Colonial Punishment In The English-American Colonies

The punishment was decided upon depending on the crime. Out of all of them, hanging was the most severe and was very common. During the 19th century, the number of criminals that were punished by hanging rose to about 200. However, hanging was not the only punishment used. Flogging, beheading, and transportation were also common. Flogging is the act of beating the human body with whips, rods, switches, etc. Beheading was the complete separation of the head and body typically by blade, sword, axe, or mechanical means. Transportation was the act of relocating inmates to different places to work and sometimes sending them to the armed forces. Due to the significant number of criminals that were being sentenced with the death penalty, people named

Having extreme, agonizing, punishments was not out of the ordinary during the 17th century. The punishments and crimes were very unsystematic, and often times very foul. There were punishments that were as minor as carting,and there were punishments as severe as the death penalty.Throughout the 17th century there were a variety of punishments for different crimes that were commited.

The colonial method of correction was adopted in the early 1620s.Since the introduction of this method, Americans lived under laws and practices adopted from different colonial masters such as England. The major penalties under these laws included, corporal punishment, banishment and death. In 1682, Americans faced hard labor in a house

Legal treatment of the slaves changed marginally from colony to colony, as indicated by the territory’s economic structure. For instance, the northern colonies had less slaves an inevitably banned slavery. In spite of the fact that slavery was abolished in 1804, they were stilled financially reliant on the institution. A considerable lot of the northerners vested in guaranteeing that slavery in the south kept on developing because they relied on the export of fish, liquor and dairy products

In his book “Punishment and Inequality in America” Western discusses the underlying racial disparities that have lead to a mass incarceration in the United States. He states that incarceration rates have increased by a substantial amount. The race and class disparities viewed in impromesment are very large and class disparities have grown by a dramatic amount. In his book he argues that an increase in mass incarceration occured due to a significant increase in crime. The increase in mass incarceration can also be correlated with urban street crime that proliferated as joblessness in inner-city communities increased (Western, 2006). He also states that an increase in incarceration rates may be due to the changes in politics and policy which have intensified criminal punishment even though criminal offending did not increase. Although these are substantial reasons as to why incarceration has increased significantly in the US there are many underlying issues. The incarceration rates amongst young black men have increased the most in the United states, black men are more likely to go to prison than white and Hispanic men (Western, 2006). This may be largely due to factors such as unemployment, family instability, and neighborhood disorder which combine to produce especially high rates of violence among young black men in the United States (Western, 2006). A rise in incarceration rates may also be largely due to to increased drug arrests which represent the racial disparity.

Some other punishments were leather strap used on to hit anywhere on the body, beating with fists, and until unconscious, burning and scalding the hands, starvation, public

The punishments for crime in the colonial times were harsh in some cases or humiliating. Some crimes like murder, treason, or piracy,(stealing from other boats) had people sentenced to death. Crimes that cost the price of humiliation were crimes such as being drunk or working or traveling on sunday.The specific way a criminal would be punished is that

Capital punishment played a pivotal role in the punishment of criminals in the early colonial period, with William Penn of Pennsylvania being the first responsible leader to utilize imprisonment as a corrective treatment for major offenders. In 1682 his “Great Law” provided the confinement of both major and minor violators of the law to be placed in houses of correction.3 There they would partake in work for moderate compensation, for a period of time proportional to their respective crimes. Soon an amendment was ratified making murder a capital offense, and remained the only capital offense until 1700 when treason could also be punished by death. Up until the death of William Penn in 1718, Pennsylvania largely relied on fines and imprisonment, shifting to a different system of criminal punishment only after the passing of Penn. Soon after conservative groups gained control, and Pennsylvania reimposed the English criminal code, which increased the number of crimes punishable by death to twelve, and allowed punishments such as whipping to be doled out. This system lasted until the post colonial age, when in 1786 the state eliminated the death penalty for robbery and burglary and subsequently only retained capital punishment for first degree murder in 1794.4 Sparking the changes was the

To begin with, at the start of his article, Jeff Jacoby mentions old punishments, horrible punishments, pursued by Puritans, but at the same time

