How Have Criminal Punishments Evolved, and How Does Technology Aid Investigations?

As our class began The Scarlet Letter, the terrible yet strange punishment that Hester received, the letter "A" - it stood for adultery - stitched onto her gown, immediately stood out to me.  Although adultery is a sin, I feel that Hester's punishment was too unusual and cruel.  However, in her time, this was among the standard solutions that society had to deal with convicts.  With this in mind, I decided to research the evolution of solutions that people apply for crimes, as well as how technology has changed the process of investigating a crime.  
Criminality has existed since primitive times.  In ancient society, crimes, including treason, witchcraft, sacrilege, and breaches of the hunting rules, were punished by either extinction or banishment.  As time progressed, people began using torture and death sentences as new solutions to accost criminals.  The objective of these punishments was to penalize the wrongdoer.  But, during the Dark Ages, under the feudal system, authorities regulated the criminal system in order to prevent others from doing bad deeds, using any degree of punishment to stress their point.  The criminal system became practiced more often in society, and it was brought to the Americas with the pilgrims while establishing their new society.  Cruel and unusual punishments continued to be administered, until the French Revolution evolved these punishments, making them less harmful to the welfare of the malefactor.  
Today, new technologies, such as robots, GPS systems, and advanced cameras and computer systems, greatly aid the investigation and surveillance of crimes. 

Image of a technologically advanced camera

The most important technological advancement is the computer databases.  Computer databases allow police departments to exchange information anywhere.  Also, they are a superb solution to lowering the crime rate.  This solution has been proven to be accurate, since a news report in 2012 declared that the crime rate has been the lowest since the early 1960s due to the aid of computer databases.