TYPES OF PUNISHMENT IN

ANCIENT TIMES

Aarti A. Tayde
 Pillory
 The pillory was used for a range of moral and political crimes, most notably for
dishonest trading - the modern equivalent of implementing trading standards. Its
use dates back to Anglo-Saxon times where it was known as “Healsfang” or
“catch-neck”.
 In France it was called the pillorie. It was well established as a use of
punishment after the Conquest. It was considered to be a degrading punishment
with offenders standing in the pillory for several hours to be abused by fellow
citizens, sometimes being pelted with all manner of organic material such as
rotten eggs, mud and filth. If that was not enough, sometimes the offender was
drawn to the pillory on a hurdle, accompanied by minstrels and a paper sign
hung around his or her head displaying the offence committed.
 For political offences, such as libel and sedition, further punishment could be
inflicted as one’s ears could be nailed to the pillory instead of being locked in
by the neck and arms. Afterward the ear was cut off leaving it on the pillory.
The most notable case is probably William Prynne (1600-1669), who was
born at Upper Swainswick near Bath and was a critic of Charles I and the
Anglican Church prior to the English Civil War. He was sentenced to stand in
the pillory for seditious libel, had is left ear cut off and branded “SL” on the
cheek.
 Most pillories stood in market squares or another prominent area of towns,
sometimes raised on platforms. A map of Salisbury inset into the John
Speed’s county map of 1610 clearly depicts this in the Market Square . The
earliest reference for the Marlborough pillory found to date is for a new
pillory made in 1572, which was remade again in 1581. It was last used,
according to Jewitt, in 1807.
 The interesting fact about our illustration is that the pillory stood on a
platform about 15 feet high and the pillory post could be rotated, which
must have made it quite difficult to aim your rotten eggs.
 At the Quarter Sessions of October 1626 in Marlborough, “Thomas
Edmonds was indicted for making and publishing Libel which he
confessed to be true, and thereupon convicted to goal there to remain until
next Saturday, and then to stand under the pillorie situate
in Marlborough for the space of two hours together in the Market timing .
And then also to have a broad white paper upon his forehead subscribed
with these words in great letters “for a libel and then he is to return to
prison until the next order
Pillory as punishment
Jougs
 The jougs was an iron collar fastened by a short chain
to a wall, often of the parish church, or to a tree
or mercat cross. The collar was placed round the
offender's neck and fastened by a padlock.
 Time spent in the jougs was intended to shame an
offender publicly.
 Jougs were used for ecclesiastical (going against the
clergy men or church)as well as civil offences. Some
surviving examples can still be seen in their original
locations in Scottish towns and villages. Jougs may be
the origin of the later slang word "jug",
meaning prison.
Branding
 in criminal law, branding with a hot iron was a mode of punishment consisting
of marking the subject as if goods or animals, sometimes concurrently with
their reduction of status in life.
 Brand marks have also been used as a punishment for convicted criminals,
combining physical punishment, as burns are very painful, with public
humiliation (greatest if marked on a normally visible part of the body) which is
here the more important intention, and with the imposition of an
indelible criminal record.
 Robbers, like runaway slaves, were marked by the Romans with the
letter F (fur); and the toilers in the mines, and convicts condemned to figure in
gladiatorial shows, were branded on the forehead for identification.
Under Constantine I the face was not permitted to be so disfigured, the
branding being on the hand, arm or calf.
 The Acts of Sharbel record it applied, amongst other tortures, to a Christian
between the eyes and on the cheeks in Parthian Edessa at the time of the
Roman Emperor Trajan on a judge's order for refusal to sacrifice.
 In the 16th century, German Anabaptists were branded with a cross on their
foreheads for refusing to recant their faith and join the Roman Catholic church.
 Branding
 In the North American colonial settlements of the 17th and early 18th
centuries, branding was a common punishment for those found
guilty of crimes. The type of brand differed from crime to crime. Men
and women sentenced for adultery were branded with an A letter on
their chest
 D for drunkenness and B for blasphemy or burglary, T on the hand
for thief, SL on the cheek for seditious libel, R on the shoulder
for rogue or vagabond, and F on the cheek for forgery. Those
convicted of burglary on the Lord's Day were branded upon their
forehead.
 During the early stages of the American Revolution, some Loyalists
were branded on the face with the letters G.R (for George Rex,
i.e. King George) by Patriots as punishment for perceived servility to
the Crown.
 The mark in later times was also often chosen as a code for the crime
(e.g. D for desertion and BC for bad character in Canada. Most
branded men were shipped off to a penal colony)Branding was also
used by the Confederate Army during the American Civil War.
 Burning
 Death by burning (also known as immolation) is
an execution and murder method involving combustion or exposure to
extreme heat. It has a long history as a form of public capital punishment,
and many societies have employed it as a punishment for and warning
against crimes such as treason, heresy,homo sexuality and witchcraft.
 According to ancient reports, Roman authorities executed many of the
early Christian martyrs by burning. An example of this is the earliest
chronicle of a martyrdom, that of Polycarp. Sometimes this was by means
of the tunica molesta, a flammable tunic
 The 18th-century BC law code promulgated by Babylonian
King Hammurabi specifies several crimes in which death by burning was
thought appropriate. Looters of houses on fire could be cast into the
flames, and priestesses who abandoned cloisters and began frequenting
inns and taverns could also be punished by being burnt alive.
Furthermore, a man who began committing incest with his mother after
the death of his father could be ordered to be burned alive.
 Decapitation
 Decapitation or beheading is the total separation of the head from
the body. Such an injury is invariably fatal to humans and most
other animals, since it deprives the brain of oxygenated blood,
while all other organs are deprived of the involuntary
functions that are needed for the body to function.
 The term beheading refers to the act of deliberately decapitating a
person, either as a means of murder or as an execution; it may be
performed with an axe, sword, knife, machete or by mechanical
means such as a guillotine or chainsaw. An executioner who
carries out executions by beheading is sometimes called
a headsman.
 decapitation can also refer to the removal of the head from
a body that is already dead. This might be done to take the head as
a trophy, for public display, to make the deceased more difficult to
identify, for cryonics, or for other, more esoteric reasons
 The terms "capital offence", "capital crime", "capital punishment",
derive from the Latin caput, "head", referring to the punishment for
serious offences involving the forfeiture of the head; i.e. death by
machete
guillotine
 Execution by drowning