In the Elizabethan era, doing a crime was the worst mistake of all, depending on how big your crime was, people had to know that their lives were at risk. Every crime was big before, even “crimes of treason and offenses against the state were treated with that murder and rape today.”(Elizabethan Crime and Punishment) “Offenses such as manslaughter, robbery, rape, piracy and capital crimes entitled one to hanging, usually in the town square.” (Elizabethan crime and Punishment) During Queen Elizabeth’s time, the punishments were designed to fit the crime committed. A person may complain about the consequences of crimes one commits, but looking back at the Elizabethan times, punishments are far less brutal now than how they were then.

Next, the punishments that a person could get will vary on what they committed and how bad the punishment the people thought they should get. The punishments in the Elizabethan Age are very brutal because back then, they believed that violence was acceptable and a natural habit for mankind. The Great Punishment is the worst punishment a person could get. The felon will be hung, but they will not die while being hanged. They will take the felon down, quarter their body while still alive, and bury them in the ground. Quartering someone’s body is to cut their body in quarters. Torturing a person would come next to the Great Punishment. The will put the felon on a rack, in a collar, or even burn them with a branding iron on the cheek, back, or leg. Other general punishments include being decapitated and putting their head on top of a post, they could be branded on the cheek or burned on the left hand, whipped out in public for everyone to see, they could be sent to the military, be sent to correction facilities, hung to die at the place where the felon had committed their crime, or they could even be beheaded. If the crimes were extremely severe the felon would have the reign of “Bloody Mary” put on them. Bloody Mary is a legend that appears in the mirror when her name is called multiple times and appears bloody. The Elizabethan Age was very serious about the punishments that they gave their felons.

Vigilante justice and social shaming were forms of protest used especially in colonial America. Some of the brutal methods included tar and feathering, foot whipping, and pillories. Another example is found in the book Scarlet Letter, in which a woman who is accused of adultery is forced to wear a red “A” on her clothing to signify her shameful status. In more modern times, public shaming is much more widespread and acknowledged. For example injustices can be published on the Internet so everyone around the world can see it. This could result in boycotts, hostile arguments and angry articles. For example, due to the controversy in Baltimore and Ferguson surrounding the questionable violence of police officers, many enforcers of the law

Flogging…What is it? What purpose does it serve? For those of us who have never heard of flogging, flogging refers to “beating with a whip or strap or rope as a form of punishment” (“Flogging” 1). Throughout the 1600s, flogging was utilized by “Boston’s Puritan Forefathers” (Jacoby 1) as a method of corporal punishment for various crimes. Progressing forward, Jeff Jacoby, columnist for The Boston Globe, provides readers with his view of “Boston’s Forefathers’” system of punishment in his essay, “Bring Back Flogging.” Within the contents of his work, Jacoby describes how flogging was utilized as punishment in its day. One such example he utilizes involves a woman who pleaded guilty to committing adultery. He writes that her punishment was

In the Middle Ages they had very harsh consequences for committing a big or small crime. If someone stole something back in the Middle Ages they would often be beaten to death, buried alive, have their hand cut off and women committing adultery were drowned. A common practice used back in the Middle Ages was suffocating people in the water. If a person did not turn up to court, they would be considered an outlaw. If men committed robbery, manslaughter or rape, they would be hung in a cage for people to view their death. Sometimes men were taken down just before death and being quartered so the pain would kill them. The Kings recommend taking children to see the punishments people faced back in the Middle Ages. They did this so it would encourage

n this chapter, Brown discusses the ways in which prison tours produce “dark” distanced penal spectators, whose views of punishment are shaped by the convergence of popular sentiments—thrill-seeking influenced by the mass media—and commercial interests, and the relationship between actual punishment and the cultural representations of punishment that prison tours produce. While the original prison tours were to analyze the experiment of self-governance, current prison tours are designed to correlate with popular desires and expectations. Thus, this design enhances the role of the penal spectator and actually creates a gap between reality and the idea of punishment.