The Evolution of Punishment

Abstract

The intensity of punishment is greater the more closely societies approximate to a less developed type—and the more the central power assumes an absolute character. In the case of punishment by fire, the executioner used to begin by inflicting numerous wounds in the hands of the criminal using sharpened stakes, and only after this was the latter placed on a fire and burned alive. Punishments symbolic of the crime committed were used as less drastic penalties than the death sentence. In the City-States punishments had begun to make their appearance. The process begins with the diminution of the aggravated forms of capital punishment, which continues until the day is reached when they are completely done away with. The variations through which punishment has passed in the course of history are of two sorts, quantitative and qualitative. The qualitative changes in punishment are in part dependent on the simultaneous quantitative changes it undergoes.