Professional Documents
Culture Documents
CA 1 Midterm Finish
CA 1 Midterm Finish
CORRECTION
GRAY, MAY
ANGELA L.
0
NICOSAT
CCJE Department
MODULE II
PUNISHMENT
Learning Activities
The earliest form of punishment was death, torture, maiming and banishment.
The jail was introduced in Medieval Europe as a place of confinement of persons
arrested and undergoing trial, and for those convicted of minor offenses such as
drunkenness, gambling and prostitution. Death, corporal punishment and
banishment were still the penalties for offenses which today are punishable by
imprisonment. Later, convicted offenders were chained to galleys to man the ships of
war. England, France and Spain used the transportation system of punishment by
indenturing their convicts to penal colonies where they served as slaves until they
completed their service of sentences.
Transportation of offenders to penal colonies was practiced principally by
Europe countries that had acquired distant colonies because of the need to import
labor into these colonies. England, more than any other imperialistic country in
Europe, made extensive use of transportation England first began transporting
prisoners in 1718, by sending her convicts to American Colonies until the American
revolution. When the colonies obtained their independence, England diverted her
convicts to Australia and New Zealand. England abandoned transportation of
prisoners in the last half of the 19th century, after much agitations and protests on
the part of the colonies.
Definitions of Punishment
Punishment is a means of social control. It is a device to cause people to
become cohesive and to induce conformity.
Punishment is the infliction of some sort of pain on the offender for violating
the law.
Early Codes
1. Babylonian and Sumerian Codes
Lex Talionis (eye for an eye) based on Sumerian Code (1860 B.C.)
Code of King Hammurabi (1750 B.C.) 500 years before of Covenant. Enacted
by King Hammurabi, the sixth Babylonian King. The partial copies exist on a
human-sized stone and various clay tablets. The Code consists of 282 laws,
with scaled punishments, adjusting "an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth" of
lex talionis as graded depending on social status, of slave versus free man
Book of Covenant (1250 B.C.)
2. Crime and Sin — "Get right with God", directive that the offender must make
peace with God through repentance and atonement. The early codes even the Ten
bodies found faster and less painful approaches to the death penalty, including
hanging and beheading with the guillotine While these were still violent and bloody
practices that were often large public spectacle* the end result was usually
instantaneous and therefore seen as more compassionate.
In the United States, capital punishment has existed since the founding of the
original colonies, and was utilized for a large number of crimes including burglary,
murder, treason, counterfeiting, and arson. Outside of the law, lynch mobs often
formed to bring the accused to justice. Law makers in the U.S. began to review and
revise policies behind the death penalty around the time of the American Revolution.
In 1791, the American Constitution was amended for the eighth time, to prohibit any
form of punishment considered "cruel and unusual." Although this was not an
attempt to ban capital punishment, it did begin a movement towards carrying out
more humane executions. By the late 1800s, employees of Thomas Edison
introduced the electric chair to accomplish this goal. Later, in the 1970s, lethal
injections entered the foray as another option.
Over time, the death penalty has become even more controversial throughout
the world. Opponents to the practice declare it to be inhumane and unfair, and
believe that no life should be taken, regardless of the crime that has been
committed. DNA testing has proven the innocence of several individuals on death
row, and the argument that no one should be executed to avoid killing an innocent
individual has grown in response. Several states in the U.S. no longer support the
death penalty, and many countries have abolished the practice completely.
Death by Sawing
This form of execution is most closely associated with the reign of the Roman
Emperor Caligula. The criminal was attached to an arch of wood and then sawn
vertically from the groin down through the skull.
The Garotte
Pictured is a 1901 execution of a prisoner at Bilibid Prison in Manila Garotting
was outlawed in the Philippines in 1902.
Garotte was used in Spain for hundreds of years, the garotte is an efficient
means of execution by asphyxiation. In an earlier version, the victim was tied to a
stake and a loop of rope was placed around his/her neck. A rod in the loop was
turned until the rope tightened, choking the victim. In later versions, the stake was
replaced with a chair in which the victim was bound, and the rope was replaced with
a metal collar. Until 1940, Spain implemented a version of the garotte which included
a spike which was driven into the spinal cord as the collar tightened.