 In a variety of cultures, taboos against shedding the blood

of royals are attested, and in many cultures, when the
execution of a king or members of the royal family was
thought necessary, they were drowned to avoid the spilling
of blood. In Cambodia, for example, drowning was the
type of execution reserved for members of the royal family.
 When a person of royal extraction is to receive a capital
punishment, it is generally done by drowning; in the first
place the person is tied hands and feet, then sewed up in a
red bag, which again is sometimes put into a jar, and thus
the prisoner is lowered down into the water, with a weight
sufficient to sink him. This practice is resorted to because it
is reckoned a sin to spill royal blood
 flogging
 flogging, also called whipping or caning, a beating
administered with a whip or rod, with blows commonly
directed to the person’s back. It was imposed as a form of
judicial punishment and as a means of maintaining discipline in
schools, prisons, military forces, and private homes.
 Torture, the infliction of severe physical or mental pain or
suffering for a purpose, such as extracting information, coercing
a confession, or inflicting punishment.
 It is normally committed by a public official or other person
exercising comparable power and authority. Although the
effectiveness of torture has been defended by many throughout
history, notably Aristotle and Sir Francis Bacon, it was attacked
as early as Roman times for encouraging its victims to lie.
 Banishment
 In the old days, banishment was a common punishment for serious crimes — exiling
someone from their town or village was shameful, leaving them estranged from their
family and community. One particularly well-known banishment occurs in the Bible,
when Adam and Eve are banished from the Garden of Eden

 Banishment means ‘to expel a person’. It is also known as ‘transportation’. In this

form of punishment, undesirable criminals were transported to far off places
with an aim to isolate them from the society. This type of punishment was also in
practice during the British rule in India. It was popularly known as ‘kalapani’.
At that time, people deemed as ‘dangerous criminals’ were transported to remote
islands. This practice was abolished in 1955 and was replaced with
“Imprisonment for life”.
 Social Boycott : Social Boycott means ‘an act of forcing a person to abstain from
any kind of contact with other people of the society’. In ancient times, the nyaya
panchayat in villages used to give the punishment of social boycott to offenders.
Under this punishment, no person of the village was allowed to share any
occasion of joy and happiness with the offender. In other words the offender was
degraded from his caste and no caste member was allowed to come into contact
with him. For example in those times smoking ‘Hukkah’ was considered as one of
the means for social gatherings and acceptance by the society. But offenders were
not allowed to participate in smoking ‘Hukkah’ with the rest of the people,
thereby boycotting them. This was termed as stopping a person’s ‘Hukkah-Pani.’
 Immurement

