Institutional Correction

Dr. Dario Z. Magpantay

Lesson 3 (Third Week)

I. Early Codes in correction

Many ancient cultures permitted the victim or a member of the victim's family to
deliver justice. The suspect often fled to his or her family for protection. As a result,
blood feuds established in which the victim's family sought revenge against the
offender's family. Sometimes the offender's family responded by fighting back. Revenge
could continue up to the time that families tired of killing or stealing from each other or
until one or both families were totally affected. As societies organized into tribes and
villages, local communities increasingly began to assume the responsibility for
punishing crimes against those violators. Punishments could be brutal until such time
that different codes were formulated to the crimes and their respective punishments.
The following are some examples of codes:

1. Code of Hammurabi was introduced by King Hammurabi in Babylonia in 1750 B.C.,

This is the first formal law dealing with the imposition of punishment, The “Code of
Hammurabi” is also known as “LEX Taliones”. Meaning “An Eye for an Eye, A Tooth for
a Tooth”.

2. Deuteronomy is the fifth book of the Holy Bible which contains the basis of the Jewish
Laws. These laws were in the form of a Covenant between God and the people of Israel
(i.e. The Ten Commandments)

3. Code of Draco was the Athenian lawgiver known for the severity of his punishment
and the first known Athenian law. His punishment was described as extremely harsh,
and was 'written in blood.

4. Code of Solon was one who first proposed that a lawmaker had to make laws that
applied equally to all citizens. He also saw that the law of punishment had to maintain
proportionally to the crimes of which the offenders were convicted. He also repealed all
the laws of Draco excepts the law on homicide
.
5. Justinian Code - In Ancient Greece around 400 B.C., a philosopher from the city-state
of Athens by the name of Aristotle made the first attempt to explain crime in the book he
has written with the title “Nicomedean Ethics,” in this book, he wrote something about
corrective justice stating, “Punishment is a means of restoring the balance between
pleasure and pain”.

6. Burgundian Code introduced the concept of restitution and punishments were meted
according to the social class of the offenders.
II. THE EARLY FORMS OF PUNISHMENT

Punishment is defined as the imposition of consequences on an individual for

unacceptable behavior or act, with an aim to teach them a lesson. Law maker punish
law violator hoping they would not repeat the act for which they got punished in the first
place. During the primitive Era some forms of punishment were introduced as part of
deterrents not to commit further crime. Here are some forms of punishment during early
period.

1. By stoning – it is a form of execution where the condemned person is pelted with

stones until his death.

2. Burning at stake - an execution in a public wherein the condemned person is tied in a

pole and then set on fire alive.

3. Feeding to the lions or beast – an execution that the condemned person will throw in
a lion’s den and eaten alive by the lions.

4. Garrote - the condemned person is seated on an improvised chair with both hands
and feet tied and the neck clamped by the iron collar. This attached in a scaffold and
slowly tightened until the condemned person dies.

5. Guillotine - is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by

beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame with a weighted and angled
blade suspended at the top. This was developed by Dr. Joseph Ignacio Guillotin, a
member of the French National Assembly.

6. Musketry or Firing Squad – an execution wherein the condemned person is blind -

folded with hands tied at the back and shot in public by a firing squad composed of
several shooters.

7. Flaying - it is an execution wherein the condemned person removed the skin to his
body in public.

8. Pillory - the condemned person is place in a device made of a wooden or metal

framework erected on a post, with holes for securing the head and hands, formerly used
for punishment by public humiliation and often further physical abuse and sometimes
lethal.

9. Banishment – a punishment to an offender is expelled from the society and forced to

live in the wilderness as punishment for a wrong doing.

References:
1. Pappas, Nick (1972) The Jail: It’s Operation and Management, Washing D.C.:
U.S. Bureau of Prison.
2. Online: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_United_States_prison_systems