Guillotine
Conceived in the late 1700's this was one of the first methods of execution
created under the assumption that capital punishment was intended to end life rather
than inflict pain. Although it was specifically invented as a human form of execution it
has been outlawed in France and the last one was in 1977.
Premature Burial
Somewhat self-explanatory, this technique has been used by governments
throughout history to execute condemned prisoners. One of the latest documented
cases was during the Nanking Massacre in 1937 when Japanese troops buried
Chinese civilians alive.
Electric Chair
Execution by electrocution, usually performed using an electric chair, is an
execution method originating in the United States in which the condemned person is
strapped to a specially built wooden chair and electrocuted through electrodes
placed on the head and leg. This execution method, conceived in 1881 by a Buffalo,
New York dentist named Alfred Southwick, was developed throughout the 1880s as
a humane alternative to hanging and first used in 1890. This execution method has
been used in the United States and, for a period of several decades, in the
Philippines (its first use there in 1924, last in 1976).
Historically, once the condemned person was attached to the chair, various
cycles (differing in voltage and duration) of alternating current would be passed
through the individual's body, in order to cause fatal damage to the internal organs
(including the brain). The first more powerful jolt of electric current was designed to
pass through the head and cause immediate unconsciousness and brain death. The
second less powerful jolt was designed to cause fatal damage to the vital organs.
Death may also be caused by electrical overstimulation of the heart.
Firing Squad
Execution by firing squad, sometimes called fusillading (frorn the French fusil,
rifle), is a method of capital punishment, particularly common in the military and in
times of war. Execution by shooting is a fairly old practice. Some reasons for its use
are that firearms are usually readily available and a gunshot to a vital organ usually
kills relatively quickly. Before the introduction of firearms, bows or crossbows were
often used — Saint Sebastian is usually depicted as executed by a squad of Roman
auxiliary archers in around 288 ÄD; King Edmund the Martyr of East Anglia, by some
accounts, was tied to a tree and executed by Viking archers on 20 November 869 or
870 AD.
A firing squad is normally composed of several military personnel or law
enforcement officers. Usually, all members of the group are instructed to fire
simultaneously, thus preventing both disruption of the process by a single member
and identification of the member who fired the lethal shot. To avoid the disfigurement
of multiple shots to the head, the shooters are typically instructed to aim at the heart,
sometimes aided by a paper target. The prisoner is typically blindfolded or hooded,
as well as restrained, although in some cases prisoners have asked to be allowed to
face the firing squad without their eyes covered. Executions can be carried out with
the condemned either standing or sitting. There is a tradition in some jurisdictions
that such executions are carried out at first light, or at sunrise, which is usually up to
half an hour later. This gave rise to the phrase "shot at dawn."
Execution by firing squad is distinct from other forms of execution by firearm,
such as an execution by a single firearm to the back of the head or neck. However,
the single shot by the squad’s officer with a pistol is sometimes incorporated in a
firing squad execution, particularly if the initial volley turns out not to be immediate
fatal.
Note:
Death penalty per se does not violate the constitutional rights against cruel,
degrading and unusual punishment. Punishment so if it involves torture or a
lingering death but the punishment of death is not cruel within the meaning of in the
word as used in the 1987 Constitution. It implies there something inhuman and
barbarous, something more the mere extinguishment of life. (People v. Mercado, GR
No. 116239, November 29, 2000)
Flogging
Otherwise known as whipping, flogging became a common punishment in
almost all Western civilizations. The method was used particularly to preserve
discipline in domestic, military, and academic settings. Administration was commonly
done by a short lash at the end of a solid handle about three feet long, or by a whip
made of nine knotted wires, lines, or cords fastened to a handle (cat-o’-nine-tails),
sometimes with barbed-wire spikes worked into the knots.
movements and sounds, muted by the bull's mass, made the apparatus appear alive,
the sounds inside like those of a real bull. This effect created additional amusement
for the audience, and served the added benefit of distancing them from the brutality
of torture, since they couldn't directly see the victim. Legend has it that this device
was invented by a Greek named Perilaus (Perilaus in some sources) for a tyrant
named Phalaris of Agrigentum. Expecting a handsome reward for his creativity,
Perillus instead became the first person placed inside the Brazen Bull. By some
reports, Phalaris himself became an eventual victim of the bull when his subjects
grew tired of his mistreatment.