 Immurement: In it the offender was

constructed into a wall. It was the most cruel,
barbaric and the most painful form of
execution of a death penalty.
 Execution by elephant: Under this
punishment, the offender was thrown under
the feet of an intoxicated elephant, to be
painfully crushed to death.
 Execution by elephant
 During the Mughal era, "it was a common mode of
execution in those days to have the offender
trampled underfoot by an elephant." Captain
Alexander Hamilton, writing in 1727, described
how the Mughal ruler Shah Jahan ordered an
offending military commander to be carried "to the
Elephant Garden, and there to be executed
 Mutilation/ Maiming
 Mutilation : a customary form of physical punishment,
especially applied on the principle of an eye for an eye
 Generally it means ‘to cause severe damage to the body
of a person’. In other words it means damaging a person
severely, especially by removing a part of the body.
 This mode of punishment was in practice in ancient
India. During that period one or both of the hands of the
person were chopped off if the offender committed
theft, if he indulged in sex offences, his private parts
were cut off, if he told a lie or criticized God his tongue
was cut off, and if he was deceitful or untrustworthy his
ears were cut off. This system was also in practice in the
European countries. But in modern times this method
has been completely disregarded because of its barbaric
nature.
 Financial Punishment
 It is also known as imposition of fine. It was the
common mode of punishment which was not
serious in nature and it was awarded specially
for the breach of traffic rules, revenue laws and
other minor offences. It also included the
payment of compensation to the victims of the
crime and also the payment of the costs of
prosecution.
forfeiture of property as punishment
 Where a person has been convicted of any offence punishable under
Chapter IV or Chapter VI, the court may, in addition to awarding any
punishment, by order in writing, declare that any property, movable or
immovable or both, belonging to the accused and specified in the
order, shall stand forfeited to the Central Government free from all
encumbrances.(sec 105H)
 Forfeiture refers to a loss of any property, money, or assets without
consideration or compensation in return. A forfeiture generally occurs
due to default in complying with repayment obligations under a
contract. It can also be used as a penalty for an illegal way of
conducting business.
 It is a legal method or process to transfer the ownership of property
forcibly from one person to the government. This is done because to
prevent the crime or wrong which is been done in the property or such
property which is used for some criminal or wrong purpose.
 Difference between forfeiture and confiscations
 What is the difference between expropriation (acquisition) and eminent
domain?
Difference between forfeiture and confiscations

 Forfeiture can only relate to the property

owned by the person concerned, in cases of
civil wrong e.g.. Non payment of debt,
 but property may be confiscated from the
possession of anyone, whether he is the
owned thereof or not. E.g. smuggled goods,
mobile during exams, offensive items.
 forfeited Security bonds
 Bail bond is a written undertaking given by an accused person along
with his surety to the effect that in case he fails to turn up for trial before
the Court, the amount mentioned in the bond may be forfeited to the
State. The object of obtaining bail bond is to secure
attendance/appearance of the accused in court when he is called upon,
and in case of failure to appear, some coercive measures be taken against
him including the forfeiture of bond and attachment and sale of his
movable property.
 Procedure for forfeiting a bail bond and sale of property is given in
Sections 513, 514 of the Code of Criminal Procedure
 it may also be required under Section 106 of the Cr.P.C, as security for
keeping the peace on conviction; Section 107, as security for keeping the
peace in other cases; Section 108, as security for good behaviour from
person disseminating seditious matter; Section 109, as security for good
behaviour from vagrants and suspected persons; 110, as security for
good behaviour from habitual offenders and Section 118, as security, for
keeping peace or maintaining good behaviour. When bail bond is no
more required by the court, it may be cancelled or discharged under
Sections 125 and 126 of the Cr.P.C.
 Capital Punishment
 crucifixion
 drowning,
 beating to death, Lynchings
 burning alive (burning at the stake)(also known as immolation),
necklacing (Necklacing is a method of extrajudicial summary execution and
torture carried out by forcing a rubber tire drenched with petrol around a
victim's chest and arms, and setting it on fire.)
 impalement.(the act of pushing a sharp object through the body of an
animal or person)
 Boiling
 hanging,
 beheading,
 drawing and
 quartering.
 Executions were carried out for such capital offenses as marrying a Jew,
not confessing to a crime, and treason.
 In American colonies the death penalty were even for minor offenses
impalement
Burning