History of Community Corrections

Crime and Punishment

During the Middle Ages, punishments were gruesome affairs constructed mainly for revenge and retribution. Individuals accused of the act of heresy, for example, were tortured using an instrument called the heretic's fork. Heresy constitutes a denial of faith as defined by the Catholic Church, which implies that people of the period were not allowed to question church leaders or church doctrine [Page 200]regardless of the abstract nature of such doctrine. Individuals who did were considered heretics and therefore subjected to the heretic's fork. The instrument, which looks much like a modern dinner fork, was strapped to the neck by a belt and positioned under the soft pallet of the chin and the sternum. The accused was then bound to a pole with the fork in position. The accused was forced to stand for several hours while attempting to hold the head up straight. Once the accused was exhausted, the head would fall forward, and the fork would puncture the heart.

By the 14th and 15th centuries, definitions of crime and punishment had become so distorted that the state began to arrest people for the crime of witchcraft. This period, which is also known as the “burning season,” eventually left several towns and villages empty of human life. Some individuals considered themselves practitioners of the dark arts. Given that many definitions of crime were grounded in superstition and mysticism, any act construed as witchcraft would be grounds for arrest.

Individuals who practiced early forms of holistic medicine fell under suspicion as well. In an attempt to ground the horror of witch burning, advice books of the times served to justify the charges and inevitable punishment. Yet despite the publication of books such as the Malleus Maleficarum (1486) of Heinrich Kramer and James Sprenger—which provided intricate details describing the cause, arrest, torture, and execution of witches—no human being was ever proven capable of flying on a broom, casting impotency spells that actually work, controlling thunder and lightning, communicating with or raising the dead, or vanishing into thin air. These activities are veritably impossible for humans to accomplish, yet thousands, mostly women, were arrested, tortured, burned at the stake, drowned, hanged, strangled, or otherwise murdered for being guilty of a crime they could not have committed.

By the 17th and 18th centuries, acts of public torture and execution had slowed to some degree, yet the definitive structure of crime remained somewhat abstract. Prior to 1820, for example, pickpockets were routinely sentenced to death by hanging. Pickpockets are individuals, usually male, who are highly skilled thieves who commit acts of larceny-theft by picking the pockets of unsuspecting victims. This crime was hardly worthy of the death penalty. Nevertheless, to ensure that the punishment had the desired effect, authorities gathered large crowds to witness the execution.

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