Wheel
Wheels were adapted to many torturous uses. They could be part of a
stretching rack, but medieval torturers were far too creative to leave it at that. Early
torturers were fond of tying someone to a large wooden wheel, then pushing it down
a rocky hillside. A more elaborate method involved a wheel mounted to an A-frame
that allowed it to swing freely. The victim would be tied to the wheel, and then swung
across some undesirable thing below - fire was always a good choice, but dragging
the victim's flesh across metal spikes also worked well. The wheel itself could also
have spikes mounted on it, so the pain came from all directions. Instead of swinging,
the wheel might turn on an axle. The difference was likely immaterial to the victims.
One of the most horrible wheel tortures was akin to crucifixion. The victim
would have the bones in all four limbs broken in two places by strikes from an iron
bar. Then, the shattered limbs were threaded through the spokes of a large wheel.
Finally, the wheel would be attached to the top of a tall wooden pole and left out in
the sun for days. The victim might be alive for hours, enduring the agony of his or her
mangled arms and legs and the relentless sun, not to mention the attentions of
crows.
BANISHMENT OR TRANSPORTATION
This is the sending or putting away of an offender which was carried out either
by a prohibition against coming into a specified territory, or a prohibition against
going outside a specified territory, such as island to where the offender has been
removed.
motivations behind this punishment were a belief in its deterrent effect, and a desire
to simply remove hardened criminals from society.
Although many convicts were transported in the seventeenth century, it was
done at their own expense or at the expense of merchants or ship-owners. In the
early eighteenth century transportation came to be seen as a way of creating an
effective alternative to death penalty that avoided the apparent leniency of the other
main options: benefit of clergy and whipping. In 1718 the first Transportation Act
allowed the courts to sentence felons guilty of offences subject to benefit of clergy to
seven years transportation to America. In 1720 a further statute authorized payments
by the state to the merchants who contracted to take the convicts to America.
The first Transportation Act also allowed those guilty of capital offences and
pardoned by the King to be sentenced to transportation, and established returning
from transportation as a capital offence.
In 1776 transportation was halted by the outbreak of war with America.
Although convicts continued to be sentenced to transportation, male convicts were
confined to hard labor in hulks on the Thames, while women were imprisoned.
Transportation resumed in 1787 with a new destination: Australia. This was seen as
a more serious punishment than imprisonment, since it involved exile to a distant
land.
In the early nineteenth century, as part of the revisions of the criminal law,
transportation for life was substituted as the maximum punishment for several
offences which had previously been punishable by death.
Opposition to transportation mounted in the 1830s, however, with complaints
that it to deter crime, did not lead to the reformation of the convicts, and that
conditions in the convict colonies were inhumane. The number of convicts sentenced
to transportation began to decline in the 1840s. Transportation was theoretically
abolished by the penal Servitude Act of 1857, which substituted penal servitude for
all transportation sentences
Justification of Punishment
1. Retribution - personal vengeance
2. Expiation or Atonement - group vengeance
3. Deterrence or Exemplarity - imposing penalty to deter criminality
4. Protection/Social Defense - shown by its inflexible severity to recidivist and
habitual delinquents
5. Reformation - as shown by the rules which regulate the execution of the
penalties consisting in deprivation of liberty
Effects of Punishments
It is recognized that some form of punishment can be effective when applied
in the right amounts and at the right time. But when the ideology of punishment is
applied in a correctional institution, result is usually negative for both the punished
and the punisher. Correctional personnel tend to watch for minor rule infringements
or non-conformism so that punishment can be administered, and they overlook the
any positive actions by offender. Often the rules that are prepared for a punishment-
oriented environment surround offender with a wall of "do not," leaving almost no
leeway to do anything. As evidence by a high crime rate, it seems that punishment is
ineffective to stop criminal activities and in the process, punishment is enforced more
severely as a means to control criminal behavior. Which in turn makes the offender
become more sophisticated in perpetrating his criminal activities with the belief that
makes him or her less likely to be detected.
