Prisons and prison laws in Old Testament times?

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The ancient Romans had prisons, such as Mamertime Prison, but imprisonment was just a temporary measure before trial or execution, not a punishment in itself.

The English Houses of Correction introduced a more modern system of mass incarceration, with hard labor.

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A prison is expensive: you have to build the installation with all the necessary security precautions (fixed costs), and then feed and cloth the inmates and guards (variable costs). This is completely unaffordable for a subsistence society (IOW, before feudal castles provides dungeons).

The Biblical law provides for 3 kinds of penalties: death, flogging (at most 39 strikes), and fine ("[the cost of] an eye [as the compensation] for [the loss of] an eye"). When the convict is unable to pay the fine, the law provides for "slavery" (which should be more accurately translated as indentured servitude - because it ends after 7 years or at Jubilee, whichever comes first) as a way to recoup the fine (imposed as the punishment for economic - non-violent - crimes, such as theft or damages). Such a "slave" would work, earning his keep and paying off the court-imposed fine.

So, one could consider "slavery" as the precursor to "labor prison camps".

Upvote:5

Prisons, as we understand them today serve the purpose of depriving an individual of their liberty; that idea of liberty did not exist at the time that you refer to. The liberty of an individual to live their life as they see fit within the restraints of the law is a modern concept, therefor the idea of punishing a person by depriving them of something of which they were not in possession of did not arise.

In addition it would be hard to conceive as punishment a regime whereby offenders were taken to a place, fed, clothed and housed all at the states expense when such largesse on the part of the state was not offered to those in society who had committed no crime.

Where such institutions as we might describe as prisons existed, to be incarcerated in such a place was not, in itself, the punishment. People in such places would be held there in order that they could fulfil their role as slaves or forced labourers or until such time as some other appropriate punishment could be carried out. Ancient law as based up the notion of ‘an eye for an eye’, that is retribution, where that retribution should seek to redress the loss felt by the victim of the crime. An eye for an eye can just as well be understood as, ‘a sheep for a sheep’ if a sheep has been stolen or ‘a son for a son’ if a person has been found guilty of murder. The act of cutting of a limb in the cases of theft is as much to do with preventing any future theft on the part of the guilty as it is with any sense of punishment. Such practises were the expedient and pragmatic approach to justice by a society that did not conceive of and therefor value liberty such that any loss of it could be considered punishment.

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