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Evolution of Punishment: From Blood Feuds to Capital Punishment

This article explores the history of criminal punishment, from ancient blood feuds and corporal punishment to the development of prisons and the modern-day debate over capital punishment.

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Evolution of Punishment: From Blood Feuds to Capital Punishment

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  1. Department of Criminal Justice California State University - Bakersfield CRJU 100 Introduction to Criminal Justice Dr. Abu-Lughod, Reem Ali The History of Control

  2. Before there were prisons: • No CJS to punish and deal with violators • Family, tribes enforcing laws • Blood feuds Corporal Punishment: • Revenge • Physical harm on body relatively equal to crime committed • 1) Torture: disembowelment or impaling but now solitary confinement

  3. Michael Foucault: Discipline and Punish: The Birth of the Prison • Torture as justice 2) Flogging (whipping) • Leather thongs 3) Branding: • Assuring community offender has been punished • Repeat offenders branded on their forehead • Women wore identification on clothing 4) Mutilation • Eye for eye 5) Humiliation: • Verbal or physical

  4. 6) Shock Death: • Hanging • Psychological torture ECONOMIC PUNISHMENT: • The Galley: Ships powered by prisoners and slaves • Workhouses: bad living conditions and treatment. 1779 Penitentiary Act passed, reform legislation to address living conditions. Did not work but gave feds authority to oversee prison system • Exile and transportation: exchange of labor for money

  5. Prisons in America: • replaced workhouses • A) Control in Colonies: all housed together. • The Quakers movement in Pennsylvania: incarceration and hard labor preferable to corporal punishment • Walnut Street Jail: no women housed with men • Used as military prison ion Revolutionary War. Was converted into nation’s 1st penitentiary housing serious offenders. Set tone for formal prisons • Castle Island: another modern pen

  6. Development of the Pen: • Two systems: 1) Pennsylvania and Auburn • Penn: known as Cherry Hill • Separate and silent • Solitary confinement • Then overcrowding • Auburn in NY • Congregate and silent: eat and work together but locked in isolation and no face-to-face contact

  7. AGE OF REFORM: • 1860-1900 • Charles Dickens toured Penns and criticized it • Yes for reform Irish system of reform: • Punish but focus on reintegration • Developed 3 systems: • 1) Alexander Maconochie: making inmate trustworthy to soc • 2 beliefs: cruelty will create problems and must focus on reintegration • Instituted indeterminate sentences • Marks of commendation system

  8. 2) Sir Walter Crofton: • Ticket of leave, conditional release under police supervision 3) Zebulon Brockway: • Crofton and Maconochie’s models at the reformatory in Elmira, NY. • Used 3-grade program for first time offender • No supervision after release. If in solitary confinement then bread and water only for months

  9. Prison Labor and Public Works: 1900-1930 • work as beneficial • Keep them out of trouble • Rehab and offset cost of incarceration • Make goods used by state government, e.g.office furniture • Today: clean highway trash, dressed in prison attire for humiliation

  10. Age of Rehabilitation: • Very important goal of CJS esp since 1930s • Criminologists and correctional practitioners perceived criminality in a different manner • “germ theory of medicine” Rehab not fully accomplished: • Lack of resources • Consensus • Medical model: flawed

  11. Retributive Era: 1970s to present • Mov’t away from rehab • 1960s events caused change • E.g. political movement: minorities, youth and women challenged how soc treated them, and inmates challenged conditions and confinement • Courts had “hands off” policy in matters concerning prison operation • 1960s: more constitutional rights • Black Panther Party and Black Muslims wanted legitimacy of their political orgs • Change from rehab to retribution

  12. Determinate sentences • Voluntary treatment • Abolition of parole: no early release although not fully accomplished: critics “soft on crime” CAPITAL PUNISHMENT : • Method of social control • Controversial • Courts limited execution on mentally ill for deterrence and understanding

  13. Supporters to death penalty: • Deterrent: specific and general deterrence • Just deserts model: for soc justice • Retribution model: eye for an eye Against death penalty: • Old testament of Bible “thou shall not kill” • Deterrence • Barbaric • Racial biases • Social class • Innocence

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