With the continued application of coercive methods; the offender became
hardened by the punishment, and the administrators learn to dole it out automatically
as their only means of control both parties are degraded in the process.
However, there are other factors that contribute to make punishment a least
effective means of reducing crime:
1. Over severity of punishment may arose public sympathy for the offender.
2. Those persons most likely to be imprisoned are already accustomed to
experience deprivation and frustration of goals routinely in daily life.
3. It is impossible to fashion a practical legal "Slide Rule" which will determine
exact degrees of retribution appropriate for the list of crimes ranging from
simple theft to murder.
4. The simple application of naked coercion does not guarantee that the subject
of its force will alter their behavior to conform to new legal norms or to
improve their conformity with norms previously violated.
5. The possibility of deterrence varies with the chances of keeping the particular
type of crime secret and consequently of avoiding social reprobation.
1. An imbecile or an insane person, unless the insane person has acted during
lucid interval
2. A minor under 15 years of age
3. A minor over 15 years of age but under 18 unless he acted with discernment
4. Any person who, while performing a lawful act with due care, causes an injury
by mere accident without fault or intention of causing it
5. Any person who acts under the compulsion of an irresistible force
6. Any person who acts under the impulse of uncontrollable fear of an equal or
greater injury
7. Any person who fails to perform an act required by law, when prevented by
some lawful or insuperable cause.
There are also persons exempt from the operation of our criminal laws by virtue
of the principles of public international law. These persons are Sovereigns and other
Heads of States, Ambassadors, Ministers plenipotentiary, Ministers resident and
Charges d' Affaires.
B. CLASSICAL SCHOOL
adherents of this school maintained that a crime, as any other act, is a natural
phenomenon.
CESARE LOMBROSO
According to Lombroso there are classes of criminals: 1). Born Criminals
(atavism); 2). Insane Criminals (idiot, imbecile, dementia, paralysis, etc.); and 3).
Criminaloids (not born with physical stigma but who are of such mental make-up that
they display anti-social conduct. Psychological defect, not physical).
ENRICO FERRI
Published in 1878 "The Theory of Imputability and Denial of Freewill", and
Criminal Sociology in 1884. Ferri contributed to emphasis upon the social factors: 1).
Physical factors, including geographical climate and temperature; 2).
Anthropological, including psychological; and 3). Social, including economic and
political factors as well as gender, education and religion.
RAFFAELE GAROFALO
According to him, crime can be understood only as it is studied by scientific
methods. The criminal is not a free moral agent, but is the product of circumstances.
He traced roots of criminal behavior to psychological equivalents to stigmata called
"moral anomalies Likewise, natural crimes found in all society, regardless of the
views of lawmakers, and no civilized society can affords to disregard them.
These are among the beliefs of Garofalo regarding natural crime and peculiarities of
offender:
1. Peculiarities: Particular characteristics that place offenders at risk for criminal
behavior
2. Extreme criminals: Execution for punishment
3. Impulsive criminals: Imprisonment for punishment
4. Professional criminals: Punishment is "elimination," either by life imprisonment
transportation to a penal colony overseas
5. Endemic criminals: Controlled through changes in the law
E. MODERN CLINICAL SCHOOL- it studies the criminal rather than the crime. This
school is interested primarily in the personality of the criminal himself in order to
determine the conditioning circumstances that explain his criminality and in order to
obtain light upon problem of how he should be handled.