History of Punishment

1
History of Punishment

• 2000 BC to 1700 AD

2
Long-Term Imprisonment

• Only two hundred years old

3
Seeking Vengeance

• Earliest remedy for wrongs
• Personal retaliation was expected, accepted and
  encouraged

4
A person of honor

• Didnt infringe on the rights and privileges of
  others
• But you didnt put up with anyone infringing on
  your rights

5
Early Response to Crime Was A Private Affair

• Vengeance as a duty

6
Legal Historians say

• Right of personal revenge was also in many cases
  a duty.
• A man was bound by all the force of religion to
  avenge the death of his kinsmen.

7
The Avenger of Blood

• As he is called in the Scripture account, is the
  nearest male relative
• Wrongs are avenged in accordance with Lex
  Taliones - the law of retaliation

8
Personal Revenge

• Colored the development of most legal systems
• Whats the survival value of a cultural artifact
  like honor and vengeance?

9
The Law of Talion - Retaliation

• Tit-for-Tat
• The punishment should be the same as the harm
  inflicted on the victim

10
Problem with Vengeance

• Escalates into blood feud - victims family or
  tribe avenging themselves on the tribe of the
  offender
• Leads to endless vendettas
• Costly and damaging

11
How Retaliation Evolves into a System of Criminal
Law

• Customs develop that rely on a Council of Elders
• It becomes customary to accept pecuniary
  satisfaction - a fine - for wrongdoing
• Not initially compulsory for victim to relinquish
  right to vengeance

12
Lex Salica

• Damages to be paid and fines levied in recompense
  for injuries to persons and damages to property
• Amount varies by rank of the injured person

13
Food Gatherers

• Earliest societies organized in small groups of
  food gatherers.
• Little or no organization.
• Agriculture changed their lives.
• Their nomadic existence ended with discovery that
  crops could be planted.

14
Early Law Codes

• Settling on the land led to increased population.
• Work became specialized - farmers, merchants,
  soldiers, priests, and so on.
• People gained property that needed to be
  protected.

15

• More complex society required laws
• Laws became more complex

16
Code of Hammurabi, King of Babylon -1752 BC

• His written law code stabilized his kingdom.
• Gave written form to custom and tradition.
• Based on lex taliones - severe punishments

17
Hittites - two centuries after Hammurabi

• Provided for restitution
• If anyone kills a man or a woman in a quarrel,
  he buries him and gives four persons (slaves),
  men or women, and he (the victims heir) lets him
  go home.

18
Hittite King to his Conquering Commander

• Into whatever city you return, summon forth all
  the people of the city. Whoever has a suit,
  decide it for him and satisfy him. If the slave
  of a man, or the maidservant of a man has a suit,
  decide it for them and satisfy them. Do not make
  the better case the worse or the worse case the
  better. Do what is just.

19
Greeks - Code of Draco

• Early Greeks relied on custom and gave victims
  family great power.
• Emperor Draco later codified these customs in 7th
  century B.C.

20
Draconion Measures

• Plutarch, the Greek philosopher, wrote
• Death was the punishment for almost every
  offense, so even men convicted of idleness were
  executed, and those who stole herbs or fruits
  suffered just like sacriligious robbers and
  murderers.

21
Draco said

• He considered lesser crimes to deserve death, and
  if he could think of a greater punishment for
  more important crimes, he would use it.

22
Code of Draco

• Same punishments for both free men and slaves.
• Trial in the public marketplace - Agora
• Homicide was seen as a pollution of the city.

23
Mosaic Code 1300 B.C.

• The Book of Deuteronomy
• Your eye shall not pity, it shall
• be life for life, eye for eye,
• tooth for tooth, hand for hand,
• foot for foot.

24
The Law of Retaliation

• Making the punishment fit the crime.
• An elusive goal

25
Early Rome

• The Twelve Tables - 451 B.C.
• Were the foundation of Roman law for 1000 years.
• The Law of Talion was applied to many criminal
  offenses.
• Roman Empire
• North Hadrian Wall - Borders of Scotland
• South Upper Nile Valley
• West Brittany in France
• East Iran

26
The Code of Justinian - 527 A.D.

• Restatement of Old Roman Law
• Comes toward end of Roman Empire
• Capital was Constantinople not Rome
• Scales of Justice in Roman art

27
Middle Ages - 476 A.D. to 1450 A.D.

• Nobles and bishops ruled feudal principalities
• Physical punishments and fines (wergeld dooms)
• Ordeals by fire, water

28
Punishments over the centuries

• Branding, mutilation, torture, flogging
• Instant death, lingering death, ordeals
• Fines
• Public Humiliation

29
England 1559 to 1875

• Henry VIII - Enclosure Movement
• ? Houses of Correction
• Bridewells and Workhouses
• Elizabeth I, 222 capital offenses ?
• Gaols

30
England continued

• Transportation ?
• 1596 - 1776 to American colonies ?
• The Indenture System Voluntary and
  Involuntary ?
• 1787 - 1875 to Australia ?

31
England

• Hulks 1775 - 1858
• Public Humiliation ?
• stocks, ducking stool, pillory, bridle, scold
  ?
• Physical Punishments ?
• branding, mutilation, whipping, capital
  punishment, drawing and quartering ?

32
Punishment in the New World

• Anglican Law ?
• William Penn and the Quakers Great Law 1682-
  1718

33
After the American Revolution

• ?

European Enlightenment The Walnut Street Jail
1790
34
Confinement as Punishment

• The vilest deeds like poison weeds
• Bloom well in prison air
• Its only what is good in man
• That wastes and withers there.
• Pale anguish keeps the heavy gate
• And the warder is Despair.
• Oscar Wilde
• The Ballad of the Reading Gaol

35
The Age of Prisons 1800 - 1960

• To the builders of this nightmare
• Though you may never get to read these words
• For the cruelty of your minds have designed this
  Hell
• If mens buildings are a reflection of what they
  are
• This one portrays the ugliness of all humanity.
• If only you had some compassion.

36
Northern Prisons -Model I

• Auburn Penitentiary
• Auburn, New York 1819 ?
• The Prison as Factory ?
• The Silent Congregate System ?
• Lockstep, Para-Military Model ?

37
Old Prison Discipline

• Hard Labor
• Deprivation
• Monotony
• Uniformity
• Isolation
• Degradation
• Corporal Punishment
• No fraternization

38
Northern Prisons - Model II

• Eastern Penitentiary 1829
• Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
• Solitary Confinement
• The Separate System