Early modern England (Tudor and Stuart eras): where criminal justice had a very clear function: to restore balance and harmony to society and reaffirm boundaries such as that of rank and age. The criminal justice system was used as a last resort and was intended to be discretionary and retributive, not punitive and vengeful as it is now. It wasn’t justice solely for the sake of wielding the all powerful hammer of justice as again it is now.
The vast majority of offences (60 to 75%) tried were property crimes, many of them arising, waxing and waning, from economic necessity. Sex crimes accounted for 2% and witchcraft was never the genocide against against women we are led to believe, even at the height of the witchcraft craze. In England it accounted for LESS THAN 0.1%. Witches were persecuted depending on the manner in which they used witchcraft; those who used it to steal a pocket watch were persecuted in the same way as anyone who stole a pocketwatch. Notice nearly all bodies of work on this area are writ by women with chips on their shoulder, looking back with a decidedly non-relativistic lens, foaming at the bit to gather all blame on the collective backs of men. But I digress.
The procedure for when punishment assumed the form of a death penalty:
- Grand Jury indicted
- Accused asked to plead guilty or not guilty
- Verdict given
- Alloculus (accused would allocute why he shouldn’t get the maximum penalty). Only 15% of men and 12% of women were found guilty and even then they could mitigate in their alloculus). At this point, men could plead the benefit of the clergy. All men children of God, in the image of God, thus all men nominally part of the clergy. They could sing a song recited from the Bible to save themselves from death (“the neck verse”). The ability to recite the song (you were trained while held in a cell awaiting trial) meant you were literate and you were saved from death. If you forgot the words, the judge actually helped you along. Recidivism was low, because they branded you to show that you had pleaded the benefit of the clergy and could not more than once.
Women were given the option of pleading the belly (saying they were pregnant). Very convenient was that men and women were housed in the same cells to await trial (which lasted 20 minutes, sans devious lawyers) so a pregnancy could be easily arranged. One woman pleaded the belly for two years. To judge your state of impregnation, matrons supposedly experts in the matter merely cast their eye upon thou and pronounced you thus.
The point is, no one wanted to kill. The full brunt of “justice” was never thrust against the individual allowing him no means to save himself. Yet society did not descend into chaos, despite no police, no organized criminal justice system.
Far more common were shaming rituals, such as being placed in the stocks for an afternoon. To keep you company, a fellow deviant could be placed with you so you wouldn’t feel so very, very alone when people laughed and jeered and learned their lesson that committing a crime wasn’t such a svelte idea. Imprisonment was rare and virtually unheard of because what was the point, that society would never understand. The point was to restore HARMONY to the community, and putting away someone to rot away for years would not restore balance, people would never learn their lesson, the criminal would be honed and perfected for further criminal activities. Nowadays, going to jail isn’t so bad, if you’re short of money to pay for your education, grand larceny would be a good avenue to pursue your education and gain a degree free of charge. Plus, satellite television, which most people don’t have. Ahh, the cushy rewards of crime.
That society was better than ours. Off with hands, ears, the tips of penises (for chagrined women).
By the way, the origins of Boxing Day arise in this era as well. The gentry / nobility in your area would box left over food and put it on the doorstep and the villagers would come to get it.
