Miller used the play as a criticism of

puritans
witch hunts
communism
mccarthyism

McCarthyism.

Explanation:

Miller's story The Crucible is about Salem witch hunts, but only on the surface. In the story, we can see Puritans hunting innocent people and burning them at stakes just because there was a slight possibility in their minds that they might be witches.

However, metaphorically, the entire story is a criticism of McCarthyism. McCarthy was so paranoid about communists that he organized "witch hunts" in order to find them in America and eradicate them from the country.

Miller used the play as a criticism of McCarthyism.

Arthur miller wrote "The Crucible" to criticize McCarthyism. The latter is called like that because there was a Senator in the USA called Joseph McCarthy; he claimed that there were communists living in secret in the USA. The natural consequence of this was that lots of people were accused of being communists, and because of this they lost their families, jobs and lives.

Arthur Miller was outraged with this situation and he wrote the Crucible in order to draw a parallel between what happened with the Salem "Witches" (year 1692/3) and with "Communists" at that time (year 1950s). The story in itself seems to be about a witch hunt, the thing is that that was exactly what was happening in the USA, since everybody made accusations and people were suffering lots of consequences for those accusations, needless to say, even when those accusations were a lie or they were not backed up with evidence.

the central idea is basically saying that juveniles that have committed a crime will not have the same consequences as the   adults that have. they will have a softer punishment than what the adults have that is harsh in some ways.