History of Punishment

According to (Seiter, 2011) Cesare Beccaria is known as the founder of the classical school of criminology, the first organized theory of crime causation linked to appropriate punishments. According to (Seiter, 2011) Beccaria suggested that the purpose of punishment is utility or the prevention of crime. According to (Seiter, 2011) Jeremy Bentham is the creator of the hedonistic calculus suggesting that punishments outweigh the pleasure criminals get from committing crime. According to (Seiter, 2011) another way to remove offenders from society was through transportation or deportation. Transportation started in England and was used throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to send undesirables to the colonies in America. According to (Seiter, 2011) the first response to crime in the American colonies was based on the English criminal codes and incorporated the Puritans linking of crime with sin in developing a rigid and strict system of punishments. Violations of expected community behavior were death with severely using corporal and capital punishment carried out in public to deter both individual offenders and the broader community. According to (Seiter, 2011) whipping at the town center whipping post or placement in stocks and pillories was common punishment for minor offenses such as drunkenness, slander, or stealing something of minor value. Pillories were wooden frames with holes for offender’s hands and head. According to (Seiter, 2011) historical punishment were both painful and shameful. Stocks and pillories were used both as physical punishment and to ridicule offenders in front of their fellow towns people, in the hopes that they would end their criminal ways. Branding was also a way of punishment. They branded criminals with letters, on their hands and face. Prison did not exist in the colonial times. According to (Seiter, 2011) colonist did use jails copying English system of gaols, for holding defendants awaiting trial of those already