Sykes

Cruel and Unusual: A Podcast on Punishment

This podcast explores why and how people are punished in the United States and throughout the world, ranging from criminal punishment to disciplining children. Each episode features a fifteen minute interview with a punisher (i.e. a judge or parent), someone punished (i.e. convicts or children), or those who study punishment (i.e. academics). Topics include: Why do we punish at all? How has punishment changed over time? How does punishment differ in other countries? The podcast is always informative, entertaining, and, when the need arises, even a bit irreverent. Listen up...or be punished.

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Now Playing: Animal Trials (and Punishments) w/ Katie Sykes - Do you find the idea of a pig on trial for murder or locusts punished for trespass ridiculous? If so (and I hope you do), than the history of medieval animal trials will likely intrigue, disturb, and downright baffle you. Fortunately, Katie Sykes helps us unpack one of the strangest phenomena in the long, lurid history of punishment.